Subject: ADD: Prospecting Dream (John A. Stone)
From:
Joe Offer
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 03:01 AM
Hi, Jean-David. The "Logan English" threw me off the track for a moment, but I found the song in the first book I consulted. It's by John A. Stone, "Old Put," who made his living publishing songbooks for and about the California miners of the Gold Rush.
Prospecting Dream
lyrics: John A. Stone ("Old Put")
music: "Oh! Susannah," S.C. Foster
1
I dreamed a dream the other night, when everything was still,
I dreamed that I was carrying my longtom down a hill;
My feet slipp'd out and I fell down, oh, how I jarr'd my liver,
I watched my longtom till I saw it fetch up in the river.
CHORUS: Oh, what a miner, what a miner was I,
All swelled up with the scurvy, so I really thought I'd die.
2
My matches, flour, and chili beans, lay scattered all around,
I felt so bad I wished to die, as I lay on the ground;
My coffee rolled down by a rock, my pepper I could not find,
'Twas then I thought of Angeline, the girl I left behind.
3
I took my shovel, pick and pan, to try a piece of ground,
I dream'd I struck the richest lead that ever had been found;
Then I wrote home that I had found a solid lead of gold,
And I'd be home in just a month, but what a lie I told!
4
I dug, I panned and tommed awhile, till I had but a dollar,
I struck it here, and right down there, I could not raise the color;
John Chinaman he bought me out, and pungled down the dust,
Then I had just an ounce in change to start out on a "bust."
5
I went to town and got drunk; in the morning, to my surprise,
I found that I had got a pair of roaring big black eyes,
And I was strapp'd, had not a cent, not even pick or shovel,
My hair snarled up, my breeches torn, looked like the very devil.
6
I then took up a little farm, and got a senorita,
Grey-eyed, hump-backed, and black as tar—her name was Marguerita,
My pigs all died, hens flew away, Joaquin he stole my mules,
My ranch burnt "down," my blankets "up," likewise my farming tools.
7
I left my farm, and hired out to be a hardware clerk,
I got kicked out, "cos" couldn't write, so again I went to work;
But when they caught me stealing grub, a few went in to boot him,
And others round were singing out, "Hang him, hang him, shoot him !"
Source: Songs of the American West, Lingenfelter & Dwyer, 1968
Sounds like a miserable life. I live in Colfax, California, on the ridge next to the steep canyon of the North Fork of the American River. The canyon is amazingly beautiful - I flew the length of it in a small plane a couple of weeks ago, and I've hiked its wildflower trails in the spring. I've seen pictures of that same canyon in the 1860's and 1870's, and it was an ecological disaster - no trees or plants, just mud and chemicals and dumpy miner's shacks. this area still has many provlems left over from those days, but it has refurned to its natural beauty. Now there are people who want to build houses on the edge of that canyon, so the area is threatened once again.
By the way, "Old Put" is buried not far from here as the crow flies, in Greenwood, California
-Joe Offer-
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