Folk and Traditional Song Lyrics:
Death of Ellenton

Death of Ellenton

Death of Ellenton

Where the broad Savannah flows along to meet the mighty sea,
There stood a peaceful village that meant all the world to me.
The home of happy people--I knew each and every one,
My kin folk and all the friends I loved---the town was Ellenton.
But the military came one day and filled our hearts with woe.
"We'll study war right here," they said, "The little town must go."
Then they came with trucks and dynamite. The din and dust rose high.
I stood and gazed in silence as I watched my hometown die.

They brought bulldozers by the score where children used to play,
Pushed over all the trees we loved, and scraped the flowers away.
Now the homes are gone--the schoolhouse too--the sweat and toil of years,
And with them all the joys and hopes of past and future years.
The little church was hauled away. The fields are brown and bare,
And in their place a mighty plant. They build the H-bomb there.
Now the smoke hangs o'er the valley like the mist before my eyes,
Has been there ever since the day I sa
Oh, the friends we know and love, we'll meet upon some other shore,
For Ellenton--fair Ellenton is gone forever more.

Originally recorded by Pa Johnson and the Johnson Family;
later by the New Lost City Ramblers.

XX
July01