Annotation:De Golyer
Tune properties and standard notation
DE GOLYER. American, Hornpipe. B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody is attributed to "Garfield" in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883), apparently a joke as the De Golyer paving-contract scandal was one of two involving President James Garfield (1831-1881). At the time Garfield was a Republican congressman, and had prepared a brief arguing the merits of a certain pavement, which he argued before a congressional committee. When, later on, the contract was found to be fraudulent, political opponents made much of Garfield's involvement, yet he seems to have had nothing to do with the contractual arrangements, and only received a fee for his preparation and delivering of the brief on what was considered a superior product. Garfield was assassinated early in his first term by a low-level bureaucrat who had been spurned for a patronage position (and two years prior to the publication of Ryan's Mammoth Collection).
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; p. 89. Ryan's Mammoth Collection, 1883; p. 124.
Recorded sources: