Searching for “Shenandoah” (Winter 2022 | Volume: 67, Issue: 1)

Searching for “Shenandoah”

AH article image

Authors: Bruce Watson

Historic Era: Era 10: Contemporary United States (1968 to the present)

Historic Theme:

Subject:

Winter 2022 | Volume 67, Issue 1

trapper shenandoah
Among the various interpretations of "Oh Shenandoah" is one that describes an 18th-century trapper who travels down the Missouri River after courting the daughter of a Native American chief. Charles Deas, Wikimedia

Editor's Note: In 2016, Bruce Watson embarked on a journey across the east coast of America to uncover the roots of one of the country's most famous folk ballads, "Shenandoah." His search took him to Virginia, St. Louis, and Oneida, New York, where he interviewed Joan Shenandoah, the late Native American singer-songwriter and seventh-generation descendant of the chief who is thought to have inspired the original song (Shenandoah, who has been described as a matriarch of Indigenous music, passed away in November 2021). An abbreviated version of this article first ran on Watson's history blog, The Attic.

One morning during the brooding October of 2016, I found myself driving along the Miller’s River as it snaked through Western Massachusetts. The sun was a pale disc burning through gauze. The river was draped in mist that softened fall colors. As I sped along Route 2, shaded gorges gave way to ridges, soaring, plunging. I was bound for Boston, yet suddenly I felt westbound, as if I were crossing the Appalachians, headed for a better country, a country I used to know.

Moved by the scenery, I did what you should never do while driving. I took out my phone and began searching for a song. On my left, semis and pickups roared past, sending shudders through my small car. On my right, the river rushed. One slight swerve. . . But I drove on, searching. James Taylor. No. Norah Jones. Sorry…. Blues… Irish…. With hills and hollows as my deejay, I had a single song I had to hear. You know it. Above the din of our lives, you can hear it.

O Shenandoah,
 I long to see you
Away, you rollin’ river…
 

Forget, for a moment, all the would-be anthems written before or since. This land may be my land, but it had come to feel like someone else's. Some still sang "God Bless America," but dirges had lately doused my soul. It had been years since I felt at home anywhere in America, let alone on some range. And as for the dawn’s early light, who among us had seen it lately? But this song…

O Shenandoah
 I’ll not deceive you
Away, I’m bound away…
 

On that October morning, the song seemed to span centuries. As if bound across the wide Missouri, I drove deeper into a country I knew again. The road took me along the rolling river, then rose above quilts of birch and maple. The song ended, only to be played again with the flick of a thumb.

O Shenandoah,
 I long to see you…
 

I had always loved the song; it always brought me to tears. What I love most about “Shenandoah” is that no one knows who wrote it. We don’t know where in America