Sutter's Mill

In the Spring of Forty-seven
So the story it is told
Old John Sutter went to the mill site, found a piece of shining gold

Well he took it to the city
Where the word like wildfire spread
And old John Sutter soon came to wish he’d
Left that stone in the river bed

 

 

For they came like herds of locusts,
Every woman, child and man
In their lumbering Conestogas
They left their tracks upon the land

Some would fail and some would prosper
Some would die and some would kill
Some would thank the Lord for their deliverance
And some would curse John Sutter’s Mill

 

 

 

Well they came from New York City and they came from Alabam’
With their dreams of finding fortunes in this wild unsettled land

Well some fell prey to hostile arrows as they tried to cross the plains
And some were lost in the Rocky Mountains with their hands froze to the reins

 

 

 

Oh Some would fail and some would prosper
Some would die and some would kill
Some would thank the Lord for their deliverance
And some would curse John Sutter’s Mill

Well, some pushed on to California
And others stopped to take their rest
And by the Spring of eighteen-sixty
They had opened up the west

 

 

 

And then the railroad came behind them
And the land was plowed and tamed
Wvcfhen Old John Sutter went to meet his maker,  Not one penny to his name

Oh Some would fail and some would prosper
Some would die and some would kill
Some would thank the Lord for their deliverance
And some would curse John Sutter’s Mill
Some men’s thirsts are never filled

~~~ Dan Fogelberg ~~~

 

 

 

Glade Creek Grist Mill
Babcock State Park
West Virginia, USA

© Mike Briner
http://Webshots.com