The Erie Canal Song Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does
The complicated truth behind one of America’s most beloved folk songs.
I got a mule and her name is Sal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
So begins Low Bridge, informally known as The Erie Canal Song, an irresistibly catchy homage to a happy-go-lucky pack animal on America’s most famous inland waterway.
You remember singing it as a kid, right? Maybe your teacher showed you a book with a picture of a mule-drawn packet boat gliding through the bucolic Upstate New York countryside.
“It was the ditch that built America!” she may have said, and she was right.
The 363-mile (584-km) Erie Canal transformed U.S. transportation almost overnight, reducing travel time from Albany to Buffalo from four weeks to just six days. It eclipsed the stagecoach in speed and comfort, enabled western expansion and immigration, opened up new markets for American goods, and made New York City the #1 port in the country. The Canal’s imprint can be seen today in the cities that grew up along its banks. Three-quarters of the population of Central and Western New York still lives within 25 miles (40 km) of the Old Erie Canal
“A gathering place for scum and refuse”
But just as the Erie Canal eclipsed the stagecoach, so the railroad eclipsed the canal. By the time Thomas S. Allen wrote Low Bridge in 1905, the canal’s golden years were long behind it. Traffic was largely limited to hauling materials the railroads didn’t want to handle, like gravel.
Even the “Low bridge, ev’rybody down” chorus had a grim backstory. Passengers riding on top of the boat had to fling themselves face-down on the deck when passing under a low bridge, or risk being scraped off into the water or even crushed to death.
And the mules? Once beloved for their calm nature and stamina, mules began disappearing from the towpath in the late 1800s, replaced by steam barges that didn’t need to be rested, fed or driven. By the dawn of the 20th century, New York State had begun building a wider, deeper Barge Canal, sans animal power, to accommodate larger, motorized vessels and remain competitive in the shipping industry.
Thomas Allen finally copyrighted his composition in 1912. Five years later, the Erie Canal closed for good. Unlike the old boatman in Low Bridge, very few people at the time mourned its passing, In Syracuse, for example, where newspapers had long characterized the canal as “a menace to public health,” and “a gathering place for scum and refuse,” residents rejoiced as the “old sore” that had divided their city was filled in and became Erie Boulevard.
So what’s the Erie Canal Song really about?
The overall meaning of Low Bridge changed quite a bit between its first publication and its reintroduction in the 1960s. Just take a look at some of the original lyrics:
We’d better look around for a job old gal
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
You bet your life I wouldn’t part with Sal
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal…
Once a man named Mike McGinty tried to put it over Sal
Now he’s way down at the bottom of the Erie Canal…
A friend of mine once got her sore
Now he’s got a broken jaw
’Cause she let fly with her iron toe
And kicked him back to Buffalo
With its evocations of unemployment, violence, and murder, it’s not exactly the version trilled by generations of schoolchildren, is it?
It’s unclear when the lyrics changed or who changed them. Chances are it wasn’t anyone who actually worked on the canal. The switch from “Fifteen years” to “Fifteen miles” is especially rich, considering canal boats ran day and night, stopping only to take on supplies, switch out mules, or make repairs. Most boats could easily cover 50 miles (80.5 km) or more per day.
What’s clear is that at some point, someone decided the reverie of a long-time “canawler” mourning a dying industry should be reincarnated as a cheerful ode to nostalgia. By the time Pete Seeger introduced Low Bridge during the folk-revival movement of the 1960s, almost all the old boatmen had passed away and much of the original waterway had been filled in or abandoned. The song was immediately embraced by a new generation of mostly young, mostly idealistic Americans yearning for a time when life unfolded at the pace of a packet boat gliding gently toward the next town. It would later be recorded by artists ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Suzy Bogguss, and remains a staple of school sing-alongs.
If the youngsters in your life come home singing with shining eyes about a mule named Sal, please don’t burst their bubble. But you might want to refer them to the original version, sung here by Rochester folk performer and teaching artist Dave Ruch. Once they hear the whole story about Sal’s pugnacious personality, they may like her even more.
Sources:
Richard Garrity. Canal Boatman: My Life on Upstate Waterways. Syracuse University Press. 1977.
Jonathan Croyle. “Thousands partied in the streets as Syracuse filled in the Erie Canal, which ‘severed’ the city.” Syracuse Post-Standard. February 23, 2022. https://www.syracuse.com/living/2022/02/thousands-partied-in-the-streets-as-syracuse-filled-in-the-erie-canal-which-severed-the-city-photos.html
CBS Sunday Morning. “Web Extra: ‘The Erie Canal Song.’ July 9, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuWuJWKIYiw
Frank A. Sadowski, Jr. The Erie Canal Web Site. Music of the Erie Canal. https://www.eriecanal.org/music.html
Dave Ruch. Erie Canal Song — Lyrics, Music, History, Videos and More. https://daveruch.com/erie-canal-song/#
