Bluegrass Messengers

Butcher Boy- Mrs. Peter Miller (MI) 1931 Gardner B


[Single stanza given- with music from: Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan, by Chickering and Emelyon Elizabeth Gardner, 1939. Their notes follow.

R. Matteson 2017]

37 THE BUTCHER BOY
For a version of this Americanized British ballad almost identical with Michigan A and a note pointing out its composite character see Cox, pp. 430-432. See also Allsopp, II, 207; Eddy, No. 36; Flanders and Brown, pp. 115-116; Henry, JAFL, XLV, 72-74; Scarborough, pp. 282-288, Sharp, II, 76-78; and Stout, pp. 37-41.
   
B. [Butcher Boy]. Obtained in 1931 by Miss Kathryn Bowman, Detroit, from the singing of her aunt, Mrs. Peter Miller, West Branch, who had learned the song from hearing it in a lumber camp at West Branch.
A good text of eight stanzas.

[music]

In Jersey City Where I did dwell
A butcher boy  I loved so well;
He courted me my heart away,
And now with me he will not stay.