Way Down Upon The Swanee River

Actually, it should be spelled Suwannee, and the title of Stephen Foster’s most famous song is actually Old Folks At Home.  Just a couple of the corrections I had to make to my mental record after our stay at the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park on the banks of that river.  A grand title for a small but very nice State Park in the tiny hamlet of White Springs, in northern Florida.  Finding a spot at any State park in Florida in February is like hitting the jackpot - you go if you’re lucky enough to find one.  I had no idea who Stephen Foster was but it turned out I knew his songs.  I expect almost everyone does.  

I assumed as we drove into this park that he was born here, and the impressive antebellum mansion on the grounds was his home.  My heart sank as I realized there must be slave quarters here too as Foster’s music was from the 1800s (that much I knew), and a house this size obviously didn’t run itself.  Damn.  I remembered how conflicted I felt on visiting Jefferson’s Monticello. But that’s another story.

As it turns out, the man called “the father of American music” was not born in White Springs, Florida, on the banks of his famous Suwannee River.  He was born in Pennsylvania.  He did not die here either.  That happened in New York City.  Nor did he discover, during his short life, a profound love for Florida.  In fact there’s no record he ever set foot in the State.  

Stephen Foster simply needed a two syllable Southern river for a song he was writing.  In an early draft it was called Way Down Upon De Old Plantation, and the “ribber” was the Pedee.  Yes, he wrote in hideous parody which was sadly in keeping with the theme of minstrel shows he wrote for. 

The statue of Foster in Pittsburgh has finally been taken down.  It has offended people for decades, depicting as it does a smiling, barefoot, banjo-playing African American man - the mythical “happy slave” - at the feet of Foster.

For those of us of a certain age, we probably associate Al Jolson singing this song in blackface - and cringe at the memory.  You can find Jolson on YouTube and cringe along, but I prefer the Ray Charles version which was one of his early hits. 

But Foster’s songs were the pop hits of their day - either “parlour songs” such as Hard Times, and I Dream Of Jeannie (well, hello favorite TV show from the 60s!) or what he called “Ethiopian Melodies” like Camptown Races, Oh Susanna, and My Old Kentucky Home.  

Ever since I heard Jay Unger and Molly Mason perform the parlour song Hard Times 30 years ago it’s been a favorite.  The lyrics are sad and haunting - ‘frail forms fainting at the door’ - and the melody simply beautiful.  

Here’s a video of them performing it.

So, back to Stephen Foster’s life.  He died a lonely, destitute , alcoholic death at the age of 37 on the Bowery, separated from his wife and child, possibly a suicide, although records were destroyed.  His family closed ranks and claimed he was ill with fever and cut his neck in a fall. Onto a knife.  There’s an untold story there that is no doubt as sad as the lyrics of Hard Times.

‘Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,

‘Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,

‘Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave,

Oh! Hard times come again no more.

And back to his State Park in White Springs.  The mansion is a museum and was actually built in the 1950s when the park was created. Looks like a house but it’s hollow inside and decidedly weird - a huge space with very little in it except for these truly awful dioramas everywhere.  Why are they still there?

And then there’s the Carillon - at 200 feet with 97 bells it’s the biggest one in the world.  They play Foster songs throughout the day and I’m not sure if I was relieved or disappointed they were undergoing repairs during our stay.  It’s one thing to be greeted by the faint strains of Reveille each morning, as we were at Fort Pickens (I rather enjoyed that), and another to be wakened by 97 bells ringing out Camptown Races (do dah, do dah!)

White Springs had fallen on Hard Times you might say, having once enjoyed a thriving tourist trade when people came to “take the waters”.  

In its heyday.

The grand house in town.

The town decided to cash in on the Foster angle and the park was built on donated land.  There’s now an annual Folk Festival that sees the town come briefly to life again.  Otherwise there’s not much there.  The famous bathhouse still stands although the tiers are long gone, and the water is still sulphuric but also brackish and a bit scummy.  Even if the signs weren’t everywhere I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to dip a toe in.

What’s left of the bath house.  

This is the main store in town and it’s pretty great.

Even if the whole premise of the Stephen Foster State Park has a dubious link to reality, it’s a lovely campground with palmettos and live oaks draped with Spanish Moss.  It felt like Florida.  Tropical with a hint of Weird.  Maybe that should be the State motto, to go along with the official State song which is, guess what?