The Tombigbee is a river in Mississippi and Alabama. The name comes from a Choctaw word meaning "box maker" or "coffin maker." This tune was used as the melody for a song named Gum Tree Canoe that seems to describe the romance and serendipitous escape of two cotton field slaves. Although this tune originated in the mid 19th century in the southern US, it has been adopted and played in many other traditions, as far away as Australia.
This tune was written by Cambridge NY fiddler Stephan Deibel. "It is the first tune I ever wrote, in 2008, while sitting on my back porch, which overlooks the Lovejoy Plow Factory in Cambridge NY. Starting in around 1850, this factory produced the Cambridge Steel Plow, which was significant because it opened up the thick sods in the midwest to larger-scale farming. Ultimately, this put many upstate New York farmers out of business, something that perhaps Hiram Lovejoy would have lamented later in life." It is, however, musically a waltz and not a lament.
