Lickskillet Farm: 1830s Roswell Tavern

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Roswell King has his maps down by the creek.
He has his lines drawn neat for a future street.
He dreams in brick and water wheels, a proper, planned-out town.
But up here, the only plan is the sun going down.
The timber sweats with last night's rain.
The floor is packed earth, holds every stain.
Eighteen thirty-something. The calendar is mud on a boot heel.
This is the only thing that's real.

[Verse 2]
The mill boys come with dust in their throats.
Travelers from the stagecoach, shedding their coats.
They bring news of panics and politics, lies from the capital.
We trade it all for a story and a pull from the jug.
They share a bed upstairs, stranger next to stranger.
No privacy from the cold, or the common danger.
Just the heat from the hearth and the smell of stew in an iron pot.
It's all they have. It's all we've got.

[Chorus]
They call this place Lickskillet.
Not a name for a gentleman's book.
But a man comes in from the dark, hungry and broken.
And by God, he'll lick the skillet clean.
Yeah, a soul comes in from the wilderness, empty and frozen.
And he'll warm his hands and lick the skillet clean.

[Verse 3]
This ain't just a tavern. It's the post.
It's the courthouse when the magistrate is lost.
It's the polling place where a man makes his mark with a shaky hand.
The first true map of this whole land.
Roswell King's company script ain't worth much here.
What's worth something is a story, sharp and clear.
What's worth something is a shared bowl, a roof that mostly holds.
Protection from the coming cold.

[Bridge]
That creek will turn his wheels, I know.
The company houses will stand in a row.
This place will be a footnote, a funny name somebody said.
A ghost that lives inside their head.
But a town isn't lines on a piece of paper.
A town is the fire that cuts the vapor
of a cold morning. It's the first warm room a man can find.
The place he leaves the wild behind.

[Outro]
Lickskillet Farm.
Another log on the fire.