The Fools of '49
[Air - 'Commence, you Darkies all]

When gold was found in '48, the people said 'twas gas,
And some were fools enough to think the lumps were only brass;
But soon they all were satisfied, and started off to mine,
They bought their ships, came round the Horn, in the fall of '49.

Chorus:
Then they thought of what they had been told,
When they started after gold,
That they never in the world would make a pile.

The people all were crazy then, they didn't know what to do,
They sold their farms for just enough to pay their passage through;
They bid their friends a long farewell; said, "Dear wife, don't you cry,
I'll send you home the yellow lumps a piano for to buy."
Then they thought, etc.

The poor, the old and rotten scows, were advertised to sail
From New Orleans with passengers, but they must pump and bail;
The ship were crowded more than full, and some hung on behind,
And others dived off from the wharf, and swam till they were blind.
Then they thought, etc.

With rusty pork and stinking beef, and rotten, wormy bread,
And captains, too, that never were up as high as the main-mast head,
The steerage passengers would rave and swear that they'd paid their passage,
And wanted something more to eat besides Bologna sausage.
Then they thought. etc.

Then they began to cross the plains with oxen, hollowing "haw;"
And steamers they began to run as far as Panama,
And there for months the people staid that started after gold,
And some returned disgusted with the lies that had been told.
Then they thought, etc.

The people died on evry route, they sicken'd and died like sheep,
And those at sea, before they were dead, were launched into the deep;
And those that died while crossing the Plains fared not so well as that,
For a hole was dug and they thrown in, along the miserable Platte.
Then they thought, etc.

The ships at last began to arrive, and the people began to inquire:
"They say that flour is a dollar a pound, do you think it will be any higher?"
And then to carry their blankets and sleep out-doors, it seemed so droll,
Both tired and mad, without a cent, they d---d the lousy hole.
Then they thought, etc.


Put's Original California Songster, pp. 7-8

Lyrics (no tune) in Dwyer & Lingenfelter, The Songs of the Gold Rush, p. 33

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Notes from Q:

Put's Original California Songster, giving in a few words what would occupy volumes, detailing the Hopes, Trials and Joys of a Miner's Life.
pages 7-8
Lyrics (no tune) in Lingenfelter & Dwyer, Songs of the American West, p. 25

Music may be in Half-Dime Singer's Library, 1879 or Dime Song Book 1859, neither seen.

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Click to play (joeweb)

[Tune notes by Artful Codger]
The MIDI was adapted from sheet music for "Commence, Ye Darkies All!" in the Lester S. Levy Collection (John Hopkins University).

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