The Cloudburst

UPDATE: It was September 2005 when I originally posted this song about the Great Flood of 1916 which wiped out Asheville and surrounding areas. I'd forgotten about it until this past week, when Hurricane Helene flooded and destroyed the same area.

 

It was a firefighter, Dave Baumgartner, who made this song. He was on the 1916 search and recovery team and was the one who found Lewis and Jennie dead in the mud. The song was remembered by and collected from a woman in Ebenezer, North Carolina in the 1930s. (The sprawl of Raleigh long since rolled over Ebenezer - it doesn't exist any more.)

 

About a quarter century ago I used to sing this with Robbie Link playing cello. Now I only have my 70 year old voice to sing it with. 

 

Read more about The great flood of 1916

 

The Cloudburst

In the month of July in the year of '16
The worst tropical storm that ever was seen
Made its way from the ocean wide
And struck with force on the mountain side

At the head of Jack Branch there was children five,
A mother, and father, and all alive.
They stood in the door and the rain came down,
They saw how swiftly it covered the ground.

The pleading words of little Perry was heard:
"Together to the pines let us go," he said,
But the words of that boy had scarcely been spoken
When the windows of heaven was thrown wide open.

The downpour came in a terrible row.
It struck the house, they were thrown to the flow.
A poor little babe in a cradle at rest
The mother picked up and held to her breast.

Down in an old house that Wilson built
There Lolas and Lilly and the children knelt
Says Wilson to Lolas and to Lilly too:
"Are your children all saved? I only see two."

"Oh, no," says they, "we fear they have drowned,
They've not been seen since the house went down."
Down in a bottom near the Sinclair pond
The bodies of Lewis and Jenny was found.

But poor little Perry has never been found
He lies somewhere below the ground
In a bed of mud and a pillar of clay,
He may not be found till the last Great Day
When the angels come, and the trumpets sound
To wake the dead that's below the ground.