North Dakota Is The Best

North Dakota Is The Best

(By J.E. Backman)

Come here and listen to this, my friend
And listen to it from beginning to end.
I was born in Europe's northern part
And from there I thought never to depart.

In the year of eighteen sixty-nine,
I emigrate'to the United States to find
A piece of land to make a home
Where I could live till I was old.

In the eastern hills I settled down
And there I worked my field and ground
I worked and worked, like a nigger all day.
I grubbed the trees and stumps away.

And when that work once was done,
And when the harvest came it wasn't too fun
To go in the hills and bind the wheat,
The chink bugs had ate so it was white as a sheet.

Of the country I got tired at last,
So one fair day I started for the west,
With but few dollars and some cent,
To the county of Burleigh went.

There in the county's northern part,
With my farming business I did start
No. 1 hard I raised evry year;
That is the place to live in, my dear.

If I was you, to North Dakota I would go,
For there is room enough for namy more.
There is plenty of coal and plenty of wood,
So you can always make a living good.

The soil is as good as can be,
And if you don't believe me come here and see,
Bring a girl with you and take a land
And make a home for yourself, my friend.

If you don't like the farming
Come out here and try the mining.
With that business you can afford
To live as good as a lord.

And this I say, to you, at last,
That North Dakota is the best
Of all the sunny lands of the west,
North Dakota is the very best.

A Slaughter Poet

The accompanying verses were written by Mr. J.E. Backman, a prosperous young farmer of the flourishing settlement of Slaughter, the coal emporium of northern Burleigh.

Mr. Backman, with his father, Mr. Eric Backman, after a trial of farming in Wisconsin, came to Claughter several years ago and both now own valuable homesteads there, which yielded them the last season several thousand bushels of grain.

The verses, as originally written in the Swede language, posessed much poetic merit, much of which is lost in the translation and the effort to rhyme in English.

--Bismark Daily Tribune Editor

Bismarck Daily Tribune, 1/8/1890