Within the walls of the Newcastle jail, formerly situated in what’s now known as Miramichi West, a group of inmates wrote a folk song 200 years ago. But the song’s legacy wouldn’t last long as it was soon banned in New Brunswick.
Now, two New Brunswickers have decided to bring it back.
And not only that, they’ve made a play out of it.
“This is the first … folk song, you know, written here on the Miramichi. And … it’s probably one that not many people know a lot about,” said Shawn McCarthy, one of production’s creators and co-founder of the new theatrical troupe called Character Matters Miramichi.
The play, which premieres Saturday at Miramichi Folklore Park, is aptly named Mullin’s Boom after the name of the song, but some creative liberty was taken with the storyline while still being based on real events.
Thomas Daley, one of the other show’s creators and a co-founder of the troupe, said the play combines two stories, both centred around the Newcastle jail.
Daley said he and McCarthy were going through old newspapers when they found an article that mentioned three fellows who broke out of the Newcastle jail on Halloween night in 1822, just one year before the song Mullin’s Boom was written.
A fight between lumberjacks
The song is about two groups of lumberjacks, one from New Brunswick and the other from Maine. The two groups get in a fight and the New Brunswick lumberjacks landed in the Newcastle jail, said Daley.
“We got thinking, how about if these three fellows broke out of the jail, take off up river, hide out in the lumber camps, which you could do back in those days. There was no criminal record check or anything,” said Daley.
“Then well, these fellows there wouldn’t be afraid to get in a fight. So it’s conceivable that they were the fellows that got in the fight with the main lumberjacks that inspired the song.”
Daley said the tune of the song was actually lost over the years. So, they asked a local musician to write a tune to go with the lyrics, which were found in Louise Manny and James Reginald Wilson’s book Songs of the Miramichi, to be performed onstage during the play.
McCarthy said the banning of the song likely had something to do with why the tune was lost.
But he isn’t quite sure why the song was banned to begin with.
He said it could have something to do with the fact that it was written by a group of criminals, or it might be because of disputes over the Maine–New Brunswick border, since the boundary between the two countries wasn’t established yet.
McCarthy and Daley both star in the show as lumberjacks from opposing groups. The two have been performing together for a number of years and have been friends for 30.
During the bicentennial anniversary of the song, McCarthy said everything aligned for their debut show.
“It seemed kind of tailor-made.”
With files from Shift
This story was originally published in CBC News on April 26, 2023.
Hannah Rudderham Portfolio 