Bluegrass Messengers

In Seaport Town- Dora Ward (IN) 1938 Lomax

[From: Brewster: Southern Folklore Quarterly (1941) Volume 5, pp. 176-177. Also recorded by Lomax in 1838.

R. Matteson 2016]

In Seaport Town - sung by  Mrs. Dora Ward,

1 In Seaport Town there lived a rich merchant
 Who had two sons and a daughter fair,
And she was courted by a bond servant,
Which caused her parents' hearts to fear.

2. One night while they were in the room a-courting,
Her youngest brother chanced to hear;
He ran, he ran unto the other,
Saying, "A-hunting now us three must go."

3. They hunted over high hills and hollows
And through some lonesome valley, too
They hunted on to a ditch of briers,
Where her true love they killed and threw.

4. When they returned to their kind sister,
She kindly asked for the servant man ;
"He's lost, he's lost in the woods a-hunting
Where you nor no one else can go."

5. She hunted over high hills and hollows
And through some lonesome valleys, too
 She hunted on to a ditch of briers,
Where her true love they had killed and threw.

6. . . .
. . .
She stayed with him three days or longer
Till hunger forced her to go home.

7. When she returned to her two brothers,
They kindly asked her where she'd been;
"You bloody murderers, I never can hide it;
A-hanging now you both shall be."

8 These two young men being afraid of danger
They went a-sailing over the sea
The stormy winds blew over the waters
And these young men were cast away.