More tidbits.

From the wide-circulation "Boston Globe" (Feb. 11, 1896):

"Curley said to me: 'What do you want to hang around these places for? Why don't you brace up and be a man? Travel is what you need; come with me and be a man.'

"I said I would think it over. They had filled me up with stories of Rock Candy mountains, Cigarette grove, Sandwich grove, and all such places."


From the "Middletown [N.Y.] Argus" (Apr. 23, 1897):

"The Port Jervis police...arrested fifteen tramps. Two of them were boys, aged fifteen and sixteen years, who, when arraigned, told a ghost story about having been enticed from their home in
Binghamton by a tramp who promised to show them the 'rock candy mountain' and abandoned them in Port Jervis."

Allen County Republican-Gazette (Lima, O.) (Oct. 3, 1899):

"You would be right in your 'element' if you were here and listening to some of the yarns [American soldiers in the Philippines] are telling about the 'lemonade springs,' cigarette groves, and rock candy mountains over in the Luzon Islands."



Just to belabor the obvious, the notion of "Rock Candy Mountains," etc., was genuine hobo folklore that evidently predated the song.

In 1896, Harry McClintock was just twelve years old.