Farewell to motherland England at Hull
In our ninety-foot sloop Sarah Jane
To a rugged free land with timber so tall
The wild coastal waters of Maine

It was then in Seventeen Seventy-five
We settled the land at Fort Richmond
Our silver 'twas sunk but we landed alive
Lost our fortune to scratch out a living

But we'll fashion a life with the tools that we've made
By the grace of God we'll deliver
The fruits of our labor from plans that we've laid
For a life on the Kennebec River

Chorus:
Her water runs deep, and constant, and free
Like the people who soon came to know her
They lived by the toil of the soil and the sea
By the banks of the Kennebec River

We were sea captains, sheep-farming, ship-building men
We cut through her icy blue waters
We'd carve out a living the best that we can
With our wives and our sons and our daughters

Winters were wicked and long to endure
We lived with the fierce Abanaki
Consumption took many with never a cure
Some were lost, some survived, some were lucky

We'd huddle together through many a storm
With a wind to set bone marrow to quiver
But our women wove woolens to keep us all warm
By the banks of the Kennebec River

Chorus:

Her water is wide and her bounty is free
But she's a taker as well as a giver
She'd as soon take you under and straight out to sea
The tide waters of the Kennebec River

Decent and honest, hard-working and plain
But our lives never got any easier
Rugged and rough like our rock coast of Maine
Was our life on the Kennebec River

But for six and six score the Parks' Ferry ran
From bank to bank, hither to thither
'Til a road and a bridge stole their graves from our land
From the banks of the Kennebec River

Chorus:

We were sea captains, sheep-farming, ship-building men!

©1992 Victoria Parks