Uploaded May 2021 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
Before we get to the song, I’ve been working three years on various aspects of what my family calls “The Sandburg Project.” I need a break to recharge my batteries, get back in shape (the pandemic hasn’t been kind), and do some work around the house. I will be back!
Sandburg writes: "Bonny Eloise in Amsterdam, New York, in 1947 I was told that if I would wait a day or two they would take me to a town nearby where I could meet a man whose grandfather knew Bonny EIoise. Having other engagements, I had to defer the research.
About all we know now of Eloise is that she was bonny and blue-eyed. I have heard that Louis C. Jones of the New York Historical Society has instituted a research and we may yet to know more about Eloise's romance, if such there was, with C. W. Elliott who wrote the lyric. He loved a river much and a certain girl much more. In covered-wagon days it was a widely beloved song."
1858 (date of composition, according to Gale Huntington from The Gam: More Songs Whalemen Sang)
Before we get to the song, I’ve been working three years on various aspects of what my family calls “The Sandburg Project.” I need a break to recharge my batteries, get back in shape (the pandemic hasn’t been kind), and do some work around the house. I will be back!
Sandburg writes: "Bonny Eloise in Amsterdam, New York, in 1947 I was told that if I would wait a day or two they would take me to a town nearby where I could meet a man whose grandfather knew Bonny EIoise. Having other engagements, I had to defer the research.
About all we know now of Eloise is that she was bonny and blue-eyed. I have heard that Louis C. Jones of the New York Historical Society has instituted a research and we may yet to know more about Eloise's romance, if such there was, with C. W. Elliott who wrote the lyric. He loved a river much and a certain girl much more. In covered-wagon days it was a widely beloved song."
1858 (date of composition, according to Gale Huntington from The Gam: More Songs Whalemen Sang)
