I wonder if anybody can give us more information about John A. Stone, the Gold Rush songwriter known as "Old Put."

I posted this in the previous thread:

The most popular songwriter and singer of ballads in 1864 was John A. Stone, or "Old Put" as he preferred being called. He and his Sierra Nevada Rangers went from camp to camp entertaining; singing songs he knew the miners liked to hear. Those songs live on and tell the story of another day. (from Singing Gold, a songbook published by the Sacramento Bee in 1977).

Barry Finn posted this:
Thread #6228   Message #36195
Posted By: Barry Finn
28-Aug-98 - 12:05 AM
Thread Name: LYR REQ: Gold Miners' Songs (American)
Subject: RE: LYR REQ: Gold Miners' Songs (American)

"Seeing The Elephant" is according to Debby McClatchy the acknowledged fist song written in California about the gold rush. "Just From Dawson" from the last of the big gold rushes, 1898 in the Yukon. You could probably start an Old Put (John Stone) thread, he's been mentioned often with these gold rush songs, he had been a broken down miner like the rest & then made a big hit in 1853, put together a group, as Joe mentions above, the Sierra Nevada Rangers & started sing at the camps & halls, basically financing his pastime with his gain from the ground. Another of his is the "Humbug Steamship Companies" a great rendering of the passages through the Panama Canal made by gold seekers aboard steamers kept together by gum & glue. Probably his most famous would be the "Days Of 49". Old Put died of drink when his fans moved on with the later rushes of Nevada & South Dakota the last moving futher north to the frozen fields of the Yukon. Stone published 4 books of his songs before he roared out his soul in a glory hole. Most of this came by way of Debby McClatchy. Barry

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I've asked Debby to join us in this discussion, but she claims computer illiteracy. Debby is a member of the family that has published the Sacramento Bee since James McClatchy became editor in 1857. Debby has a home not far from me in the Sierra, and she sure knows her Gold Rush songs.


But back to my question - is there more information about Old Put? In Songs of the American West (1968), Richard Lingenfelter and Richard Dwyer list a number of books by Put, all published by Appleton & Co. of San Francisco:

• 1855: Put's Original California Songster (4th edition published in 1868)
  
• 1857: Put's Mountain Songster
  
• 1858: Put's Golden Songster, first and second editions published in the same year
  
• 1861: Pacific Song Book

I'm wondering if Put wrote all the songs in his songbooks, or if he collected some of the songs from miners. This Whither Zither (click) column by Peter Berryman has some interesting information about Old Put, including the fact that the name is pronounced "Putt" (which proves once again that Joe Offer is sometimes wrong).
-Joe Offer-