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Here is a brief overview of gold rush songs. Some examples are included, accompanied by an early, gut strung minstrel banjo–fretless with gut strings–though at the time of their writing only some of these songs were accompanied by guitar or, perhaps, melodeon.
From 1849 and through the 1850s, the California gold rush inspired songs that told stories and made commentary. Some of these songs, like “Oh California”, were written by emigrants as they left the East and are full of excitement at the expectation of finding gold and getting rich. John Nichols wrote “Oh California” as a parody of the 1848 minstrel show hit, “Oh Susanna.” He sang it with two friends to waving townspeople from the deck of the bark Eliza as they set sail from Salem, Massachusetts. The chorus began, “Oh California, that’s the land for me.” The lyric enjoyed brief popularity in Sacramento upon their arrival in 1849.
The optimism of “Oh California” contrasts gold rush songs written in California. These found their appeal among miners by commenting on unruly society, rough characters, and hardship. Americans in gold rush California were not the only people with music–all other cultures had music as well. And, in American culture, gold rush song tended to me limited to the world of the miner while city dwellers often played or listened to the popular music of the day.
Seeing the Elephant
All gold rush song and, in fact, all gold rush mining culture evolved in the shadow of the phrase, “to see the elephant.” This phrase had been popularized in a gold rush song lyric written by Thaddeus Meighan for a play, Gold Mania, put on by P.T. Barnum in New York City. A parody of “Jeannette and Jeannot”, the song “California As It Is” warned young men that the promise of riches in California was false. “If you go, why you will see, the elephant, yes sirree, and some little grains of gold that are no bigger than a flea…”
Ignoring this advice, young men used the phrase “seeing the elephant” when emigrating from the East by land and sea as well as throughout the 1850s in California. For young men who hoped to pick up gold off the ground and get rich, the phrase summed up the contrast between dreams and reality during emigration and then in far-flung diggings.
Gold Rush Songwriters
While individual gold rush songs appeared in both eastern and western newspapers, the majority of California gold rush song lyrics came from the pen of a few key individuals. Almost all were lyrics written to popular melodies of the day—parodies. Aimed at young men who, in California, often lived far from civilization, gold rush songs were frequently comic and irreverent—celebrating having “seen the elephant.”
Dr. David Robinson ran the Dramatic Museum in San Francisco during the early 1850s. Modeling himself after P.T. Barnum and hoping to imitate Barnum’s American Museum in New York City, Robinson wrote songs for his theater that poked fun at local government. He collected these in the book, Hits At San Francisco. His most notable lyric proved to be “Life in California,” a parody of the English saloon theater song, “Used Up Man.” The last line of the chorus went, “And if I ever get home again, I’ll stay there if I can.”
An attorney working in the Sierra Nevada and writing under the pen name “Old Put,” John Stone published two books of original lyrics—“Put’s Original California Songster” in 1855 and “Put’s Golden Songster” in 1858. Stone’s songs included “Sweet Betsey From Pike,” with a lyric that parodied the 1848 song “Ben Bolt,” set to the melody of the 1853 English saloon theater song, “Villikins And His Dinah.” “Sweet Betsey” is noteworthy as a portrayal of a strong woman, an “Amazonian” (to use a term from that time) in mid-nineteenth-century America.
Stone also wrote “The Arrival of The Greenhorn,” a parody of “Jeannette and Jeannot.” The lyric begins with humor about the chief killer of overland emigrants—diarrhea. Here is one verse.
Pike – The First American Hero of the West
More than anyone, Stone made the overland emigrant, “Pike,” a hero—probably the first generic American hero of the West. Like gold rush culture, and then western mining culture as a whole during the nineteenth century, gold rush song reflected an effort by the seagoing emigrant, Yankee, to emulate the overland emigrant, Pike. In this sense, gold rush song is often a literate celebration of the ordinary. Some verses from Stone’s 1855 song, “Seeing The Elephant”: (Note that, like some other gold rush songs, this one contain lyrics that are not appropriate–racist, sexist or demeaning.)
Reaction To Vulgarity
In the Sierra Nevada, where tastes were more like those of respectable city dwellers, Italian musician Mart Taylor sought to capitalize on criticism of Stone’s lyrics as “vulgar” by writing a book of mining songs in 1856, “The Gold Digger’s Song Book.” Where Robinson and Stone had penned songs that, in essence, commented on “seeing the elephant”, Taylor sought mining song with a sentimentality similar to the purple poetry popular in the East and in civilization. His lyrics proved far less popular among miners than Stone’s work. Taylor’s more lasting contribution came in 1857 as he hired ten-year-old Lotta Crabtree to sing and perform Irish dancing. She later went East and became a national star. From Taylor’s song, “The Pike County Miner,” these sample verses sound like a poor imitation of John Stone’s writing:
Two Famous Gold Rush Songs
While the mining song “Clementine” appeared during the 1880s, by the end of 1860 most gold rush California mining song had been written. California miners had begun to disperse into Nevada and across the West—taking with it the habits, manners and, sometimes, the songs that came to define gold rush culture in the Sierra Nevada during the 1850s. Mining song made a couple of appearances on the stage of the minstrel show during the 1860s—with “Joe Bowers” and then “The Days of ‘49.” These two songs eclipsed most others with their popularity and spread. Both made wry commentary on the difficult and sometimes violent fate of the 49er. Until the end of the nineteenth century, “The Days of ‘49” remained popular as the anthem of the old pioneers, the 49ers, while they aged. In each verse, a character dies having fun.