Songs "Across the Plains" Lyrics
A Song Cycle based on Virginia Reed Murphy’s memoir “Across the Plains in the Donner Party: A Personal Narrative of the Overland Trip to California”
PLAYLIST
- I’s Only Twelve But I Remember It Well
- Platte River Valley (instrumental)
- Billy: A Treasure So Kind
- Please Mr. Hastings
- Twenty Wells, Utah
- Oh How the Wagon Wheel Becomes It
- Humboldt Sink
- Starvation Suite (instrumental): i. Come the Night, The Dreaded Snow ii. Thirty-six iii. "Are you men from California, or do you come from Heaven?"
- Reunion
- Never Take No Cutoffs
- That Was All So Long Ago
I’s Only 12 But I Remember It Well
I’s only 12 but I remember it well
Misfortune etched in my mind
Of perils and hardships a tale I could tell
Of scoundrels and men who were kind
The morning we left Missouri, our life
A cold wind blew from the west
We loaded our wagons, trusting the Lord
In his infinite mercy we’d rest
Our wagons were drawn by oxen and steer
With provisions for six months a-journey
Little did we know, our fate was foretold
And our sufferings would triple their earnings
My mother was weak, declining in health
My good father he was a builder
In the darkest of hours my mother grew brave
And fought off what wanted to kill her
The stories we heard from old Grandma Keys
Of Indians, their dreadful crimes
I listened enraptured, my back to the wall
And feared encountering their kind
But at Caws River, Kansas, they ferried us across
I prayed they wouldn’t sink us midstream
Watching them close, scarcely drawing a breath
But some things are not what they seem
By late end of May our dear Grandma Keys
Gave out what life she was saving
A coffin was hewn from a cottonwood tree
John Denton, he done the engraving
Platte River valley shone emerald green
Wildflowers I gathered by hand
The waters ran clear, shallow and wide
Our wagons rolled ‘cross the land
Mr Hastings claimed a new route was found
Running round the southern Salt Lake
His cut off would shave near 300 miles
So the cut off we voted to take
We later found out Bridger and Vasquez
Who shouted their praise for the route
Were employed by Hastings, a fact undisclosed
And left us troubled with doubt
Icy wind blew again from the west
We flinched at the slap to our faces
I turned to look back at the trail we’d carved
But the Lord’s hand covered our traces
We gotta move on, away from the life
We’ll cherish in memory at last
The sun’s run off, darkness has come
And loneliness is coming on fast
Platte River Valley: On the Wagons (instrumental)
Billy: A Treasure So Kind
When I was a child, a mere seven years old
I was gifted a treasure so kind
A pony named Billy, a beauty he was
Far across the plains we’d ride
We ranged and explored, Billy and me
A new world spread o’er the plains
Wildflowers I gathered and gave to my Ma
A pretty way to help ease her pain
Just one friend to pass the time
Who listens when your singing don’t rhyme
Just one friend in lonely times
Who just might sing along sometimes
We encountered the Sioux near Fort Laramie
They’s enchanted by Ma’s looking-glass
Desired my pony, were bargaining hard
With buffalo robes and ropes of grass
Beaded moccasins were laid at my feet
Made signs they wanted a trade
Father just smiled and shook his no
My Billy was a promise he made
Just one friend to pass the time
And listens when your singing don’t rhyme
Just one friend in lonely times who
Just might sing along sometimes
But then came a day with no pony to ride
The poor fellow’s heart must have failed
Endless travel he couldn’t endure
We left him alongside the trail
I cried for hours, till I was ill
My sad heart broken and sore
From the wagon I watched him grow smaller and smaller
And then I could see him no more.
(From the gathered George Harlan arises. Upstage left Lansford Hastings emerges. Emigrants greet him enthusiastically, gesturing at relevant pages of the guidebook, imploring Hastings to assist. At the end of Harlan’s narrative, Hastings points definitively and confidently to back of the auditorium, and all eyes follow hopeful and grateful)
“From Laramie we kept on to Fort Bridger, where we halted for three days. Here we met a man named Lansford Hastings, who had written the book Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California. He had just come from California, and professed to know all about the proper way to get there. He got all the emigrants together, and recommended that we leave the old trail and make a cut off from Bridger to pass round the south end of Salt Lake, and strike the Humboldt River one hundred and fifty miles above its sink. He said we would thus save three hundred miles of travel, it being that much nearer than the way by Fort Hall….”
Please Mr Hastings
James Reed:
Please Mr Hastings will you show me the way?
Going to California there can be no delay
We don’t mean the Tao Te Ching
And this ain’t a Frampton song
Would you please Mr Hastings if you please
Get us ‘cross the Plains before the freeze?
We heard about the Cut Off yesterday
With August round the bend we couldn’t wait
Hastings’ men wore southern smiles
Said we’d shave three hundred miles
Get on the trail now and don’t be late…
Virginia Reed:
O Momma this don’t feel right…
Coyotes used to cry in the twilight
Haven’t heard a thing last two nights
Donners, Reeds, Murphys heading west
McClutchen, CT Stanton, and the rest
Forty miles and we’d be through
Desert dry, Salt Lake blue
Heartily believing we were blessed
It seemed the hand death was on the land
Forty turned to eighty through the sands
Not a living thing was seen
Thirsty horses getting mean
We hadn’t figured dying in the plan
O Momma this don’t feel right…
Coyotes used to cry in the twilight
Haven’t heard a thing last four nights
Now Mr Hastings what the hell did you say?
Ain’t no cut-off we can see but suffering and delay
We don’t even pray no more
Our foolishness is plain
Mr Hastings when you’ve got the time
Shove this cut-off where the sun don’t shine
Twenty Wells, Utah
John Breen:
Beyond Twenty Wells, when the third night fell
Could we survive? No one could tell
Barren wasteland, piercing cold...
Oxen tumbling, crazed by thirst
Unhitch the wagons, spared the worst
We laid our heads upon the desert floor
Suddenly in the scream of night
Fatigue was banished, turned to fright
Young steer charged unforgiving
Reed drew his gun, holding a child
The beast turned east, red eyes wild
Darkness swallows up another prayer
Cold day broke, a three dog night
Losing fast the will to fight
Reed then forged ahead for water
Abandoned the wagons, too hard to bear
Our cattle gone we knew not where
Margaret wrapped her shoulders in a shawl.
Eight hundred miles from California...
Divided our provisions, what little we had
What we didn’t need, or couldn’t carry
We buried in the earth for another day
Onward we rolled, time rolling away
Hope we fluttered like a thread in the wind...
O How the Wagon Wheel Becomes It
Virginia Reed
Upon a poor stage, a tragedy unfolds
Fort Hall Trail we arrived
Humboldt River in our eyes
The trail too steep, ascending a hill
Oxen struggle with wagon loads
But in John Snyder no mercy showed
Beating his cattle senseless, whipping them sore
My father tried appealing
To end the animals’ suffering
O how the wagon wheels roll
O how the wagon wheels roll
Hard words flowed from John Snyder’s tongue
Then with his whip he leaps below
And strikes my father a violent blow
Father reeled blinded, bloodied from the gash
Snyder lifted the whip again
Mother ran between the men
Father cried out, but it was too late
The whip had fallen on his wife
Then father drew his hunting knife
O how the wagon wheels roll
O how the wagon wheels roll
Snyder fell back, father rushed to his side
Blood gushed from father’s wound
And mingled with his dying friend’s
A few moments later, Snyder lay dead
Father asked me to dress his wounds
While snow fell on the afternoon
The Donners held council, determine father’s fate
Many proposed a lynching
Father stood unflinching
O how the wagon wheels roll
O how the wagon wheels roll
Exile in the wilderness, the company decreed
Die of slow starvation
Or murdered by Indians
Banishment he refused, pleading self-defense
Until mother urged him
To think upon his children
Food he could find at John Sutter’s fort
Return for their salvation
Keep them from starvation
O how the wagon wheels roll
O how the wagon wheels roll
Without food or arms, to unknown country gone
My father walking all alone
Far away from love and home
After dark we followed, Uncle Milt and I
Guns, food, ammunition
To ease his condemnation
Crying I begged father to remain by his side
To this he would not listen
Unclasping my arms round him
Returning then to camp, my mother in distress
Young ones to her clinging
Hopelessness was singing
In that hour a woman was born...
Humboldt Sink
I’m gonna tell you just one more time
Hell is closer than you think
See the river just disappear
My friends, that’s the Humboldt Sink
South around the Rubys, worn down to the core
Papa done killed a man back at Gravelly Ford
Exiled to the wilderness to even the score
Sixty-eight days of heartache and pain
We followed the river west
So much lost with every mile gained
With forty more, no time to rest
You think the Devil’s done with you?
Dip your tin, take a drink
The bitter river flows soundlessly
And dies at the Humboldt Sink
The Paiutes spoke some English, what little they knew
Joined us all for the night, and shared some stew
Morning comes the oxen gone, and Grave’s shirt too
Now we remember old Grandma Keys
And the words she held so true
Turn your back on one of their kind
You get what’s coming to you
Snow melt in the spring forms a lake
So pretty makes you blink
But when you wait September’s end
All you get is the Humboldt Sink
Starvation Suite (instrumental)
i. Three Miles from the Summit, October 28, 1846 (Donner-Reed party winter in the Sierra)
ii. Thirty-Six (a silent elegy for the thirty-six souls who perished that winter)
iii.ii. “Are you men from California, or do you come from Heaven?” (first words spoken to rescue party reaching the survivors, February 19, 1847)
Come the Night, the Dreaded Snow
Virginia Reed
Come the night, the dreaded snow
Whirling flakes, their icy glow
Three miles from summit, we turned back
An Indian stood under the trees
Seemed to know that we would freeze
Wrapped himself in blankets, watched all night
Every Christmas I go back to Donner Lake...
The cattle killed, preserved in snow
How long we’d eat, we didn’t know
Snow was falling, falling without end
A rescue party, Forlorn Hope
Fifteen brave climbed the slope
Set off to California to save the rest
Of those brave and strong of heart
Only seven made John Sutter’s Fort
Horrors endured no pen will ever tell
Winter fierce and Christmas near
For the starving no comfort here
Mother then revived our failing souls
A few dried apples, some tripe so lean
A piece of bacon, scattered beans
A feast she saved for her own
We watched the cooking carefully
Mother said “Children, eat slowly
For this one day you can have all you wish.”
Every Christmas I go back to Donner Lake...
J Quinn Thornton
“On January 9th Mr Eddy gathered some grass nearby...to sustain...his wasted body, the almost extinguished spark of life. On the following morning they staggered forward, and toward the close of the day...they arrived at an Indian village. The Indians seemed to be overwhelmed with the sight of their miseries. Proverbial as they are for their cruelty and thievish propensities, they now divided their own scanty supply with the emigrants. The wild and fierce savages who once visited their camps only for the purpose of hostility; who hovered around them upon the way; who shot their cattle, and murdered their companions; who actually stood upon the hills, laughing at their calamity...now seemed touched with the sight of their misfortunes; and their almost instinctive feeling of hostility to the white man, gave place to pity and commiseration. The men looked as solemn as the grave; the women wrung their hands and wept aloud; the children united their plaintive cries to those of their sympathizing mothers. One hurried here, and another there, all sobbing and weeping, to obtain their stores of acorns…. While they were eating these the Indian women began to prepare a sort of bread from the acorns, pulverized. As fast as they could bake them, they gave them to the starving emigrants.”
Reunion
The rescue party lightened its packs by caching bread and meat in the trees
But reaching the cache, we learned that animals had destroyed it
Once again, starvation stared us in the face…
Father brought ten men. One called out, “Is Mrs Reed with you? Tell her Mr Reed is here.”
Mama fell to her knees in the snow while I tried to run
There are no words...
Yes, it’s you, now I believe it’s true
I prayed in my heart, my dream of seeing you
Troubles and tears will pass
I want our strength to last
To build our life in this land so vast
Nightmares will come, I want you by my side
I’ll reach out my hand, please will you be my guide
When I grow old and gray
And feel I’m losing my way
Remind me when I saw you, at last, that day
Yes, it’s you, now I believe it’s true
I prayed in my heart, then I was seeing you
Troubles and tears have passed
I know our strength to last
To give our children a Christmas at home at last
Yes it was you, I’ll always believe it’s true
I know in my heart, my dream is here with you
Never Take No Cutoffs
Oh, Mary
I’ve not wrote you half of the trouble we've had
But I have wrote you enough to let you know what trouble is.
But thank God
We are the only family that did not eat human flesh.
We have lost everything, but I don't care for that.
We have got through with our lives.
Don't let this letter dishearten anybody.
Remember, remember...
Never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can...
That Was All So Long Ago
That was all so long ago, but Spring arrived at last
Once under snow at Donner Lake, hard times now have passed
And Sacramento valley, as wide as all the world
Would give us life, a home at last, and memories for a girl
Napa Valley afternoon, in shade we stopped to rest
A lovely little knoll I found, and wandered by myself
Wildflowers I gazed upon, and oh so many trees
And in the branches high above, the birds would sing for me
The blessed sun a smile
A benediction pure
How could we have come this far
Without His guiding hand?
I felt so near to God that day, His breath upon my cheek
My kisses flew to heaven’s light, all in thanksgiving
I heard Papa calling me, “Daughter, where’ve you gone?
Come child, we’re ready now, sing for us a song.”
The friends we love, and friends we lost
Remembering us home.
--End--
Lyrics written and credit goes to Tim Corrigan.