Quaker's Wooing- John Niblo (NY) 1835 Snow
[From an Autograph Album once owned by John Niblo, reprinted in "Early Cayuga Days: Folk lore and local history of a New York county" by Dorothy E. Snow - 1940. Her notes follow. Original spelling kept. This version from Cayuga County, New York is the earliest extant version and brings the date closer to the 1700s. The penultimate stanza is similar to Henneberry's stanza from Devil's Island, NS.
R. Matteson 2017]
In the back pages of an Autograph Album once owned by John Niblo, Poplar Ridge, and dated 1835. I found these lilting lines, obviously copied in the penmanship of owner Niblo:
Madam I have come a courting
O deary O - O deary me
Madam I have come a wooing
c-m c-m c-m c-m c-m
Get you gone you ugly Quaker
Tal lal laddy O
I'll have none your Quaker actions
Cuddy mading a daddy O.
O here is a ring cost forty bright shillings,
O deary O - O deary me
Thou shalt have it if thou art willing
c-m c-m c-m c-m c-m O
I wants none your rings nor money
Tal lal laddy O
I'll have a husband call me honey
Cuddy mading a daddy O
O must I be a presbytterian[1],
O deary O - O deary me
Or must I be of no religion
c-m c-m c-m c-m c-m
O you must learn to lie and flatter
Tal lal laddy O
Or else you never can come at her
Cuddy mading a daddy O
O going to bed I do not chose[2] it
O deary O - O deary me
Going to bed I do refuse it
c-m c-m c-m c-m c-m
If sitting up is your desire
Tal lal laddy O -
O you may sit up by the fire
Cuddy mading a daddy O
1. Presbyterian
2. choose