Mitch Miller – "The Children's Marching Song" (1959)

With a knick-knack, paddywhack

Give a dog a bone

In 1715, the French built Fort Michilimackinac, a supply depot for fur trappers and traders that overlooked the Straits of Mackinac, which connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron and separates the Lower and Upper Peninsulas of Michigan.

The British took over the fort in 1761 after its victory in the French and Indian Wars.

On June 2, 1763, a large group of Ojibwe Indians got together in an open field in front of the fort to play baaga’adowe – a traditional Native American game that eventually developed into modern-day lacrosse.

The British residents of Fort Michilimackinac enjoyed the spectacle of hundreds of nearly naked Indians running to and fro, tripping their opponents or knocking them to the ground with their sticks  as they pursued the ball.

But as 19th-century American historian Francis Parkman explained in his 1851 book, The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War After the Conquest of Canada, the game suddenly took a surprising turn:

[F]rom the midst of the multitude, the ball soared into the air, and, descending in a wide curve, fell near the pickets of the fort.  This was no chance stroke.  It was part of a pre-concerted stratagem to insure the surprise and destruction of the garrison.  As if in pursuit of the ball, the players turned and came rushing, a maddened and tumultuous throng, towards the gate. . . . 

The amazed English had no time to think or act.  The shrill cries of the ball-players were changed to the ferocious war-whoop.  The warriors snatched from their squaws the hatchets, which the latter . . . had concealed beneath their blankets.  

Some of the Indians assailed the spectators without, while others rushed into the fort, and all was carnage and confusion.   . . . Within the area of the fort, the men were slaughtered without mercy.

A British trader named Alexander Henry, who had decided to stay in his room and write letters rather than go outside and watch the game, was startled by the war-cries and ran to his window to see what the commotion was all about:

I saw a crowd of Indians, within the fort, furiously cutting down and scalping every Englishman they found . . . I saw several of my countrymen fall, and more that one struggling between the knees of an Indian, who, holding him in this manner, scalped him while yet living.

*     *     *     *     *

Henry grabbed a fowling piece, expecting to hear the garrison’s drummers beat the call to arms.  But the British soldiers had been caught completely off guard by the surprise attack, and the massacre continued unabated.

At length, disappointed in the hope of seeing resistance made to the enemy, and sensible, of course, that no effort of my own unassisted arm could avail against four hundred Indians, I thought only of seeking shelter amid the slaughter which was raging.

Fort Michilimackinac as it looked
at the time of the massacre

The Ojibwe didn’t like the way the British had treated them after taking possession of Fort Michilimackinac, but they had no beef with the many Frenchmen who lived within the fort.  So Henry ran next door to seek help from his French neighbor, Monsieur Langlade.

Henry explained that he was in danger of losing his scalp, hoping that the Frenchman would offer to hide him until the danger had passed.  But he was sorely disappointed.  

Langlade merely shrugged his soldiers and said, “Que voudriez-vous que j’en ferais?”  

In other words, “What the hell do you expect me to do about it?”

*     *     *     *     *

A Pawnee woman who was a slave to the hardhearted Langlade took pity on Henry and led him to a garret where he could hide.  But the Ojibwe eventually ferreted Henry out, put him and several other Englishmen into canoes, and headed for a nearby island.  But a group of Ottawa Indians intercepted the Ojibwe canoes and set the captives free.

The Ottawa chief greeted the Englishmen warmly, and told them that the Ojibwe had intended to kill and then eat them.  Henry learned later why the Ottawas had intervened on their behalf:

They were jealous and angry that the Ojibwes should have taken the fort without giving them an opportunity to share in the plunder.

*     *     *     *     *

The origins of today’s featured song – which I chose to feature today because the name of Fort Michilimackinac reminded me of the lyrics quoted above – are more than a little obscure.  

There are versions of “This Old Man” in several early 20th century folk-song collections.  Pete Seeger and his stepmother, Ruth Crawford Seeger, included it in their 1948 collection, American Folk Songs for Children, and Pete recorded it a few years later.

The song became popular after it appeared on the soundtrack of the 1958 Ingrid Bergman movie, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.  The Mitch Miller recording that I’m featuring today was a top-20 single in 1959. 

There are a number of theories concerning the meaning of the lyrics, none of which are very persuasive.

Click here to listen to “The Children’s Marching Song.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: