Acres of Clams (The Old Settler's Song)

DESCRIPTION: The prospector reports on the sad fate of the gold rush men: "For each man who got rich by mining... hundreds grew poor." He decides to abandon digging and head out to be a farmer near Puget Sound. This, too, proves hard, but he is too poor to move again
AUTHOR: Words: Francis Henry (1827-1893) of Olympia, Washington (source: Prosch)
EARLIEST DATE: 1893 (Legislative Hand-book and Manual of the State of Washington)
KEYWORDS: gold farming poverty settler derivative
FOUND IN: US(NW)
REFERENCES (11 citations):
Lomax/Lomax-FolkSongUSA 55, "The Old Settler's Song" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia2, pp. 621-622, "The Old Settler (Acres of Clams)" (1 text plus part of an early sheet music pring)
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, pp. 555-556, "The Old Settler" (1 text, 1 tune)
Darling-NewAmericanSongster, pp. 283-284, "Acres of Clams" (1 text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 48, "Acres of Clams" (1 text)
DT, OLDSETLR*
ADDITIONAL: Clarence M. Barton, _Barton's Legislative Hand-book and Manual of the State of Washington_ (Olympia: State Printing and Publishing Co., 1893, available on Google Books), pp. 154-155, "The Old Settler" (1 text)
Charles Prosch, ed., _Transactions of the Washington Pioneer Association for the Years 1883 to 1889, Inclusive_ (Seattle: Lowman & Hanford Stationery and Printing Co., 1894, available on Google Books), pp. 149-150, "The Old Settler" (1 text, appended to a short biography/obituary of author Francis Henry)
(United States Congress), _Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 63rd Congress, First Session, Vol. 50, Part 6_ (Washington: United States Congress, November 22, 1913, available on Google Books), p. 5974, "(no title)" (contains the lyrics as part of a speech by Representative Albert Johnson of Washington—but there is no attribution to an author. It also leaves out the choruses)
(no author listed), _Transactions of the 38th Annual Reunion of the Oregon Pioneer Association, Portland June 22, 1910_ (Portland, Oregon: Chausse-Prudhomme Co., 1914, available on Google Books), page 123, "The Old Settler" (1 text, tune referenced; also included in later versions of the series)

Roud #10032
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "The Old Settler's Song" (on PeteSeeger47); "Acres of Clams, " [parody] (on PeteSeeger47)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Rosin the Beau" (tune) and references there
cf. "A Hayseed Like Me" (tune, lyrics)
File: LxU055

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