Ok, now this song really did come from my grandfather. My mother said that it was a Congregationalist temperance song....
This is one that I don't have memorized, though I know the tune. I have my mother's handwritten lyrics, with her drawings framing it. There is a tape of my grandfather singing it in the Library of Congress, according to my mother. I would like to go listen to it some time.
O, the brewer's big horses, comin' down de road
A totin' along old Lucifer's load
Dey step so high and dey step so free
But them big horses can't run over me
Chorus:
O no! boys O no!
De turnpike's free where ever I go
I'm a temperance ingine don't you see
So them big horses can't run ovah me
Repeat with "toot toot toots"
O de liquo' men been actin lak de own de place
A livin' off de sweat o' de po' man's face
Dey's fat and sassy as dey can be
But deir big horses can't run ovah me
Chorus
I'll harness dem horses to de temperance cart
I'll hit 'em with the gad fo' to give 'em a start
I'll teach 'em how fo' to haw an' gee
So them big horses can't run ovah me
Chorus
I do not find this one on the internet. But isn't it interesting that Budweiser still uses the Brewer's Big Horses in advertising?
Again, this is a song I was learning way before I know what a brewer or a turnpike was. My parents stopped singing a bunch of songs when they realized that I was memorizing all of them. They did not want me singing certain songs in Kindergarten.
They did not need to worry. I shut up when I got to school, because no one wanted to sing and no one knew the songs. They all talked about television and we didn't have one.
I was very disappointed in school. Not enough singing and it was lonely.
It is listed in temperance songs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_songs.
and is mentioned here.