Knoxville Gal- Clementine Douglass (NC) 1932 Scarborough C
[No date or location - believe it's Asheville, NC. From Scarborough; A Song Catcher; 1938- ballads collected circa 1932 (ref. Bronson). Scarborough's notes follow- no corrections made to MS. There are numerous errors in the MS.
R. Matteson 2016]
From this variant we get a few extra details-that the young man owned the mill, and that it was a flour mill. Such facts help to make the drama more vivid. We also learn here that it was the girl's sister who brought the murderer to justice.
Mary Rathburn furnished a variant, which she had written down in the notebook of folk song manuscripts given to Miss Clementine Douglass [Asheville, NC] by the girls of the weaving room at her shop one Christmas. The first line here seems to derive from "Oh, little town of Bethlehem."
C. Knoxville Girl - from Mary Rathburn MS about 1932, (Asheville ?)
Oh! little town of Knoxville,
I used to live and dwell,
and in that little town of Knoxville
I owned a flour mill.
I fell in love with a Knoxville girl
one dark and lonely night.
I promised her I would marry her
and see if she would ever deny[1].
I called at her sister's
at nine o'clock that night.
Into a little patch of lane
I love her on the sly[2].
I asked her to take a walk with me
into the meadow gay
that we may have a social talk
and name our wedding day.
We walked along, we talked along,
till we came to all level ground,
and I picked up a hardwood stick
and knocked that fatal[3] down.
She fell upon her bending knees,
Oh, Lord, have mercy, she cried.
Oh, Willie dear, don't murder me
for I'm unprepared to die.
No matter how many words she said
I beat her more and more.
I beat her til the blood came down
through on the bloody shore[4].
I took her by her yellow hair,
I drug her round and round.
I drug her down to the still waters deep
spase[5] to Knoxville town.
I picked up a stick to slay her[6],
that Knoxville girl was bound
When I drug her down the still waters deep
spase to Knoxville town.
Her sister swore my life away,
she swore it out and out.
She said that I was the very man
that laid her sister out.
And now they're going to hang me,
the death I hate to die,
They're going to hang me up so high
beneath the earth and sky.
1. "if me she'd never deny," 2nd line "dark and rolling eyes"
2. from "owed her ant spite,"
3. "fair girl"
4. "gore" needs rewriting
5. "close" should be "that flows"
6. redundant