Chestnut Mountain

I was a boy
Not over knee high
When I first went to Chestnut
The homeplace up on a mountainside

The place where my grandpa
Lived as a child
There once was a farm there
Some years they barely got by

They cut down the chestnuts
Cursing the blight
Sold them for tanbark
That’s all you could do when they died

All that’s left
are the graves on a hill
A couple of chimneys
standing there now
Memories float in back of my mind I wanna go back in time

Years went on by
As years always do
Even on Chestnut
Life changed a lot up there too

They moved off the mountain
‘Til no one was there
Except for great grandma
And the home they all had once shared

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Homesites were offered up
If you qualify
But they can’t take our homeplace
No matter how hard they may try

Now there’s an iron gate
At the foot of the hill
They locked up old Chestnut
But voices are singing there still

chorus