Folklore: Central Kentucky Fiddle Tunes, 1870s?

Subject: Folklore: Central Kentucky Fiddle Tunes, 1870s?
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Apr 24 - 03:28 PM

Mr. Louis Ashley of Glendeane, Ky., about midway between Louisville and Nashville, wrote to the "Breckinridge News" of Cloverport, Ky., on Oct. 5, 1903:

"I have got a fiddle 100 years old, and I am fifty years old...[T]he names of some of the pieces I play:

"Arkansaw Traveler, Big-Footed Nigger, Raccoon on a Rail, Devil's Dream, Natchez Under the Hill, Unfortunate Dog, Dogs and the Dogs [sic: possibly a typo], Girl I Left Behind Me, The New Married Lady, The Irish Wash Woman, The Camel's [sic] a Coming, Drunken Sailor, Leather Breeches, Downfall of Paris, Steward's Long Bow, Sugar in the Gourd, Whoe's [sic] Been Here Since I've Been Gone, Little Bell Cow Running in the Grass, Forked Deer, The Cuckoo [sic] Nest, Possum Up a Gum Stump.

"These are some of the oldest pieces played by the old settlers of Grayson county."

Ashley presumably learned these tunes as a young man, around 1870, or during the Civil War.

Most of the twenty titles are familiar, though three or four appear to be unique.