'The Prospector's Last Letter' : A Gaspesian Ballad and Other Songs of Wilbert Coffin

The author describes the basic "narrative paradigms" and poetic mode (e.g. narrative or lyric verse) of four songs written about the execution of Wilbert Coffin (b. 1915), who was hanged in 1956 for the murder of three American tourists in Gaspé three years earlier. Many believed that Coffin's conviction, based mostly on circumstantial evidence, was politically motivated. Accusations were made that the Premier of Quebec at the time, Maurice Duplessis, made Coffin, a unilingual Anglophone from the tiny Gaspesian village of York, the scapegoat for the murders so as not to disrupt Quebec's lucrative American tourism industry. The four songs examined by the author are: "The Prospector's Last Letter" by Milton McGregor; another, untitled, song about Wilbert Coffin by Milton McGregor; "The Saga of Bill Coffin" (also known as "The Prospector's Ordeal") by Keith Chicoyne; and "The Wilbert Coffin Story, JPC (Justice Precluded Coffin)" by Dale Boyle. The author notes that while "the story resurfaces only briefly in Canadian media, within the eastern Gaspé's English-speaking communities the Coffin story is ever-present. Arguably, it is one of the most important stories in their collective memory..."

Canadian Folk Music

Vol. 50

no. 1

Spring/Summer 2016

1-15

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