In the Spring of Forty-seven,
So the story, it is told,
Old John Sutter went to the mill site
Found a piece of shining gold.
Well, he took it to the city
Where the word, like wildfire, spread.
And old John Sutter soon came to wish he'd
Left that stone in the river bed.
For they came like herds of locusts
Every woman, child and man
In their lumbering Conestogas
They left their tracks upon the land.