From Captain Streeter, Pioneer by Everett Guy Ballard (Chicago: Emery Publishing Service, 1914), page 20:


CHAPTER II

CHILDHOOD AND PIONEER LIFE

My earliest recollections are of my grandmother Marion rocking and singing to me as I sat upon her lap. I was about two years of age, and my grandfather and grandmother Marion, then very aged, were living with our family. I recall very distinctly the lines of a straggling verse which my grandmother sang to me many times, and which ran like this, if my youthful memory is to be trusted:

"This wilderness was our abiding place
Some forty years ago;
For fish we used the hook and line,
And with the gun we shot the buck or doe;
On Johnny cake our ladies dined
Some forty years ago;
We pounded corn to make it fine
In this new countrie some forty years ago."

This is my very first recollection of song and poetry, and almost my first recollection of any thing. My grandmother did not live many months after this….

[The above book is a biography of George Wellington "Cap" Streeter (1837 - 1921), which would put the date around 1839. However, I don't believe a 2-year-old could have memorized that poem.—JD]