December 14, 2020 Thank you, Barbara Schock, for sharing your extraordinary gift of these vignettes of Galesburg & 19th century American history.
Sweet Betsy from Pike By Barbara Schock
This song tells a story. Its nine verses describe the
journey by horse and wagon from Pike County (probably in Missouri, but there is
another Pike County in Illinois just across the Mississippi River) to the
California gold fields. The lyrics were written by John A. Stone in 1856. The tune
is from “Mister McGrath.” It came to the United States during the great potato
famine of Ireland in the late 1840s. The use of the female name “Betsy” may have something to do
with the long rifles men carried by men on the frontier. Even today there are
some older men who call their vehicles “Betsy.” There is a second version which describes the trip by
sailing vessel around the tip of South America. It describes the bad food,
cramped quarters and seemingly endless days on the ocean. Carl Sandburg may have been the first to collect the song
during one of his many journeys across the country while lecturing or conducting
research for the Abraham Lincoln biography. In his hobo days, he began writing
down songs on bits of paper he kept in his pocket. Later he collected songs he
heard others perform. These were compiled in THE AMERICAN SONGBAG and published
in 1927. Burl Ives recorded “Sweet Betsy from Pike” on his first
album in 1941. For a time, Ives was a competitor of Sandburg. Both came from
Illinois and both men sang folk songs. In 1910 the Western Writers of American included “Sweet
Betsy from Pike” in its list of Top 100 Western Songs.
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