Ho for California (Banks of Sacramento)

DESCRIPTION: The "plot" of the song varies widely, according to its use by pioneers, sailors, or gold-diggers. The chorus is fixed: "(Then) Ho! (boys), Ho! To California go! There's plenty of gold in the world, we're told, on the banks of the Sacramento"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1849 (Journal of William F. Morgan of the La Grange)
KEYWORDS: gold shanty travel
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1849 - California gold rush
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,NE) Australia Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (29 citations):
Eddy-BalladsAndSongsFromOhio 125, "California" (1 text, 1 tune)
Warner-TraditionalAmericanFolkSongsFromAnneAndFrankWarnerColl 70, "Ho, Boys, Ho" (1 text, 1 tune)
Doerflinger-SongsOfTheSailorAndLumberman, pp. 68-70, "Sacramento" (3 texts, 2 tunes, though the last of these derives its verses from "Rolling in the Dew (The Milkmaid)")
Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen, pp. 105-106, "Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune)
Walton/Grimm-Windjammers-SongsOfTheGreatLakesSailors, pp. 39-40, "Banks of Sacramento" (1 composite text, 1 tune)
Harlow-ChantyingAboardAmericanShips, pp. 109-110, "Banks of Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, pp. 106-114, "California," "Sacramento" (7 texts-1 in German, 3 tunes) [AbEd, pp. 95-100]
Hugill-SongsOfTheSea, p. 11, "Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune); p. 149, "De Hamborger Viermaster" (2 texts, German & English, 1 tune)
Shay-AmericanSeaSongsAndChanteys, pp. 82-83, "The Banks of Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kinsey-SongsOfTheSea, p. 69, "Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, pp. 110-111, "California"; 111, "The Banks of Sacramento" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Smith/Hatt/Fowke-SeaSongsBalladFromNineteenthCenturyNovaScotia, p. 37, "On the Banks of the Sacramento" (1 text)
Lomax/Lomax-FolkSongUSA 42, "Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Covell/Brown-FolkSongsOfAustraliaVol2, p. 91, "Banks of the Sacramento" (1 fragmentary text, in which the singer seeks girls rather than gold; 1 tune)
Huntington-SongsTheWhalemenSang, pp. 174-176, "The California Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia2, pp. 655-656, "Ho! For California!" (1 text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 88, "Sacramento" (1 text)
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, pp. 14-15, "Ho! For California!" (1 text, 1 tune)
Tobitt-TheDittyBag, p. 38, "Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune)
Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsNThings, p. 32, "Hoodah Day" (1 text, 1 tune)
Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsPopularEdition, p. 34, "Hooday-Day" (1 text)
OneTuneMore, p. 26, "Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic, pp. 158-159, "(De) Camptown Races--(Sacramento)"
MidwestFolklore, Ivan H. Watson, "Folk Singing on Beaver Island," Volume 2, Number 4 (Winter 1952), p. 246, "The Banks of the Sacramento" (reference only)
DT, SACRMNTO* SACRMNT2*
ADDITIONAL: "On Shanties," article in E(neas) S(weetland) Dallas, editor, _Once a Week_, New Series, Number 31, August 1, 1868 (published by Bradbury and Evans and available on Google Books), p. 92, "(Blow, boys, blow, for California, O)" (1 excerpt)
Captain John Robinson, "Songs of the Chantey Man," a series published July-August 1917 in the periodical _The Bellman_ (Minneapolis, MN, 1906-1919). "Sacramento" is in Part 2, 7/21/1917.
Frederick Pease Harlow, _The Making of a Sailor, or Sea Life Aboard a Yankee Square-Rigger_, 1928; republished by Dover, 1988, p. 320, "Banks of Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune)
Stewart Gordon, _A History of the World in Sixteen Shipwrecks_, ForeEdge, 2015, p. 176, "(no title)" (1 text)
Roud #319
RECORDINGS:
Logan English, "Sacramento" (on LEnglish02)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (tune)
cf. "A Capital Ship" (tune)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Californi-O
Blow, Boys, Blow for Californi-O
Der Hamborger Veermaster
Der Hamborger Vullrigger
NOTES [109 words]: Possibly created and certainly popularized by the Hutchinson Family (who published a text in their 1855 songbook), versions of this song are found throughout the U.S., and are well-known among sailors.
The texts are diverse (Hugill, for instance, has a version in which a sailor courts a girl and winds up with a venereal disease), but most seem to be related to the California gold rush. The tune is a variation on "Camptown Races," perhaps in turn based on "A Capital Ship."
(Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, however, lists it as being sung to "De Boatman Dance. There appears to have been some re-writing to make it fit that melody.) - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: E125

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