Shifting Things For A Change

If Salmon River ere should turn and flow the other way,

And Warner’s dock and Scoville’s block should move across the bay;

If that fair mansion o’er the cove were ferried opposite,

And Mt. Tom shifted upside down and sharpened off a bit,

I haven’t any doubt at all that folks would think it strange,

But what delight it would invite because ‘twould be a change.

If Moodus should be shifted round to where East Haddam lies,

And Goodspeeds moved to Waterhole, and weeded down to size;

If valley trains should skim adown where now the steamboat sails,

And all the boats should fly along upon the iron rails,

Then folks would talk and say it was a queer way to arrange,

But smile they would and call it good because ‘twould be a change.

If all the old maids in the town should get themselves a man,

And Black Sam’s obliging cook hitch up a lively span;

If all the little knolls around were whittled down like corns,

And all the members of the band blew soft and sweeter horns,

I feel assured the town would grow and spread from range to range,

And folks would say, “O, bless the day, that brought us such a change.”

If all the rich men in the town should suddenly be poor,

And all the poor men rake it in and hold it thus secure;

If all the “tickler” in the town should turn to water flat,

And every Dem. become a Pub. and every Pub. a ‘Crat,

‘Twould be discussed in every lodge, and grocery and grange,

And some would like and others strike because of such a change.

July 12, ‘92

Pub. in Ct. Advertiser, Moodus

Black Sam – While I don’t find any record of an establishment by that name, the term seems to have been a common one referring to black cooks in general. Samuel Fraunces was a New York City restaurateur in NYC during the revolutionary era who was called by that name as he was from the West Indies, although it’s not entirely clear, was probably white. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Fraunces The name would have been by association? Additionally the following comes from ‘A Question of Manhood: A Reader in U.S. Black Men's History and Masculinity, Vol. 2: The 19th Century: From Emancipation to Jim Crow (Blacks in the Diaspora) (Volume 2)’, Jul 12, 2001, by Darlene Clark Hine and Earnestine L. Jenkins:

“tickler” – presumably this is referring to soda or ice cream soda, which ‘tickles the palate’ and/or actually tickles the throat?