277-280. Regulator Songs
Ill
NORTH CAROLINA BALLADS
FROM BATTLE and murder, and from sudden death, the
ballad-maker has rarely prayed his muse to be delivered. Almost
all of the demonstrably or probably native ballads in the Frank C.
Brown Collection draw their themes from these three arch terrors.
The small remaining group is composed of satirical pieces.
One of the four Regulator songs (for which, as a group, the
reader is referred to the extensive headnote concerning them)
treats of a near-encounter between the Regulators and the King's
men at Hillsboro. The whole group suggests the discontents which
exploded at the Battle of Alamance in 1771. Similarly, 'The Rebel
Acts of Hyde' expresses grievances which set brother against
brother and neighbor against neighbor, as well as Southerner
against Northerner, in the American Civil War. 'As I Went Down
to Newbern' is a humorous acknowledgment of temporary discom-
fiture ending in boastful confidence in ultimate victory.
Local mishaps, disasters, and wrecks provided subjects for an-
other small group. 'The Brushy Mountain Freshet' and 'Man Killed
by Falling from a Horse' record, in dolorous language, obscure
neighborhood fatalities. According to reliable testimony, supported
by the fact of local occurrence, 'The Florence C. McGec,' a ballad
about a shipwreck on the coast of North Carolina, was composed
by an illiterate fisher boy who had a natural gift for numbers.
Professor Brown was of the opinion that a version of 'The Titanic'
was composed in Durham, and he regarded this as one of the most
interesting pieces in his collection. It is possible that a better sea
ballad, 'The Wreck of the Huron,' was the work of some Banks
bard who was impressed by this major naval disaster of the 1870s.
Local connections and the possibility of local origin may justify
placing here, too, the dramatic 'Song of Dailey's Life Boat.' 'The
Hamlet Wreck' was almost certainly composed by a Durham Negro,
with help, perhaps, from singers in the tobacco factories there.
Though not so memorable a piece as 'The Wreck of Old Ninety-
seven,' composed by Virginia ballad-makers about a disaster that
nearly concerned many North Carolinians, 'The Hamlet Wreck'
handles details of scene and emotion with naive realism. If the
testimony of the informant is correct, 'Edward Lewis' is another
railroad ballad of North Carolina origin.
642 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE
Murder (with one suicide) is the central fact in fifteen or more
native ballads. Three of these, 'Manley Pankey' and two pieces
about William S. Shackleford, concern themselves with ordinary
homicide. Both, however, derive some interest from the circum-
stances of composition and of rendition. The Shackleford pieces,
one a ballad, the other a "farewell," are interesting, too, for hav-
ing been remembered so well, an old Negro having been able to
write down from memory thirteen of the original fourteen stanzas
of the ballad, which was composed thirty years before. The ballad
and the facts surrounding the murder, the trial, and the execution
give a vivid little picture of North Carolina rural life fifty years
ago. Two of the ballads, 'Emma Hartsell' and 'Gladys Kincaid,'
relate stories of rape, murder, and lynching. 'The Lawson Murder'
tells of the extermination of a family by the insane father.
The most significant of the murder group are seven pieces hav-
ing to do with what present-day journalism denominates "sex
crimes." The most famous of these, 'Poor Naomi' ('Little Omie
Wise'), treating with humble drama and pathos the story of a
murder committed over a hundred years ago, has become a folk-
song heritage of almost national diffusion. Equally (in some ways
more) effective as ballad treatments of a man's murder of his sweet-
heart, though not so widely known, are the songs about Tom Dula
and Laura Foster. Both of these owe a part of their memorable-
ness to picturesque circumstances and characters. Though the
material of the pieces about Nellie Cropsey was equally sensational,
their unknown composer did not have the narrative skill of his
predecessors of the i86os. Ballads about Ellen Smith of Forsyth
county have been carried to other states. 'Frankie Silver' differs
from the other murderous-lover pieces in the important fact that
in it the woman kills the man. A stiff and dolorous composition,
perhaps never truly popular, 'Frankie Silver' is an unpleasantly
impressive confession. Comparatively it is an old folk song, and
the circumstances surrounding its cause celebre are primitive
Americana.
These native North Carolina ballads about casualties of the war
between the sexes recall the other American ballads of the same
sort in this collection — such as 'Florella' ('The Jealous Lover'),
'Frankie and Albert,' 'Little Mary Phagan,' 'On the Banks of the
Ohio.' The two groups will in turn recall such pieces of British
origin as 'The Gosport Tragedy' and 'The Bloody Miller,' broad-
sides on which the American ballads were largely modeled. In at
least twenty prime examples, running to perhaps a hundred versions
and variants, a jealous or annoyed or frightened husband or lover
beats to death, shoots, stabs, or drowns the beloved. And examples
of this occurrence are not lacking in the older traditional balladry
of England, Scotland, and Ireland: 'Lord Thomas and Fair Annet'
NORTH CAROLINA BALLADS 643
(in which his lordship cuts off the brown girl's head, 'and stove it
agin the wall'), 'Young Hunting' (in which the jealous mistress
gets her man), "Polly Van,' or 'The Shooting of His Dear' (in
which the homicide is accidental — Johnny Randal 'taken her for a
swan'), and, perhaps most notorious of all, 'Little Musgrave and
Lady Barnard' (in which Lord Thomas 'pulled her on his knee . . .
and split her head into twine'). All of these pieces, the native, the
American, and the British, are abundantly represented in the Frank
C. Brown Collection.
Comparison of the number of the native pieces on this theme
with the number of similar pieces from any other one state, as
represented by collections from Missouri, Mississippi, Indiana,
Michigan. Ohio, Florida, and West Virginia, shows a clear pre-
ponderance for North Carolina. And the North Carolina native
pieces are equally well supported by pieces from other sources.
This preponderance raises an interesting question : How account
for the relative frequency of the theme and the evidence of its
popularity in North Carolina?
One answer may be : The North Carolina collection is a big one.
Therefore, assuming that North Carolina domestic manners and
taste in folk poetry are normal as compared with those of other
Americans, one might expect to find a large number of sex-murder
ballads. There may be something to this reply. But perhaps it is
not the whole truth about the matter.
Most of the native ballads report verifiable homicides in North
Carolina — the murder of Omie Wise, Charlie Silver, Laura Foster,
Ellen Smith. Nell Cropsey. Surely it would not be argued that
North Carolina husbands and lovers are more murderous than those
of neighboring states, or that there are in North Carolina more
women in need of killing !
Perhaps the answer may be approached on the level of taste
rather than on that of sociological and criminological statistics
and analysis. And though the explanation cannot be made definitive,
it may at least mitigate a charge often made against North Caro-
linians, that they are more realistic and less sentimental than their
neighbors.
The nineteenth-century romanticists believed that the death of a
young girl is the best subject for pure pathos. Wordsworth, in the
'Lucy Poems' ; Lamb, in 'Hester' ; DeQuincey, in The English Mail
Coach ; Scott, in 'Proud Maisie' ; Landor, in 'Iphigeneia' and 'Rose
Aylmer' ; Byron, in the Haidee episode of Don Jiian ; Keats, in
'Isabella' — all these and others demonstrated the point. Poe ex-
emplified it in 'Annabel Lee' and 'The Raven,' and formulated it
as an aesthetic principle. Browning, in 'Evelyn Hope' and 'Por-
phyria's Lover' ; Tennyson, in 'The Lady of Shalott' ; Arnold, in
'Requiescat' — these Victorians followed the romantic tradition.
Oscar Wilde asserted pessimistically, "Each man kills the thing he
644 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE
loves." (No cynic would suggest that North Carolinians belong
to the class of great lovers who illustrate the paradox!)
Now, most of the victims in the North Carolina murder ballads
are represented as young, innocent, and beautiful women. In fact,
some of them are purer and lighter than air, and have a natural
tendency to go up like angels or balloons.
It is possible that North Carolinians, in spite of their boasted plain
manners and blunt speech, their freedom from the alleged foppish
gallantry of Virginians and the reputed Gallic volatility of South
Carolinians; inconsistently with their predilection for a diversified
economy and a balanced budget ; in contrast to their realism and
common sense — it is possible that North Carolinians are at heart
more romantic than they have been supposed to be. They admire
to watch the moving spectacle of
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand
The downward slope to death.
When the homely balladist sings his invitation :
Come all good people, I'd have you draw near ;
A sorrowful story you quickly shall hear —
they like to step forward. And, also, edified by a proper good-
night, they like to spring the guilty scoundrel off the gallows. Per-
haps they have more than their share of rustic bards, fiddlers,
banjo-pickers, and dulcimer players capable of ballad-making.
The muse of North Carolina folk, "hamely in attire," is capable
of treating passing events in the spirit of comedy or the mood of
satire. The songs of the Regulators, though touching upon oppres-
sion and oppressors, employ the method of ridicule rather than the
tone of invective that dominates 'The Rebel Acts of Hyde.' Besides
these pieces, there is another group of native ballads that belabor
the trouble-makers with the clown's coxcomb.
'Shu Lady' is from that early mountain cradle of North Carolina
folklore, the Fisher's River country, made famous of old by "Skitt,
who lived thar." Long after Skitt's time, fish traps on the Yadkin
and Fisher's River were a precious means of livelihood for men like
Pleas Chandler and Jeremiah Phillips and an affront to their
amateur hook-and-line neighbors. Thus, when
Squire Brown says, 'Boys,
Come go along with me ;
We'll tear out all the mud-sills.
And let the fish go free,'
trouble came galloping to the forks of Yadkin and Fisher's. The
ensuing neighborhood fracas on the river bank and the lawsuit fol-
lowing that were seized upon by "a sort of Amazon or virago"
with the appropriate name of Lawless and woven into a ballad
chorally trimmed with another song she had made up about a
NORTH CAROLINA BALLADS 645
"chiseling" storekeeper. This song the Reverend Andrew Burrus
still trolled, with banjo accompaniment, in the 1920s.
Whereas "whiskey for the crowd" flavored the attack on Pleas
and Jeremiah's fish trap, it is the chief ingredient of three satirical
ballads on prohibition enforcement — two of them from the black
lands of Eastern North Carolina, the third from the big-mountain
country. 'Prohibition Boys' and 'Prohibition Whiskey,' both prob-
ably from the hand of Marshal Laughinghouse, tell sprightly stories
about men who vote dry and drink wet. 'Blockader's Trail,' by
Henry D. Holsclaw, is a rollicking ballad about a sheriff and his
deputy who arrest blockaders, raid a still, pile themselves, their
prisoners, and their spoils into a Ford, and in a spirit of bluff
camaraderie get drunk, along with their captives, en route to the
county jail. Composed by a versifier who knows "singlings" and
"backings," as well as the table d'hote of a mountain jail, somewhat
better than he knows the metrics of ballad quatrain, 'Blockader's
Trail' is another expose of the farce of prohibition in a state which
Will Rogers prophesied, will remain dry as long as the electorate
can stagger to the polls.
Regulator Songs
Nos. 277-80
One of the earliest phases of North Carolina history that pro-
duced verse in folk-song style recorded with accompanying evidence
of popular acceptance and oral circulation was the Regulator
movement.
Beginning about 1765 in the counties of Anson, Orange, and
Granville, the movement spread over the middle and western coun-
ties of the province, then the frontier or backwoods country of
North Carolina. "The grievances of the Regulators were excessive
taxes, dishonest sheriffs, and extortionate fees."^ One clerk of a
superior court was said to have "charged $15 for a marriage license;
and the consequence was that some of the inhabitants on the head
waters of the Yadkin took a short cut. They took each other for
better or for worse; and considered themselves as married without
any further ceremony."^ Payment of taxes and fees was rendered
difficult by scarcity of currency. One farmer who took forty bushels
of wheat to Fayetteville was able to get only one shilling in cash
of the market price of five shillings per bushel ; the remaining four
shillings' value he had to accept in salt or some other commodity.^
^ J. S. Bassett, "The Regulators of North Carolina (1765-1771),"
Avierican Historical Association Report, 1894, p. 150.
^ Rev. E. W. Caruthers. A Sketch of the Life and Character of the
Rev. David Caldwell, D.D. . . . Including . . . Some Account of the
Regulation. . . . (Greensborough, N. C, 1842), p. 114.
''Ibid., p. 113.
646 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE
On October 10, 1766, protestants against these conditions held a
meeting at Maddock's Mills, near Hillsboro, "to examine judiciously
whether the freemen in this country labor under any abuses of
power. . . . While the first delegates that arrived . . . were waiting
for . . , the others, Col. Fanning [clerk of the superior court at
Hillsboro], who was particularly odious to the people, sent out
James Watson to denounce or forbid the meeting ; but they pro-
ceeded to business" and drew up a set of resolutions for Watson
to take back to Fanning.'* By 1768 the movement, now entitled
"The Regulation," began to assume the character of a popular up-
rising. When leaders were arrested and thrown into jail, the
Regulators rose en masse to liberate them. The new governor,
William Tryon, assembled militia from the eastern counties to sup-
press the uprising and protect the courts. For a while the Regula-
tors dispersed and took cover.
In 1769 suits against extortionate officials having failed to bring
relief and Governor Tryon's promised reforms having come to
naught, "the resistance took the form of driving local justices from
the bench and threatening the officials of the courts with violence."^
At the September 1770 term of the Superior Court at Hillsboro:
"Several persons styling themselves Regulators assembled together
in the court yard under the conduct of Harmon Husband, James
Hunter, Rednap Howel, William Butler, Samuel Divinny, and many
others, insulted some of the gentlemen of the bar, and in a riotous
manner went into the courthouse and forcibly carried out some of
the attorneys and in a cruel manner beat them. They then insisted
that the Judge (Richard Henderson . . .) should proceed to the
trial of their leaders who had been indicted at a former court, and
that the jury should be taken out of their party. Therefore the
Judge finding it impossible to proceed with honor to himself and
justice to his country, adjourned the court 'til tomorrow at 10
o'clock; and took advantage of the night and made his escape, and
the court adjourned to meet in course."^ On the same day the
Regulators whipped Fanning and, the following morning, repeated
the dose and demolished his house. In the November following.
Judge Henderson's barns, stables, and dwelling house were burned."
Ordering the arrest of the leaders of this outrage. Governor
Tryon made energetic preparations for a military expedition to
Orange county. At the battle of Alamance, fought on May 16,
1771, the comparatively well-equipped and well-led forces of the
governor put the half-armed and leaderless Regulators to flight.
* Ibid., pp. 109-12.
" S. C. Williams, "Regulators of North Carolina," Dictionary oj
American History, ed. J. T. Adams (New York, 1940), iv, 439-40-
*Caruthers, op. cit., pp. 131-2, quoting court records.
^ Williams, op. cit., iv, 440.
NORTH CAROLINA BALLADS 647
They caught and hanged seven of the leaders, and thus crushed the
movement.*^
Folk-song treatments of these events have three early recordings.''*
(i) The earliest occurs in "memoranda of Hillsboro Supreme Court
by the Clerk of said Court, July 5, 1819," discovered by Julian P.
Boyd in 1927. Three Regulator songs are included. (2) These
three appear again — one in full (with slight verbal variations), one
in part, and one with an extra stanza — together with a fourth
song not in the "memoranda." in the Reverend E. W. Caruthers'
Sketch of the Life and Character of the Rev. David Caldwell, D.D.
These two recordings have, in part at least, a common source. The
"Clerk of the Court" indicates that he got his three songs "from
Joseph Macpherson near Winston." Caruthers cites MacPherson
[j/c] as his informant for only one of the four he quotes ('When
Fanning First to Orange Came') ;^" but he quotes MacPherson fre-
quently in other connections and also cites as one of his sources of
information about the history of the Regulation "an account fur-
nished me by Dr. Mitchell of the University, which he obtained in
July 1819, twenty-three years ago, from Joseph McPherson [_sic'\,
near Salem, in Stokes county.''^^ (3) The third recording appears
in a letter, from a correspondent who signs himself "Regulator," to
the Raleigh Register and North-Carolina Gazette of June 2, 1826.
The three songs contained therein correspond closely to the three
copied by the "Clerk of Court" in his "memoranda."
* The following ex parte account of the battle was published in the
London Gentleman's Magazine of June 1771 :
"Newburn, N. C. May 24, 1771 : His excellency, the Governor, having
reached Hillsborough with about 1300 troops found the Regulators were
about forty miles above him, embodied and in arms. He immediately
marched to attack them, in case they should refuse to comply with the
terms he offered them, which were to give up their principals, lay down
their arms and swear allegiance to his Majesty. On the i6th inst. after
being within a mile of them, his Excellency received a messenger with
terms for an accommodation but they being wholly inadmissible, he
marched to within a small distance of them, and formed in one line about
half his men, the other half forming a second line at about 200 yards
distance by way of reserve. The Regulators, to the number of at least
2500, immediately formed within twenty to thirty paces, and behaved
in a daring and desperate manner. His Excellency again proffered terms
to them, which they spurned at, and cried out for battle ! His Ex-
cellency then immediately ordered the signal of battle to be given, which
was a discharge of the artillery. When instantly ensued a very heavy
firing on both sides for near two hours and a half. When the Regulators
being hard pressed by our men, and sorely galled by the artillery, gave
way on all sides, and were pursued to the distance of a mile through
the woods. The killed on our side do not exceed ten and the wounded
are about fifty, but on the Regulators 300 were found dead on the field
next morning and a very great number wounded."
" One of these is from the Frank C. Brown Collection. The other
two were found in research by A. P. Hudson.
'" Op. cit., p. 116.
" Ibid., p. 112.
648 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE
The Regulators, wrote Caruthers, "had almost as many songs as
the people have now [c. 1842] before a presidential election. —
Rednap Howell, who is said to have been from New Jersey and who
taught a common school somewhere on Deep River, in Chatham
county, was the bard of the day ; and composed about 40 songs,
some fragments of which still remain. "^^ In footnotes Caruthers
quotes two of Howell's songs as examples. ^^ Howell's name appears
frequently in the narratives of the Regulators. He was among
those who broke up the Hillsboro court in September 1770. After
the battle of Alamance he was outlawed, "not for his fighting, but
for his songs, "^■^ along with Harmon Husband, James Hunter, and
William Butler, "and a reward of £100 and 1000 acres of land was
promised to any person who would bring in either of them, dead
or alive; but neither of them was ever taken."^'"* A letter from
Howell to James Hunter, dated Halifax, February 16, 1771, and
dealing with an unsuccessful effort of Governor Tryon to persuade
a force of militia to march against the Regulators,^*' shows Howell
to have been a person of spirit and energy, with a good education.
He is probably the author of all four of the following Regulator
songs. ^'^
277
When Fanning First to Orange Came
Edmund Fanning was born on Long Island to a family of wealth,
education, and high social standing. He is said to have been
graduated from Yale College in 1757. Beginning his North Caro-
lina career as an attorney at Hillsboro, he became a county colonel,
clerk of the superior court, member of the assembly, and a favorite
of Governor Tryon. A man of fine address and ability, he regarded
public ofllice in the province as a means to enrich himself. Indicted
by the Regulators at a term of the Hillsboro court "for extortion in
six cases, he was found guilty in all, notwithstanding the partiality
of the court ; and was fined, in each case, one penny. . . ."^^ Having
^^ Ibid., p. 129.
^^ Ibid., pp. 129-30.
" Ibid., p. 163.
^'Ibid., p. 157-
^"Quoted in Hugh Williamson's History of North Carolina (Philadel-
phia, 1812), ir, 269-71.
" "Where he went after the battle [of Alamance] is not known"
(Colonial Records, viii, xxvi). In its session of Saturday, Dec. 7, 1771,
the General Assembly passed the following resolution : "On motion,
Resolved that his Excellency the Governor be addressed to grant a Gen-
eral Pardon to all Persons concerned in the late Insurrection, Except,
Herman Husband, Rednap Howell, and William Butler, the House being
of Opinion the Crimes of these men are too atrocious to merit any de-
gree of Lenity. . . ."
^* Caruthers, op. cit., p. 117.
NORTH CAROLINA BALLADS 649
"laced his coat with gold," he was among the most energetic and
inveterate opponents of the Regulators, and consequently one of the
chief objects of their derision and vengeance.
One stanza of a song about Fanning was discovered by Julian P.
Boyd, then of Alliance, Pamlico county, in 1927, and contributed
to the Frank C. Brown Collection with this note: "Song copied in
memoranda of Hillsboro Supreme Court by Clerk of Said Court
July 5, 1819, who got it from Joseph Macpherson near Winston.
Macpherson came to Carolina in 1765, settled in Chatham. He
heard this song at a wedding soon after his arrival and before he
knew anything of the person mentioned."
The same stanza with an additional one was included by Caruth-
ers, who stated : "Fanning and others, who had . . . become ob-
noxious to the people, were made the subjects of ridicule or of
merriment by the wits and wags of the day; and, as is usual in
such cases, caricatures and pasquinades abounded." To this state-
ment he adds, in a footnote: "Some fragments of the poetic effusions
then common in the country are here given as matters of curiosity;
and as shewing the manner and spirit of the times. The following,
MacPherson says he heard sung at a wedding when he first came
into Chatham, in 1765; and before he knew any thing of the indi-
vidual to whom it refers. "^^*
When Fanning first to Orange came
He looked both pale and w^an,
An old patched coat upon his back
An old mare he rode on.
Both man and mare wa'nt worth five pounds
As I've been often told
But by his civil robberies
He's laced his coat with gold.^^
The same song appears as 'Canzone II,' from "Regulator," Raleigh
Register and North-Carolina Gazette, June 2, 1826.
-----------------------------
279
Says Frohock to Fanning
There is no musical score to any of the 'Regulator Songs.' But, knowing
the habit of people to use familiar melodies when expressing themselves in
poetic terms of whatever description — we need only remember the creation of
our national anthem — the present editor risks an assumption which, however,
musically speaking is certainly supported by the fact that the melody fits the
text. An added reason is the close relationship of "Says Richard to Robin"
with "Says Fanning to Frohock" in the North Carolina ballad. The former
occurs in a ballad 'Hunting the Wren,' or 'Let Us Go to the Woods' quoted in
SCB 165 and JFSS, vol. v, 77-8. As this song is of considerable age, was very
popular, and is still known and sung in England today, it would not be unlikely
that the author of the poem used this melody as the vehicle for his words.