
Could be the (folk?) song "Clementine".  If memory serves, part of it goes:

   In a cavern, by a canyon,
   Excavating for a mine,
   Dwelt a miner, forty-niner,
   and his daughter, Clementine.

Anyone who watched Huckleberry Hound can sing you the chorus :-) 
Is there a story/real person behind the song?