BALLADS OF CRIMINALS AND OUTLAWS
64. Jesse James 145
65. Charles Guiteau 146
66. Sam Bass 149
67. Jack Williams 152
68. Young Mcfee 153
69. My Bonny Black Bess 155
70. Turpin And The Lawyer 157
71. Jack Donahoo 158
72. Captain Kidd 160
---------------------------
SONGS OF CRIMINALS AND OUTLAWS
64. (A) JESSE JAMES
How the people held their breath
When they heard of Jesse's death,
And wondered how he came to die,
For the big reward little Robert Ford
Shot Jesse James on the sly.
Jesse leaves a widow to mourn all her life,
The children he left will pray
For the thief and the coward
Who shot Mr. Howard
And laid Jesse James in his grave.
Jesse was a man,
A friend to the poor,
Never did he suffer a man's pain;
And with his brother Frank
He robbed the Chicago bank,
And stopped the Glendale train.
Jesse goes to rest
With his hand on his breast,
And the devil will be upon his knees;
He was born one day in the county of Clay,
And came from a great race.
Men when you go out to the West,
Don't be afraid to die;
With the law in their hand,
But they didn't have the sand
For to take Jesse James alive.
(B) JESSE JAMES
Jesse James was a man, and he had a robber band;
And he nagged down the eastern bound train.
Robert Ford watched his eye,
And he shot him on the sly,
And they laid Jesse James in his grave.
Poor old Jesse, poor old Jesse James, And they laid Jesse James in his grave. Robert Ford's pistol ball, Brought him tumbling from the wall, And they laid Jesse James in his grave. Jesse James' little wife
Was a moaner all her life,
When they laid Jesse James in his grave.
She earned her daily bread
By her needle and her thread,
When they laid Jesse James in his grave.
65
(A) CHARLES GUITEAU or JAMES A. GARFIELD
Come all you tender Christians, Wherever you may be, And likewise pay attention
To these few lines from me.
For the murder of t{amesJAJjarfield_
I am condemned to die,
On the thirtieth day of June
Upon the scaffold high.
My name is Charles Guiteau, My name I'll ne'er deny. I leave my aged parents In sorrow for to die. But little did they think, While in my youthful bloom, I'd be taken to the scaffold To meet my earthly doom. 'Twas down at the station I tried to make my escape, But Providence being against me There proved to be no show. They took me off to prison While in my youthful bloom To be taken to the scaffold To meet my earthly doom. r /
I tried to be insane But I found it ne'er would do, The people were all against me, To escape there was no clue. Judge Cox, he read my sentence, His clerk he wrote it down, I'd be taken to the scaffold To meet my earthly doom. My sister came to see me,
To bid a last farewell.
She threw her arm around me
And wept most bitterly.
She says, "My darling brother,
This day you must cruelly die
For the murder of James A. Garfield
Upon the scaffold high."
(B) THE DEATH OF BENDALL
Come all ye tender Christians and hearken unto me, And kindly pay attention to these few words from me. For the murder of young Bendall I am condemned to die;
On the fourteenth of November I mount the gallows high.
My name is J. S. Birchell, my name I'll never deny. I leave my aged parents in sorrow for to die; It's little did I think when in my childhood home, I'd be taken to the scaffold to meet my fatal doom. Now Bendall he was young and in the prime of life, To come out here to Canada to lead an honest life; But Birchell he betrayed him, he led him to the swamp, And there he drew his pistol and Bendall he did drop.
My wife she came to see me, to bid her last farewell. She threw her arms around me and wept most bitterly; Said she, "My darling husband, tomorrow you must die For the murder of young Bendall you mount the scaffold high."
He tried to play off innocent, but he found it was no go. The people turned against him and proved to give no show.
And when those words were spoken, those words "Thy
will be done," The trap door, it was opened, and Birchell he was hung.
66
SAM BASS
Sam Bass was born in Indiana, it was his native home, And at the age of seventeen young Sam began to roam. Sam first came out to Texas a cowboy for tmh^— A kinder-hearted fellow you seldom ever see. Sam used to deal in race stock, one called the Denton mare,
He matched her in scrub races, and took her to the fair.
Sam used to coin the money and epent it just as free,
He always drank good whiskey wherever he might be.
Sam left the Collins ranch in the merry month of May With a herd of Texas cattle the Black Hills for to see, Sold out in Custer City and then got on a spree,— A harder set of cowboys you seldom ever see. On their way back to Texas they robbed the U. P. train,
And then split up in couples and started out again. Joe Collins and his partner were overtaken soon, With all their hard-earned money they had to meet their doom. Sam made it back to Texas all right side up with care; Rode into the town of Denton with all his friends to share.
I Sam's life was short in Texas; three robberies did he do, He robbed all the passenger, mail, and express car3 too.
Sam had four companions—four bold and daring lads— They were Richardson, Jackson, Joe Collins, and Old Dad;
Four more bold and daring cowboys the rangers never knew,
They whipped the Texas rangers and ran the boys in blue.
Sam had another companion, called Arkansas for short,
Was shot by a Texas ranger by the name of Thomas Floyd;
0, Tom is a big six-footer and thinks he's mighty fly, But I can tell you his racket,—he's a deadbeat on the sly.
Jim Murphy was arrested, and then released on bail; He jumped his bond at Tyler and then took the train for Terrell;
But Mayor Jones had posted Jim and that was all a stall,
'Twas only a plan to capture Sam before the coming of fall.
Sam met his fate at Round Rock, July the twentyfirst,
They pierced poor Sam with rifle balls and emptied out his purse.
Poor Sam he is a corpse and six foot under clay, And Jackson's in the bushes trying to get away. Jim had borrowed Sam's good gold and didn't want to pay,
The only shot he saw was to give poor Sam away. He sold out Sam and Barnes and left their friends to mourn,—
0 what a scorching Jim will get when Gabriel blows his horn.
And so he Bold out Sam and Barnes and left their
friends to mourn, 0 what a scorching Jim will get when Gabriel blows
his horn.
Perhaps he's got to heaven, there's none of us can say, But if I'm right in my surmise he's gone the other way.
JACK WILLIAMS
I am a boatman by trade, Jack Williams is my name, And by a false deluding girl Was brought to grief and shame. On Chatton street I did reside, Where the people did me know; I fell in love with a pretty pretty girl, She proved my overthrow. I took to robbing night and day, All to maintain her fine and gay. What I got I valued not But I gave to her straightway. At last to Newgate I was brought, Bound down in irons strong. With rattling chains around my legs, She longed to see me hang. I wrote a letter to my love Some comfort for to find. Instead of proving a friend to me She proved to me unkind. And in a scornful manner said
"I hate your company, And as you have made your bed, young man, Down on it you may lie."
There is a heaven above us all
And it proved kind to me; I broke my chains and scaled the walls, And gained sweet liberty.
Now I am at liberty,
A solemn vow I'll take; I'll shun all evil company For that false woman's sake.
68
YOUNG McFEE
Come all my friends and listen to me, While I relate a sad and mournful history. On this day I'll tell to thee The story of young McFee. I scarce had reached to my fifth year
Before my father and mother dear
Both in their silent graves were laid
By He whom first their beings gave.
I took unto myself a wife.
She'd be living yet, there is no doubt,
If I had not met Miss Hattie Stout.
My wife was lying on the bed
When I approached her and said,
"Dear wife, here is some medicine I have brought,
That I for you this day have bought.
Pray take it, do, it will cure you
Of those vile fits. Pray take it, do."
She gave to me one loving look
And in her mouth the poison took.
Down on her bed low with her babe,
Down to her last long sleep she laid.
I fearing that she was not dead
My hands upon her throat I laid,
And there such deep impression made
That her soul from sorrow quicker fled,
And my heart was filled with woe.
I cried, "0 whither shall I go?
How can I leave this mournful place,
This world again how can I pace?
Had I ten thousand pounds, I'd give To bring her back again to live, To bring her back again to life, My dear, my darling murdered wife."
69
MY BONNY BLACK BESS
Let the lover his mistress's beauty rehearse, And laud her attractions in languishing verse; Be it mine in rude strain but with truth to express The love that I bear to my Bonny Black Bess. From the West was her dam, from the East was her sire;
From the one came her swiftness, the other her fire; No peer of the realm better blood can possess Than flows in the blood of my Bonny Black Bess. Look! Look! how that eyeball glows bright as a brand, That neck proudly arching, those nostrils expand; Mark that wide flowing mane, of which each silky tress Might adorn prouder beauties, though none like Black Bess. Mark that skin sleek as velvet and dusky as night, With its jet undisfigured by one lock of white, That throat branched with veins, prompt to charge or caress, Now is she not beautiful, bonny Black Bess?
Over highway and byway, in rough or smooth weather, Some thousands of miles have we journeyed together;
Our couch the same straw, our meals the same mess, No couple more constant than I and Black Bess. By moonlight, in darkness, by night and by day Her headlong career there is nothing can stay; She cares not for distance, she knows not distress. Can you show me a courser to match with Black Bess? Once it happened in Cheshire, near Durham, I popped On a horseman alone whom I suddenly stopped; That I lightened his pockets you'll readily guess— Quick work makes Dick Turpin when mounted on Bess. Now it seems the man knew me: "Dick Turpin," said he,
"You shall swing for this job, as you live, d'ye see?" I laughed at his threats and his vows of redress— I was sure of an alibi then with Black Bess. Brake, brook, meadow, and ploughed field Bess fleetly bestrode;
As the crow wings his flight we selected our road. We arrived at Hough Green in five minutes or less, My neck it was saved by the speed of Black Bess. Stepping carelessly forward I lounge on the green, Taking excellent care that by all I am seen; Some remarks on time's flight to the squires I address; But I say not a word of the flight of Black Bess. I mention the hour—it is just about four, Play a rubber at bowls, think the danger is o'er, When athwart my next game like a checkmate in chess Comes the horseman in search of the rider of Bess. What matter details? Off with triumph I came. He swears to the hour and the squires swear the same. I had robbed him at four, while at four, they profess I was quietly bowling—all thanks to Black Bess. Then one halloo, boys, one loud cheering halloo, For the swiftest of coursers, the gallant, the true, For the sportsman inborn shall the memory bless Of the horse of the highwaymen, Bonny Black Bess. 70
TURPIN AND THE LAWYER
As Turpin was riding across a moor, There he saw a lawyer riding on before. Turpin riding up to him, said, "Are you not afraid To meet Dick Turpin, that mischievous blade?" Singing Eh ro, Turpin I ro.
Says Turpin to the lawyer for to be cute,
"I hid my money into my boot."
Says the lawyer to Turpin, "He can't find mine,
For I hid it in the cape of my coat behind."
They rode along together to the foot of the hill, When Turpin bid the lawyer to stand still, Saying, "The cape of your coat it must come off, For my horse is in want of a new saddle-cloth." Turpin robbed the lawyer of all his store, He told him to go home and he would get more, "And the very first town that you come in, You can tell them you was robbed by Dick Turpin." 71
JACK DONAHOO
Come all you bold undaunted men, you outlaws of the day,
It's time to beware of the ball and chain and also slavery.
Attention pay to what I say, and verily if you do,
I will relate you the actual fate of bold Jack Donahoo.
He had scarcely landed as I tell you, upon Australia's shore,
Than he became a real highwayman, as he had been before.
There was Underwood and Mackerman, and Wade
and Westley too, These were the four associates of bold Jack Donahoo.
Jack Donahoo who was so brave, rode out that afternoon,
Knowing not that the pain of death would overtake him soon.
So quickly then the horse police from Sidney came to view;
"Begone from here, you cowardly dogs," says bold Jack Donahoo. The captain and the sergeant stopped then to decide. "Do you intend to fight us or unto us resign?" "To surrender to such cowardly dogs is more than I will do, This day I'll fight if I lose my life," says bold Jack Donahoo. The captain and the sergeant the men they did divide; They fired from behind him and also from each side; It's six police he did shoot down before the fatal ball Did pierce the heart of Donahoo and cause bold Jack to fall.
And when he fell he closed his eyes, he bid the world adieu;
Come, all you boys, and sing the song of bold Jack Donahoo.
72
CAPTAIN KIDD
"My parents taught me well, as I sailed, as I sailed, To shun the gates of hell as I sailed. I cursed my father dear, and her that did me bear, And so wickedly did swear, as I sailed, as I sailed, And so wickedly did swear, as I sailed. "I'd a Bible in my hand, when I sailed, when I sailed, But I sunk it in the sand as I sailed. I made a solemn vow, to God I would not bow, Nor myself one prayer allow, when I sailed, when I sailed, Nor myself one prayer allow, when I sailed.
"I murdered William Moore as I sailed, as I sailed, And left him in his gore as I sailed, And being cruel still, my gunner did I kill, And much precious blood did spill, as I sailed, as I sailed, And much precious blood did spill as I sailed.
"My name was Robert Kidd as I sailed, as I sailed, My name was Robert Kidd, as I sailed. My name was Robert Kidd, God's laws I did forbid, And so wickedly I did, as I sailed, as I sailed, And so wickedly I did as I sailed!"
--------------------
NOTES:
64. Jesse James. Text known to Professor Reed Smith (1920) of the University of South Carolina, as current in that region. The second text is from Iowa, and was secured by L. C. Wimberly of the University of Nebraska in 1916. A local ballad which is an adaptation of Jesse James is The Assassinatioh of J. B. Mar cum, printed by William Aspinwall Bradley in "Song-Ballets and Devil's Ditties," Harper's Magazine, May, 1915, p. 901. The origin of Jesse James is unknown. It is possible that it is itself an adaptation.
65. (A) Charles Guiteau. Text secured by Professor E. F. Piper of the University of Iowa, from a student who had it from South Dakota. The origin of this song is unknown. Dr. Carl Van Doren says that he often heard it in Illinois during the 90's from his father.
(B) The Death Of Yottnq Bendall. Text from Miss Agnes Andrews of Cambridge, Nebraska. 1918. She writes of the piece as follows: "A young man by the name of Bendall whose parents were supposed to be living in England in wealth came to Canada about the year 1890 and settled near St. Thomas, Ontario. He soon made friends with a young married man by the name of J. J. Bircnell. Birchell, knowing that Bendall carried much gold on his person, enticed him out on a hunting expedition and very coolly shot him. The lines of Young Bendall were composed and set to music by a young school teacher in the neighborhood where the tragedy took place."
A third piece of the same pattern is John T. Williams. A fragment of it from Mrs. E. N. Hardin (1916) of Missouri Valley, Iowa, who had it from a ranchman at Cambridge, Nebraska, who had it from Canada, begins as follows:
My name it is John T. Williams,
My name I'll never deny, I'll leave my dear old parents To suffer and to die, For murdering .... Upon the scaffold high. Their testimony is to the effect that it was sung in the seventies before the death of Garfield (1881). Other pieces from the same singers are old, or axe closer to their Old World originals than many American texts, so that it is possible that John T. Williams, or some other predecessor of Charles Guiteau and Young Bendatt, was the model for these pieces. The song is of a staple pattern and, in its original form, might belong either to the Old or the New World.
66. Sam Bass. Text from Lomax's Cowboy Songs, p. 149. N. H. Thorpe, Songs of the Cowboys (p. 135), credits the authorship to John Denton, Gainesville, Texas, 1879.
67. Jack Williams. From a manuscript book of ballads in the possession of L. C. Wimberly, 1916. Probably of British importation. In another Nebraska text, the place names are changed to "Bowery Street" and "Sing Sing."
68. Young Mcfee. Text secured by L. C. Wimberly from Mrs. E. N. Hardin of Missouri Valley, Iowa, 1916. Professor A. H. Tolman prints a much longer text in The Journal of American FolkLore, vol. 29, p. 186, with the following comment: "This text was obtained through Mrs. Pearl H. Bartholomew from Mrs. M. M. Soners, both of Warren, Indiana. The mother of Mrs. Soners sang it to her almost fifty years ago in Ohio. Mrs. Soners states that the poem records an actual occurrence and that her mother knew Hettie Stout well." Like The Death of Garfield, this may be an indigenous ballad, or merely an American adaptation of some older piece. Note the "ten thousand pounds" of the last stanza.
69. Bonny Black Bess. Text from Mrs. John Leslie of Stanford, Montana, secured by Mabel Conrad Sullivan of Winnett, Montana, in 1915. A song having the same title and the same hero, but otherwise not identical, appears in Lomax's Cowboy Songs, p. 194.
70. Turpin And The Lawyeb. A Nova Scotia text. See W. R. Mackenzie, The Quest of the Ballad (1919), p. 144. Fragments of the same song, brought from New York, are known in Nebraska.
71. Jack Donahoo. Text from Lomax's Cowboy Songs, p. 64, Practically the same text appears in Nova Scotia. See Mackenzie. The Quest of the Ballad, p. 66.
72. Captain Kidd. Text from Pilgrims of the Plains (1913) by Mrs. Kate A. Aplington of Council Groves, Kansas, p. 56. This book contains a number of old songs. Fragments of Captain Kidd are still current in scattered places.