O. J. Abbott Research notes

From: Fowke, Edith Fulton, ed. Traditional Singers and Songs from Ontario. Don Mills, Ontario: Burns & MacEachern Limited, 1965.

• b. in Enfield England, 1872; d. Hull, Quebec, 1962
• lived most of life in Hull, Quebec
• learned the songs in his youth while he worked on farms and in lumbercamps on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River before he crossed it to settle in Hull
• came to Canada when he was about 12 with his brother Walter who was a harness-maker
• stayed on a farm near Ottawa, where Walter and later OJ worked
• in the district they stayed/worked in – South March, which is now Connaught Ranges (about 8 miles from Ottawa), there were six families, all first cousins. Their grandfathers had come from Ireland; there was another family of first cousins in the next township too
• all the sons went to the lumbercamps in the wintertime, and would come back in the spring with lots of songs
• no radio, TV or cars – they all spent the evening in sing-songs
• OJ only had to hear a song once and he could sing it; always enjoyed singing, playing the violin, calling square dance and step dancing
• from 1900-1904 worked for the CPR on Hull Section 1, and then for the Canada Cement Company for four years worked in the J.R. Booth paper mill as a oiler for thirty-seven years, and for two years with the E.B. Eddy Company after they took over the Booth plants, and then retired
• he and his wife celebrated their golden anniversary in 1950; had 12 children, 6 boys and 6 girls; at time of this book, he had 18 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren
• Fowke met Abbott in 1957 when he was 85
• his daughter, Mrs. Ida Dagenais, had written Fowke to tell her that her father knew a lot of old shanty songs
• Fowke and husband went up to Ottawa during summer vacation, and Fowke was not expecting much, but hoped that she could at least make recordings good enough to preserve the lyrics and tunes
• she was surprised when he sang in a fresh clear voice, “full of character and right on pitch!”
• spent nearly a week of several hours a day getting his songbag on tape
• at the time, Fowke already had several hundred songs from the Peterborough area on tape, but even the best of those only knew 20-30 songs
• Abbott sand eighty-four songs for her that week, and during later visits sang thirty more
• quality of his song was remarkable – almost all were complete and “well-rounded,” and as he began each song his style and rhythm changed to express the new mood
• appeared to have a phonographic memory, and could instantly reproduce songs he had not sung for sixty year
• when he did not know the whole song – usually because he had never heard it completely – he would piece it together with lines or verses that he himself had made up to fit the pattern
• as so many of his songs came from the Irish cousins of South March and Marchurst, his repertoire is predominately Irish – the Folkways albums Irish and British Songs from the Ottawa Valley give a good sampling of these, and he is also on three other Ontario records
• almost all were learned in the 15 years between his moving to Canada and when he married and moved to Hull
• many of the finest ones came from Mrs. O’Malley, the wife of one of the farmers he worked for; she was already old when he knew her in the 1880’s, and she told him she had learned the songs as a little girl (which would date them back to the early 19th century)
• in the last few years of his life, Abbott sang before a variety of audiences:

-in 1958, when Fowke gave a lecture on Ontario songs at the National Museum in Ottawa, he provided illustrations
-in 1959, Pete Seeger had him sing during an Ottawa concert
-in 1960 he appeared on a CBC television show from Toronto, and with Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival
-in the summer of 1961 he sang at the Mariposa Folk Festival at Orillia, Ontario, and also at the International Folk Music Council’s conference in Quebec City – the last time Fowke saw him

• the following March he died quietly, in his ninetieth year

From: liner notes of Irish and British Songs from the Ottawa Valley, FW 4051, 1961

• although folklorists knew about the British folk songs preserved in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, not until recently (mid-1950s) were the folksongs of Ontario discovered
• Fowke began tracking down songs with a tape-recorder in 1956, and was surprised by the wealth and variety she found
• finest discovery – O.J. Abbott, knew over 100 songs, recorded 84 of them over five days in the summer of 1957
• Ida Dagenais had seen Fowke on a TV show in March of 1957, on which Fowke had talked about some of the singers she had found in Peterborough, and Ida decided to write to her about her father; Fowke wrote back asking which songs he knew, and the lists Ida sent back sparked Fowke’s interest
• Mr. Abbott – a short, chubby little man with sparkling eyes; on account of his age, Fowke wasn’t expecting much
• Fowke had heard from Creighton about sources who knew up to 100 songs, but this was her first experience with a person like that
• Abbott spent five winters in lumbercamps; almost all songs were learned during that time from Mrs. O’Malley
• more than two-thirds of Abbott’s songs were of British origin, most of them Irish, but a fair number from England and one from Scotland; the remainder were local Ontario songs or songs from the US which had come to Ontario via the lumbercamps
• album illustrates the breadth of his repertoire: a few Child ballads, many street songs and broadside ballads ranging from the late 18th through the 19th century
• some are familiar in Ireland but not previously found in North America
• Fowke has been unable to trace a few to either British or American collections
• Abbott was a “delightful personality”, and Fowke grew very fond of him: “The twinkle in his eye, his delight in hearing how “that fellow in the box” sang his songs, and his anecdotes about his early life made our visit very enjoyable.”

Abbott’s own words

• (this set of work facts falls between he and his brother working for the Irish families and working on the CPR – the accounts are the same, but Fowke cut out parts from the account in the book)
• was about 20 when he first worked in the lumbercamps for J.R. Booth Co. at South River on Lake Nipissing; the second year in the Ostabanna for Buel and Hurdman; the next winter on French River, Algoma District, for Camble and Gibson; and later near Mattawa on the Mab-de-feaux for Mackey Sons and Co.
• all other information is the same

Folkways Records that include O.J. Abbott:

FW 4005 – Folk Songs of Ontario, recorded with notes by Edith Fowke. 1958. FW 4051 – Irish and British Songs from the Ottawa Valley, recorded by Edith Fowke. 1961. FW 4052 – Lumbering Songs from the Ontario Shanties, collected by Edith Fowke. 1961. FW 4018 – Songs of the Great Lakes, collected by Edith Fowke. 1964.