The Strychnine Banjo: Jake Wallace & Lotta Crabtree

At the 2017 Banjo Gathering, CW Bayer presented the wild history of banjos out west. His book The Strychnine Banjo, follows the accounts of Charlet Roades and Jake Wallace's exploits from the 1850s to about 1910.  Below is an except, describing Jake Wallace playing banjo to accompany Lotta Crabtree in Virginia City in 1863.

​During 1862 and early 1863, Jake Wallace played with some of the major San Francisco minstrels stars at McGuire’s Opera House and the Eureka Music Hall. During the summer of 1863, in Virginia City at the Virginia Melodeon on C Street, he accompanied Lotta Crabtree as she sang a Mart Taylor lyric, “Bound for the Land of Washoe:"  

Bound For The Land Of Washoe (Words: probably Mart Taylor, 1863)

Exciting times all around the town,
Glory, Glory to Washoe.
Stocks are up and stocks are down.
Glory to old Washoe.

Washoe! Washoe!
Bound for the land of Washoe,
And I owned three feet in the “Old Dead Beat,”
And I’m bound for the land of Washoe.

​There is the big Gould and Curry, and the Great Wide West,
Glory, Glory to Washoe.
O! I think they are the largest and the best.
Glory to old Washoe.

There is the Yellow Jacket tunnel, and my Mary Ann,
Glory, Glory to Washoe.
Oh, Johnny, how is your dog, or any other man,
Glory to old Washoe.

Oh, see the crowd on Montgomery Street,
Glory, Glory to Washoe.
Everybody is talking feet,
Glory to old Washoe. ​​

     Founded in 1859 and the site of a huge gold and silver lode, Virginia City teemed with young men and was a wild place. One night a local fireman, Louis La Page, shot out the footlights as the performers ran out the back of the stage. Then, one of the stagehands stole all their instruments:

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