Woe Onto You Ye Bocabecers!
Posted 7 Jan 2001
The following article comprises No. 14 of the Contributions from the Charlotte County Historical Society series available at the Charlotte County Archives. It was originally presented in September 1964 and then reprinted in the Collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society, No. 19, 1966, pp. 94-104. It is posted here with permission of the CCHS. Formatting is based on the NBHS version. A few hyperlinks and some boldfacing have been added.
Introduction
What There's
To It
I. Foster
Rigby Version
II. Hugh
McGregor Version
III.
Hill Brownrigg Version
IV. Joseph
McClure Version
Origin
Stories
Behind the Verses
Authorship
About
the Likely Author - Rev. Wm. Millen
Discussion
and Conclusions
What
Did Millen Really Say?
V. A
Possible Version
Acknowledgments
Reference
Photographs
Transcriber's
Notes
"WOE ONTO YOU YE BOCABECERS !"
by Dr. J. C. MedcofSince I came to live in St. Andrews twenty years ago, I have heard the title of this little paper repeated many, many times. It is usually spoken as a good-natured greeting to people of Bocabec when they join chatting groups at dance halls, church suppers, garages and street corners.
For the benefit of those who are unacquainted with this region of Charlotte County, I should say that Bocabec is in St. Patrick parish and extends shorewise approximately from Birch Cove to Digdeguash River.
The uniqueness of this expression, its air of mysterious meaningfulness and its frequent repetition characterize it as a folk phrase. What is its origin and what does it mean? Margaret (Madge) Rigby and I talked about this at one of our 1961 Charlotte County Historical Society meetings and I decided then to take "Woe onto you ye Bocabecers” as a study project. At odd times since then I have been searching old scrapbooks, asking questions and making notes. I have not counted but I feel sure that in this period I must have written to or talked to at least fifty people of the "they-should-know" type, about this folk phrase. Now, I think I have reasonable answers to many of the questions that might be asked about it.
The scrapbooks I have examined during my search contain many poetic works of local bards but nothing about our folk phrase. So far as I can discover it was never written down anywhere until recently.
Most of my verbal inquiries were no more rewarding than the scrapbooks. When I quoted the phrase and inquired about it, the general reply was, "That's all I've ever heard", or a more positive, "That's all there’s to it”. This, strangely, was the reaction of the late John Cunningham, a man who lived his life in Bocabec and died there in 1962 at the age of 98. Miss Annie Holt (born 1880) who "belongs” to Bocabec, stated that she thought there was more to it but that she had never heard more. A dozen others had heard "a couple of verses of it" years ago from old folks reminiscing around kitchen stoves in the evenings, but they couldn't remember the lines.
Foster Rigby of Lower Bayside (born 1891) was one of the first of several who recited the four-line stanza quoted below. This must have been well known at one time because the several versions were almost identical. Eventually I found three other people who had heard more than these four lines and could recite what they had heard. Each of these had a different version of a diatribe of which our title is the first line. They were Hugh McGregor of Bocabec (born 1875), Hill Brownrigg of St. Andrews but native to Bocabec (born 1907) and Joseph McClure an elderly man of Manners Sutton, near Harvey, N.B., who as a boy spent vacations near St. Andrews.
None of these versions could be called a poem or verses in the strict sense but they all have a remarkable lyrical quality and I have tried to present them here in verse form. I have named each version after the person who first recited it to me.George Smith of Pomeroy Ridge, N.B., knows the Foster Rigby version but with a different opening line which goes, "Woe onto you ye Bocabecers and Digdeguashers."I. Foster Rigby VersionWoe onto you ye Bocabecers
Hansons and Turners
You wouldn't come out of the woods
To bury your fathers.II. Hugh McGregor VersionWoe be onto all ye Bocabecers
Hansons and Turners
Wouldn't come out of the woods
To bury your fatherThere shall be a bear come and devour you
Not one of these little black bears
That roams over the Bocabec plains
But a bear with iron jaws and brass teeth
And his arse hole(1) smoking like a tar pot.III. Hill Brownrigg VersionWoe onto you ye Bocabecers
Ye Hansons and ye Turners
You think more of your logs
Than you do of your God
You wouldn’t come out of the woods
To bury your old fatherThere shall be a bear
Come and devour you
Not one of those little black bears
That roam the Bocabec hills
But a great bear
With jaws of iron and teeth of brass
And his arse hole smoking like a tar pot.IV. Joseph McClure VersionWoe be onto you Scotts and McLaughlins
Ye heavenly deserters
Who wouldn't come out of the woods
To bury your fathers
May a great bear come out of the woods
With iron jaws and steel teethAnd devour you and take you down into his bowels
And from there into hell and damnation.Earl Caughey of St. Andrews recites a verse that closely resembles the Hill Brownrigg version but the opening line runs, "Woe onto you, Oh ye wicked Bocabecers," and there is a seventh line to the first verse, "So the rats came and ate his nose off."
Mr. Horace A. Hanson of the Fredericton law firm, Hanson, Rouse, Gilbert and Mockler, has quoted a version which Hugh McGregor dictated to him several years ago. It is essentially the same as that I have presented here but the first lines read, "Woe be upon you, Ye Bocabecers, Ye Hansons and Ye Turners, That ye would not come out of the woods to bury your father."
Most people who are familiar with the folk phrase or one or more of the verses believe that some real event gave rise to them. One of my acquaintances who refers to the phrase as "the Bocabec curse" is convinced of this because, says he, "You don't get cursed for nothin'." The Bocabec folk phrase just had to have a real starting point in actual happenings.
The logic behind this belief is that no diatribe fabricated from pure fancy could have been so vehement or have survived so long. I found different accounts of what these happenings may have been.
Hugh McGregor says he heard the verses he quotes and a story of the incidents behind them when he was a small boy but that even then they were considered old. He thinks the event must have taken place not later than about 1850. His story says that several young men of the Hanson and Turner families were working with their oxen in a winter logging camp deep in the woods when one of their patriarchs, a Hanson, died at his home near the shore of Bocabec Bay. The families decided that it wouldn't be worth while sending for the boys so they held the funeral without them - probably in the home rather than in the church. The officiating clergyman is said to have conducted the regular burial service and then, at the end, to have launched into the lyrical condemnation which McGregor quotes. And, says Hugh, this is what has survived in different forms in the folk lore of the area for a hundred years without having been written down.
The story as Hill Brownrigg heard it is the same in general but recounts that the people at the shore did actually send a messenger snowshoeing into the woods. The young men, however, are said to have decided not to come to the funeral because the logging was progressing so well and because the trip would have meant losing a week's work. Accordingly, they sent a return message not to expect them at the ceremony.
The story as Daniel G. Hanson of St. Andrews recalls it was the same except that the boys are said to have held a little in absentia funeral service in the logging camp.
Horace Hanson describes the Hanson women as able, determined, handsome and entirely sufficient onto themselves. And he gave me this story, “ . . all the men were in the woods and the women were left with the patriarch of the family who died on their hands one evening after he had finished fixing up the church accounts. They decided to bury him themselves and the minister was sought and found at St. Andrews. The minister did attend the service which apparently was held in one of the churches, but objected strenuously and in his sermon he gave the diatribe similar to the one Hugh McGregor reports."
This, essentially, is also the story that Earl Caughey has heard except that his version has another chapter. When the women at the shore learned of the young men's decision they decided to delay the funeral until the lads did come home to dig the grave. They, therefore, stored the corpse in the woodshed for the rest of the winter. And, to add to the macabre situation, the woodshed rats gnawed off the dead man’s nose before the burial took place.
Foster Rigby and Joseph McClure gave me no stories to go along with their versions of the tirade.
But I did get a story, a different story, from Raymond Cunningham. He is one of several who recited the Foster Rigby version for me. He now lives in St. Andrews but he was born in 1895 at Bocabec and is a nephew of John Cunningham, previously mentioned. The story as Raymond heard it says that the Hanson and Turner boys had gone to a logging camp near Forest City, Maine, which is not far from Vanceboro on the St. Croix River. They were accompanied by an older Hanson who was the father of some of the boys and a relative of all the others. This man died toward the end of the winter and the boys took council. They wanted to have a decent burial at home but decided that it would be next to impossible to make their way home - about fifty miles - in winter with a corpse, so they put the body in the camp’s woodshed where it froze solid. During the deep-freeze squirrels or rats disfigured the body and it was in this state that they brought it back to Bocabec for the funeral when their winter's work was done.
There are different opinions as to who authored the diatribe. Joseph McClure has no opinion but Raymond Cunningham says that from his boyhood he always understood that the Reverend William Millen pronounced the first verse and that the rest of the diatribe was "made up". In explanation he noted that rhyming and compositions of all sorts were common pastimes of the wags of those days.
Hill Brownrigg never heard who deserves the "credits" of authorship of "Woe onto you". He is willing to believe that an outraged clergyman could have originated it. But, if this be true, he thinks that wags must have embellished the clergyman's words by additions such as the last lines of his and McGregor’s versions. He thinks this lewd bit may have helped the lines to survive so long.
Hugh McGregor, on the other hand, says he finds no difficulty in believing what he has been told - that a clergyman was responsible for the whole of the diatribe as it appears above in the McGregor version. Like Raymond Cunningham he has always understood that the Reverend William Millen was the author.
Some of the other people I interviewed steadfastly refused to believe that the Rev. Mr. Millen could have had any part in the composition of the Bocabec curse. They don't think Millen could have been so cruel or so vulgar in choice of language.
Others hesitate to believe on quite different grounds. Miss Annie Holt, for instance, questions whether Millen might have buried a Hanson because, as far as she knows, the Hansons and Turners and many others that settled at Bocabec were Baptists. This view is supported by the fact that there are several Hanson stones in the old Baptist burying ground on the south side of New Brunswick Highway No. 1(2) at the western end of the bridge that crosses the Bocabec River.
In part agreement with Annie, Daniel G. Hanson states that many Hansons were Methodists and Baptists and that one of them, a Daniel Hanson, donated the half acre of land on which the Bocabec Baptist church once stood. However, he points out that there are also Hanson stones in the Bocabec Kirk burying ground. This I have checked and find to be true. Thus, the patriarch who is the central figure in our traditional story may have been a Presbyterian. He may even lie in the Bocabec Kirk yard. And if Millen preached the burial service he quite possibly pronounced the diatribe from his own familiar Kirk pulpit.
Madge Rigby has referred to Verses 23 and 24 of Chapter 2 of II Kings of the King James Version of the Holy Bible. These describe what happened to the young lads of Bethel who mocked Elisha. "There came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them." She comments that a clergyman who was provoked by the failure of young men to honour one of their elders might well have referred to this passage of scripture and warned them that they too might receive a just reward for their sin of omission. Madge had always heard that Mr. Millen was the author of the first two lines, the only ones she had previously heard. And she does not believe that a clergyman of Mr. Millen's standing and reputation would be guilty of such an absurd "curse" as is contained in the further lines.
Miss Annie Holt has shown me the plaque erected to this gentleman in the Bocabec Presbyterian Kirk where he officiated as pastor for nearly forty years. It reads as follows:(3)
In Memoriam.
REV. WILLIAM MILLEN
DIED JAN. 29, 1888.
AE. 67.
Born near Limavaddy, Londonderry,
Ireland. Mr. Millen was ordained and
inducted to the pastoral charge of Bocabec,
Jan. 1846. Called to Baillie, 1854, he returned
to Bocabec 1859, where he remained till the
close of his ministry, July 31, 1887. During his
pastorate Mr. Millen extended his labours
to Waweig, Bayside and Rolling Dam.
This tablet is erected by those who for many
years enjoyed the ministry of an earnest
and faithful pastor.
‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord . . .
that they may rest from their labours,
and their works do follow them'.Miss Holt also showed me the gravestone standing in the burial ground beside the Kirk and marking the last resting place of this man who came from Ireland and became what she describes as "a powerful but outspoken preacher". She thinks that if the Rev. Mr. Millen did indeed officiate at the funeral he could well have been more than usually outspoken because of the special circumstances described in our story. He might have been censorious to the point of near-crudity.
Foster Rigby never heard the diatribe definitely attributed to Millen but he considers that the man must have been in all respects capable of such an outburst. He agrees fully with Annie Holt's description and says that Millen was known far and wide for the bitterness of his upbraidings of parishioners-sometimes with good reason. He remembers as a boy hearing the old folks quote excerpts from what must have been some of Millen's more vehement sermons. These often lasted for an hour and a half - long enough for the preacher to remind the thankless of their selfishness in not paying his stipend; to tell the wayward of how others saw them and to warn all of impending fate. Foster remembers the following reported quotations from various sermons:
“I wear out my harness,
I wear out my horse,
I wear out myself
And no recompense!""You act like dogs,
You look like dogs,
You are dogs!”"You will roll off this
old earth into hell like
maggots off a dead horse!"DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Most of my informants agree that the Hansons and Turners involved in our story were pre-Loyalist families who settled in Charlotte County. Commenting on this in a letter dated 28 October 1964, Mr. Horace Hanson states, “The Dover (New Hampshire) branch (of the family) sent John Hanson to Bocabec via Bucksport, Maine, ... in 1777 and the legend of their occupation of Minister's Island can be verified in the records at Halifax where they have a ticket of location. The interesting story connected with this is the loss of the island to the Reverend Chaplain (sic) Andrews and I recall that the old Beacon carried this story many years ago.
"After the loss of Minister's Island they went to the mainland where they became one of the important families of the Bocabec area. They intermarried largely with the Turners which brings the Hansons and Turners together into the legend."
As already described there is considerable difference of opinion as to what actually transpired, both in the lumber camp and at the shore, to elicit the Bocabec curse. The several versions differ among themselves but they are in essential agreement on one central point, that strong social mores were flouted by a group of young men under peculiarly difficult circumstances. What other cause could have brought forth such a drastic public rebuke and have kept that rebuke alive for so long?
If the McGregor version of the story behind the verses be correct, the people at the shore were to blame and the young men should not have been accused. But they are accused in the diatribe and for this reason we must favour either the Brownrigg or the Daniel or the Horace Hanson versions as more faithful. If these be true, many will still argue, the young men earned the Bocabec curse. Others will argue with equal conviction that the young men's actions were defensible because of the special circumstances. They point out that winter travel back to the shore must have been difficult. And if they had had a corpse to carry, as reported in the Raymond Cunningham version, the trip must have been next to impossible. There were no morgues or cemetery vaults in those days and funerals could not be simply postponed for convenience without hazards. Was it really a sin, they ask, that the young men failed to attend the funeral? What is your answer?
I am not sure that everyone I interviewed told all they knew. If they had we might not be left speculating on so many points. I have always suspected that one man withheld a long story for fear of injuring the good name of present-day Hansons and Turners. As a Christian I sympathized with his attitude but as a researcher I bemoaned it. Furthermore, I felt, and still feel, that after all these years this man's fears were groundless. I cannot believe that anyone could defame or would try to defame members of either the Hanson or Turner family by quoting lines about their ancestors who lived a hundred years ago. I think that in this enlightened age, we have made an end of visiting the sins (?) of the fathers unto the children of the third and fourth generations.
However, Hill Brownrigg tells me that one distinguished son of Bocabec, the Honourable R. B. Hanson, leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition (see Encyclopaedia Canadiana) was once twitted by the recitation of our phrase on the floor of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada. I have been told by others that this was indeed true although I have been unable so far to confirm this from Hansard. If there was any twitting I think it must not have been in malice but in fun as still happens in our community today.
Daniel Hanson of St. Andrews and Horace Hanson of Fredericton (a nephew of the Honourable R. B.) have shown keen interest in this study and assisted in it. They have assured me many times that searching out these old stories and hearing others repeat them doesn't bother the existing Hansons. They enjoy it.
It would seem that the modified first line of the Foster Rigby Version quoted by George Smith and the whole of the McClure version of the diatribe were composed and perpetuated with no more sinister purpose. I was unable to discover how the McClure version is related to the other three. Samuel Carson of St. Andrews is the only other person I spoke to who had ever heard it. Joseph McClure thinks it was directed in a good-natured bantering spirit at people of the district about Honeydale, N.B. I have made no enquiries in that part of the county.
I am confident that the McClure version and George Smith's line are simply parodies on one or more of the various Bocabec versions. It seems impossible that such similar wordings could have had independent origins in places that are so close together. This view is fortified by certain knowledge that a Bocabec version has been parodied during the lifetime of Mrs. Raymond Cunningham. She told me that in her girlhood she heard a verse that had just been made up. It differed from the Foster Rigby version in only the second line which ran, "Cunninghams and Hanselpeckers". She knows that this was composed at that time in a humorous vein for the "benefit" of these two families which were then well known in this part of the country.
We may never know certainly who authored the Bocabec diatribe or how much it may have changed in the hundred years of handing down by word of mouth. But I think we must agree with Foster Rigby that in all versions it has the same lusty ring as those out-pourings which he has quoted and attributed to Millen the bitter! Millen the powerful! Millen the outspoken!
For myself I can only conclude that Millen was the author of the diatribe in its original form whatever that may have been. This deduction is consistent with the datings we have uncovered and with what we can learn of the character of the man himself. However, the existence of several versions shows that the original form has been subject to many modifications during transmission. It is doubtful that any one of them is a true recapitulation of what Millen said, or that we shall ever know what he really said. My view is that it did not include some of the lines that occur in the McGregor and Brownrigg versions.
After hearing the different versions and the quotations that Foster Rigby has attributed to Millen, and after learning about Millen himself I have often asked myself if this clergyman really did curse the young men as some maintain he did. Without certain knowledge, each of us is entitled to his own opinion. Very little happens in a rural community that does not soon become common knowledge. I think we can assume, therefore, that Millen knew exactly what had happened leading up to the funeral. Millen was also a strongly moral man as well as being outspoken and I think it quite possible and even likely that he prepared a stern rebuke to deliver as a wind-up for the burial service. But I cannot believe that he cursed the people on such a solemn occasion any more than I can believe that he incorporated the crudities of the McGregor and Brownrigg versions of the diatribe. I think that both the curse and the crudities were elaborated and embroidered about a nucleus which Millen provided. In arguing this point of view I have been asked what I think he may have said. To answer this question I speculatively offer the following:
V. A Possible VersionWoe unto you, you Bocabecers!
You Hansons and you Turners,
You deserters of heaven,
You think more of your logs
Than you do of your God.
You wouldn't come out of the woods
to bury your father!She-bears slew Bethel's children
Who mocked the prophet Elisha.
Tremble you now before God
You who dishonour your dead!
Tremble lest He send a great bear to tear you
With jaws of iron and teeth of steel
And take you down into his bowels
And from there into hell and damnationl
What would your version be?I wish to thank all those who assisted me in this study by loaning scrapbooks, and patiently answering letters. I would like to specially thank Miss Annie Holt who loaned the photograph of the Rev. Millen which is reproduced here.
Encyclopaedia Canadiana 1958. Vol. 5, p. 84. The Grolier Society of Canada, Ltd., Publishers.
Presented September 1964.(4)
J. C. Medcof (4)
St. Andrews, N.B.
Sept. 13, 1964
Photographs
(click for larger version)
Plaque in Bocabec Presbyterian Church
Transcriber's Notes, 7 January 2001
1. This was replaced with an ellipsis
in the NBHS version.
2. This is now Highway 127. In the
late 1960s or early 1970s, Highway 1 was rerouted to go straight west from
the Digdeguash River bridge to Gillmans Corner. The old portion from Bocabec
to St. Andrews was redesignated as Highway 127.
3. The capitalization and line breaks
in this web version have been altered from the printed versions to conform
to the photograph of the plaque.
4. The typed signature and date appeared
in the CCHS copy but not the printed NBHS copy.
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