Linda Allen - Overland, 1852 lyrics

rate me

Linda Allen - Overland, 1852

My name is Emma Logan, and I come from Tennessee

It's there I spent my childhood with my friends and family

I married young John Logan back in 1844

That day he promised Pa I'd never go far from his door

The children came so quickly, but my Ma was so close by

She'd help out with the births, and then she'd hold 'em when

they'd cry

I thought my life was settled 'til the day John said to me

"Pack the wagon, woman. We are leaving Tennessee"

He had a notion to go West, he was the restless sort

And Lord knows, land was cheap, and our money always short

But I cried the day he told me, and I begged for us to stay

He only said, "We're goin'. It's best we don't delay".

'Twas in the Spring of '52 that we left Tennessee

Leaving my dear mother who I never more will see

And my friends, I thought my heart would break to leave them all

behind

For my husband's great adventure, his fortune for to find

For two months we had travelled--and half our oxen dead

Our wagon bein' slow the others chose to go ahead

I measured each day's progress by the miles and by the graves

And the fear that gripped my heart I will remember all my days

The baby came in August in a cold Sierra storm

We huddled in the cold and wet and waited for the morn

How I longed for women's company, a woman's tender care

Next morning early we moved out, to rest we did not dare

My sweet baby Sierra was the first child that did die

We laid her in the hard-baked earth, and I too weak to cry

Then cholera took my oldest boy - his sister, Annabelle

Fell out of the wagon and was crushed beneath the wheels

Half my children gone and the winter comin' on

We came to California nearly starved, our money gone

John went to pan for gold and soon forgot the kids and me

And now I take in washin' and I curse his memory

Now if your husband tells you, load the wagons, you must go

To seek your fortune in the West, my dear, you must not go

But remember what I've told you lest your fate be like my own

Make your own choice. Let him go. You're better off alone