US & Canada Versions: 6. Berkshire Tragedy (Bloody Miller; Wexford Lass/Girl; Lexington Miller; Lexington Murder; Knoxville Girl, Oxford Girl, Expert Girl, Waco Girl, Export Girl
Deming broadside of "Lexington Miller" and "Johnny Jarman" Boston c. 1829
The Lexington Miller
Come all you men and maidens dear, to you I will relate.
Pray lend an ear and you shall hear concerning my sad fate,
My parents brought me up with care, provided for me well,
And in the town of Lexington employ'd me in a mill.
'Twas there I 'spied a comely lass, she cast a winning eye,
I promis'd I would marry her if she would but comply:
I courted her about six months, which caused us pain and woe;
'Twas folly brought us into a snare, and it prov'd our overthrow.
Her mother came to me one day as you shall understand,
Begging that I would appoint a day, and marry her at hand;
It was about one month from Christmas, O, cursed be that day,
The devil put in to my heart to take her life away.
I was perplex'd on every side, no comfort could I find
Then for to take her life away, my wicked heart inclin'd;
I went unto her sister's house at eight o'clock at night,
And she, poor soul, little thought or knew I ow'd her any spite.
I said, come go along with me, out door a little way,
That you and I may both agree upon our wedding day,
Then hand in hand I led her on, down to some silent place;
I took a stake out of the fence, and struck her on the face.
Now she upon her knees did fall, and most heartily did cry,
Saying, kind sir, don't murder me for I am not fit to die;
I would not harken unto her cries, but laid it on the more,
Till I had taken her life away, which I could not restore.
All in the blood of innocence, my trembling hand have dy'd,
All in the blood of her who should have been my lawful bride;
She gave a sigh and bitter groan, and cast a wishful look,
I took her by the hair of the head and flung her in the brook.
Now straight unto the Mill I went, like one that's in a maze,
And first I met was my servant boy, who deeply on me gaz'd;
How came that blood upon your hands, likewise on your clothes?
I instantly made reply, 'twas bleeding of the nose.
I called for a candle, the same was brought to me.
And when the candle I had light, an awful sight I see;
Now straightway unto bed I went, thinking relief to find,
It seemed as if the plagues of hell, were lodg'd within my mind.
Next day her body was search'd for, but it could not be found,
Then I was in my chamber seized, and in my chains were bound.
In two or three days after, this fair maid she was found,
Came floating by her mother's house, that was near Wentontown.
Her sister swore against me, she said she had no doubt,
'Twas I that took her life away, as 'twas I that led her out.
It's now my end comes hastening on, and death approaches nigh,
And by my own confession I am condemn'd to die.
Now fare you well to Lexington, where my first breath I drew,
I warn all men and maidens, to all their vows prove true.
_____________________________________
[The first record of this ballad in North America is the 23-stanza "Lexington Miller," a broadside (see copy above) dated 1829-1831 and printed by Leonard Deming in Market Square, Boston. The text is a reduction of the 44-stanza "Berkshire Tragedy" (c. 1700). "The Lexington Miller" was also printed as "Sold wholesale and retail by Hunts & Shaw, no. 2 Mercantile Wharf, and head of City Wharf[1]" in the 1830s and 1840s. It's hard to tell if the city is meant to be Lexington, Massachusetts or some other Lexington (perhaps Kentucky or North Carolina) in the United States. The text was reduced from The Berkshire's 44 stanzas to 23 in The Lexington Miller[2]. The reductions appear to be made by Deming or one of his writers directly from a copy of the Berkshire Tragedy with additional text from The Lexington Murder. Of the 23 stanzas there are three new stanzas (the first and last two) not found in Berkshire and several other changes have been made. The most significant change is when the murderer returns home --he meets his servant boy (in tradition- "servant John") instead of his man or master (the miller). These changes found in The Lexington Miller which are also found in tradition[3] appear to have come from earlier oral tradition based on an unknown early print of the Lexington Murder[4]-- the second source used to create Deming's broadside. The use of The Lexington Murder explains why "Lexington" appears in the broadside title. The Lexington reductions are older American and except for the Boston broadside and one traditional version from Maine, The Lexington Murder is identified with the American south, especially Virginia and North Carolina.
In 1929 Mellinger E. Henry published a text of The Lexington Miller broadside in The Journal of American Folklore (Vol. 42, No. 165, pp. 247-253) which he received from Kittredge as it appeared in a copy from the Harvard Library. Despite multiple printings, only one traditional version of the broadside, Db, has been collected and shows the broadside had a minimal effect on tradition[5].
The traditional versions of the ballad in North America are varied. Only two collected versions, Ia and Ie, represent the older tradition of the Berkshire tragedy (Oxford Reduction) and are similar to, or based on that broadside. Only one extant version, Ib, represents the older print reduction before the Boston broadside, The Lexington Miller[6], because it has stanzas not found in the Lexington Murder variants. Ia, collected from Pollyanna Harmon in Tennessee (1930) and Ie from Jason Ritchie in Kentucky (1949) are the only archaic versions that represents the reduction of Berkshire and proves that this reduction was once sung in England. The Harmon-Hicks version is very old-- suggesting that it was brought to North Carolina in the 1700s from Virginia. The Harmons brought this version to Tennessee from North Carolina in the 1880s.
The shortened 18 stanza Cruel Miller broadsides found in England by 1820 were once assumed to be one the sources of traditional ballad variants found in the US. In 1925 Cox[7], for example, gave the heading Wexford Girl (Cruel Miller) for his two West Virginia versions. The Cruel Miller was a reduction of circa 1820 by broadside writers using the Berkshire/Oxford Reduction and other sources one of which included the standard Wexford reduction also found in North America. Since Wexford appeared in the Cruel Miller and in Cox's West Virginia texts it would naturally be assumed there was a connection. Then in 1957 Laws wrote in American Balladry that the effect of the Cruel Miller broadsides was lacking in American tradition. It's evident that the "Wexford" influence found in the Cruel Miller, although not significant, had no effect on American Wexford versions many of which had already become established in the New World before the Cruel Miller was printed. The English tradition of circa 1900 is based in part on the shortened Cruel Miller broadsides while the Scottish tradition is aligned with the Wexford but is unique. It is presumed the Wexford tradition originated in Ireland although no versions of "Wexford" have been found there.
The traditional UK versions are usually 10-14 stanzas in length but the North American versions are sometimes longer and are varied by title and location collected. Some geographical areas in North America have developed specific titles and texts. In New Brunswick the Miramichi have a 16 stanza variant with a unique first stanza title Wexford Lass. In New England it's The Wexford Girl -- standard text with a unique stanza. While in the Southeast you find the Lexington Murder and in North Carolina there's Bloody Miller and Nellie Cropsey. The Southwest has Waco Girl and the mid-west Expert or Export Girl.
I, represents the older archaic variants found in America. Ic and Id, titled "Bloody Miller," have text from Berkshire not found in other traditional versions. All traditional versions from North America are reductions and are less than half the 44 stanza length of Berkshire. The Harmon version, one of the longest, is 18 stanzas[8]. While some long versions average 16 stanzas, 11 to 14 stanzas is an average length for the ballad without an ending. There are three standard endings in North America: 1) the "Now they're going to hang me" which is found in the standard Oxford, Knoxville titles; 2) the "Never let the devil" ending which is specific to the Lexington Reductions and 3) the "Come, all young men goes courting/ A warning take by me" ending which is two stanzas and is found in some standard Wexford versions.
The similarities in length and form within the four reductions are also found in the traditional English (Miller's Apprentice) and traditional Scottish (Butcher Boy) versions. Of the four principle reductions, three are found in North America: 1. Berkshire or Oxford Reduction (Archaic Ia and Ie and standard Ma to Mo), 2. Wexford Reduction (two forms- archaic Cb and standard La to Lab) and 3. Lexington Reduction archaic Ib and standard Ja to Jv). The archaic reductions represent older reductions based on an unknown print or prints.
The marriage agreement and resulting pregnancy found in some Scottish versions are rarely found in American versions[9]. They were taken out of c. 1829 The Lexington Miller broadside but are present in several of the oldest US versions and one from Canada[10] indicating that the agreement and pregnancy predated two of the broadside reductions (Lexington Miller and Cruel Miller) and were once present in the UK in the late 1700s and early 1800s in the early reductions. With the agreement and pregnancy removed, the motive for the killing is also removed, resulting in a startling murder for no apparent reason.
After the publication of The Lexington Miller about 1829 in Boston came the first known published American traditional version that I've titled "Waxford Gal." It was published without title in New York in Forest and Stream, Volume 56, p. 422 and was dated June 1, 1901. The author, Fayette Dublin, Jr. was born in Janesville, Wisconsin on October 25, 1868 but later lived in Missouri. His version was included in a story titled, "Repentance of Peshtigo Sam," which was sung by a character named "Long Tom." Since the setting is Wisconsin, I'm attributing the ballad to that location:
Waxford Gal (first extant traditional US version published)
"O 'twas in the town of Eagle, O,
Where I did live and dwell;
'Twas in the town of Waxford
I owned a flour mill.
I fell in love with a Waxford gal
With a dark an' rollin' eye-ee;
I asked her for to be my wife.
Her wishes to comply-ee.
"I went into her father's house
About eight o'clock at night;
I asked her for to come an walk,
Our weddin' to app'int.
We walked an' talked along the road
Till we came to level ground.
When from a hedge I drew a stake
An' knocked this fair maid down.
"She fell upon her bended knees.
An' for mercy she did cry-ee,
Savin', 'Willie, dear, don't kill me here,
For I'm not prepared to die-ee.'
But none did I heed her pleadin',
An' I beat her all the more,
Till on the ground an' all around
Was strewn a bloody gore.
"I took her by her golden locks
An' dragged her o'er the ground,
An' threw her in the river
That ran through Waxford town,
Sayin', 'Lie there, lie there, you pretty fair maid,
Who was to be my bride;
Lie there, lie there, you Waxford gal,
To me you'll never be tied.'
When this young man returned home
About ten o'clock at night.
His mother, bein' weary,
Woke up all in a fright.
Sayin', 'Son, O son, what have you done
To bloody your hands an' clothes?'
The answer that he gave to her
Was a bleedin' at the nose.
He called for a candle
To light his way to bed.
Likewise a silken handkerchief
To tie his achin' head.
But tyin's an' all tanglin's,
No rest could this man find,
For the gates of hell before his eyes,
Before his eyes did shine."
This first printed traditional version, as far as I know, has not been discovered until now. It's an example of the standard Wexford Reduction which is found mainly in Maritime Canada, Canada and New England. It's also been found in Michigan and Ohio and is less commonly present in the US south. The Wexford ballad has spread to the mid-west where it is perhaps better known.
The earliest known published report in the US of the ballad's existence is found in the 1911 "A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-songs," by Hubert Gibson Shearin and Josiah Henry Combs. They write:
The Waxford Girl (Wexford Girl), 4a3b-1c3b, G: A youth murders his sweetheart and throws her into a stream. He tells his mother, who sees the blood on his clothes, that his nose has been bleeding. He is haunted by the ghost of the dead girl (Cf. Lizzie Wan, Child, No. 51, and Miller-boy, page 28.)
It's interesting that Sherin and Combs imply that The Waxford Girl is a revenant ballad (he is haunted by the ghost of the dead girl). Although not normally considered to be a revenant ballad, the evidence should be considered. In most American versions the "flames of Hell" are around him and "in his eyes can see." If this vision of Hell isn't enough to be "revenant" then this additional text found in some versions is: in his vision she is "behind," meaning-- she (her ghost) is also present. And in a 1972 Kentucky version (see Carpenter's text), her ghost is described as being there. The versions with the Waxford/Wexford Girl title mentioned in 1911 have now been collected throughout in the US and Canada. "The Miller Boy," however, is a rare title.
Geographic Location
In North America the ballad is found in a number of regions and was brought by British emigrants to the American south, New England and Maritime Canada. The old Hicks-Harmon ballad sung by Pollyanna Harmon and also the Lexington Murder variants came to the South in the area established by the Virginia colony[11] and spread from the James River basin to remote areas such as Brown's Cove near the Rappahannock basin and into the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia and North Carolina. From there the ballad moved westward in Kentucky, where Cecil Sharp found a number of versions, and Tennessee. In the Northeast the ballad is somewhat rare and represented mainly by the Wexford tradition as found in the first published "Wexford Gal (see above), the seven Flanders versions, the Warner version and the Boston broadside. The ballad was known in Maritime Canada and Canada where a 16-stanza Miramichi version has been collected multiple times in New Brunswick. The ballad would have spread west from New England/Canada to Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. From the south it would travel west into Missouri (where it was attached to the Noel murder) and Arkansas. Dozens of versions from the Wexford tradition have been collected in the Southwest under the Expert/Export Girl, Oxford Girl and Knoxville Girl titles. A variant titled "Waco Girl"[12] has been found in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.
The date of the ballad and its American reductions is based on these factors. The Lexington Reduction, an American reduction, is older than the broadside The Lexington Miller of circa 1829. Since the Lexington Murder is found in North Carolina and Virginia and is part of that early reduction, the evidence points to this reduction being in circulation in the 1700s with some certainty. The appearance of the Berkshire/Oxford Reduction, the oldest reduction, in two locations in the US south means that these version were possibly brought before Lexington. The Wexford Reduction influenced the 1829 Cruel Miller broadsides and both the archaic and standard Wexford reduction are probably from the late 1700s. For the ballad to arrive in remote areas of North America before the Cruel Miller of the early 1800s means they would have arrived sometime in the 1700s --most likely during the Revolutionary War period. In "Over the Threshold: Intimate Violence in Early America," the authors Christine Daniels and Michael V. Kennedy concur. They comment: "This ballad migrated from England to the colonial South during the eighteenth century." This, of course, is not backed up by any prima facie evidence. Other evidence is offered in the case of the mysterious handkerchief which is part of the Scottish traditional versions titled, "The Butcher Boy." These Scottish versions are not related to the usual title, "The Butcher's Boy," which is Roud 409 and Laws P24. The boy is simply an apprentice to a butcher instead of a miller. Here's a Scottish example of the "handkerchief" stanza:
10. He asked her for a handkerchief,
To wrap around his head,
And also a candle,
To show him to his bed[13]. [John Argo, 1952-- Scotland]
The two handkerchief lines are found in traditional Scottish versions but not in print versions. The handkerchief is also found in traditional US versions of the Wexford/Oxford/Knoxville tradition. This shows that these versions were of a common ancestry in a past reduction. This shared ancestry does not show up in print which indicates a pre-early 1800s age. An additional relationship between Wexford and the Butcher Boy was pointed out by Laws[14] in one presumably early version of Wexford published in New York in 1951. The informant, of Irish decent, reveals in his version that murderer is a "butcher boy." This borrowing, the Wexford Tragedy being found in a Scottish chapbook and the handkerchief adds to the ButcherBoy/Wexford common ancestry. The handkerchief itself plays no role in the ballad story and was imported from other ballads[15].
Further evidence of the age of the reductions in America is offered by this "archaic" version found in the Virginia colony[see the text below] region. This Hicks/Harmon family version was incorrectly[16] titled "Lexington Girl" by collector Mellinger Henry who had recently published an article in JAF titled "Lexington Girl." The version comes from Pollyanna Harmon, the wife of excellent ballad singer "Uncle Sam" Harmon (b. 1869, both were born in North Carolina[17]). According to Betty Smith, Pollyanna was raised in Big Sammy Hicks' household[18] and he would be the source. Sam Harmon's grandfather was legendary balladeer and storyteller Council Harmon. "Old Counce's" source for his ballads and Jack tales was also the Hicks' household since the families intermarried. Back in the later part of the 1600s, the Hicks (then Hix) family settled in the Tuckahoe Creek area of Virginia (soon after the area was called Goochland) on the James River where progenitor Samuel Hicks was born about 1695. Samuel and members of his family moved to North Carolina where he died shortly before the Revolutionary War. Before the conflict with England, Samuel's son David, a loyalist, independently moved to Beech Mountain, NC after receiving a land grant. His eldest son, Samuel, known as Big Sammy, settled there with him. Since no one knows when and where the family learned their ballad, the age of this version can't be precisely determined. When other English relatives appeared in Goochland, like Daniel Hix and Nathaniel Hix in the 1730s, it is possible they brought a copy of the broadside or its reduction with them. The version is archaic because in the text a reward of ten guineas is offered ("Ten guineas I offered any man, This damsel they would find") which confirms this version is very old. Since this reward is only offered in versions of the original Berkshire Tragedy broadise (dated c. 1700) and has not been found in later reductions or the three print reductions of the early 1800s, I would date the Hicks/Harmon version back to the Colonial Period. I've supplied the title which has been corrupted and is given by Mellinger Henry, the collector as "Town of Wickedness" (line 3) which may also have been a mishearing. Even though "The Wickedness Miller" is an appropriate title, the town name was probably Wittham or Whittingham at an early stage of circulation. I've left the spelling errors and other corruptions as they appeared in print in 1938:
[Wittenham Miller] sung by Pollyanna Harmon of Cade's Cove, TN in 1930.
1. My tender parents brought me here,
Providing for my wealth;
And in a town of wickedness
He fixed me out a mill.
2. Here came a wanting lass,
She had a wanting eye;
I promised her I'd marry her,
And with her I did lie.
3. A very few weeks and afterwards,
Here came that lass again:
"I pray you, young John, you'd marry me;
You've got me with a child."
4. Perplexed was I on every side,
No comfort I could find;
But to take my darling's life from her
My wicked heart inclined.
5. 1 went to my love's sister's house;
It was getting late at night.
But little did the poor creature think
I owed her any spite.
6. "Come, take a walk with me, my dear;
We'll pint the wedding day;"
I tuk her by her lily-white hand;
I led her through the field.
7. I drew a stake then out of the fence;
I hit her in the face;
She fell on her bending knee;
For mercy loud did cry:
"I pray, young John, don't murder me,
For I'm not fit to die."
8. I kept putting on more and more,
She did resign her breath,
And wasn't I a crazy soul
To put my love to death?
9. I tuk her by the hair of the head;
I drug her through the field;
I drug her to the river bank
And plunged her in the deep.
10. Right straight home then I run;
My master strangely on me gazed:
"What's the matter, young Johnny?" he says,
"You look as pale as death.
11. "You look like you've been running
And almost spent for breath.
How came you by, young John," he says,
"These trembling hands enfold?
12. "How came you, young John," he says,
"These bloody hands and clothes?"
I answered him immediate lie:
"A-bleeding at the nose."
13. He stood; he strangely on me gazed,
But no more he said.
I jerked a candle out of his hands
And made my way to bed.
14. I lay there all that long night;
I had but little rest;
I thought I felt the flames of hell
Strike within my guilty breast.
15. The very next morning by day-light
Ten guineas I offered any man,
Ten guineas I offered any man,
This damsel they would find.
16. The very next morning by sunrise,
This damsel she were found,
Floating by her brother's door
In Harry Fairy Town.
17. Then her sister against me swore,
Good reasons without a doubt:
By coming there after dark,
And calling her out.
18. "My Lord, my God,
Look down on me
And pray receive my soul
Harry Fairy Town in stanza 16 resembles Ferry Hinksey Town as sung by George Hicks of Arlington, Gloucestershire. This name also appears in The Berkshire Tragedy[19] and is one of the few ties to the original broadside found both in England and the US. Some of the Berkshire identifiers are "tender parents" (common) and "wanting or "wanton" eyes (rare). Harmon's stanza 16 is the only stanza where a "ten guinea" reward is offered to anyone that finds her body. Harmon's ballad represents the most archaic version of the Berkshire/Oxford Reduction and is only 18 stanzas compared to 44 of the original. This reveals the Berkshire Reduction, never found in the UK.
By the Civil War the ballad was established in Missouri and Arkansas[20] where it became attached to other local murders. In Vance Randolph's Ozark Folksongs[21], he give two examples of a local murder (a young Missouri woman named Lula Noel) to which the traditional Oxford/Wexford reductions were sung:
A very similar "Noel Girl" song contributed by Mr. Lewis Kelley, Cyclone, Mo., July 6, 1931, includes the following local reference:
I throwed her in old Cowskin River
Below the Rutledge dam.
The Cowskin River is the stream in which the body of the Noel girl was found, and Rutledge is the old name for the village now called Elk Springs, near the scene of the crime. Mr. Kelley is a "singin'-teacher," and has given some thought to the matter. He told me that, in his opinion, the song was "made up" from a still older piece called "The Expert Girl," about a lady who was murdered back in Tennessee.
None of my neighbors knew anything about "The Expert Girl," but a couple of years later the Springfield (Mo.) Leader (Feb. 18, 1933) described an amateur stunt at a local theater:
"Two little boys sang a blood-curdling song called 'My Expert Girl'-all about a man who murdered his sweetheart and threw her in the river because he didn't want to marry her."
The two little boys could not be located next morning, but I found several other persons in Springfield who were familiar with the song.
According to Randolph, the ballad was attached to a local Missouri murder in 1892. In the History of McDonald County. Missouri; 1897, is found this article about the murder:
THE MURDER OF LULA NOEL
One of the most appalling crimes ever committed in McDonald county was the murder of Mary Lula Noel daughter of W. H. and S. E. Noel on the 10 day of December, 1892. She was young, extremely handsome and her lady like manners made her a favorite with all who knew her. On the Wednesday preceding, William Simmons, a young man who lived at Joplin, came down to visit her. He remained there until Saturday. On Friday evening arrangements were made to the effect that next morning Holly’s folks were to go over to W. H. Noel’s and the two families were to go together to the town of Noel. Holly and his wife were to visit overnight at the home of a relative on Mill creek. Simmons was asked to go with them but declined, saying he would walk over to Lanagan and take the freight train to Joplin. Miss Noel said she would remain with Will (Simmons) until he went away and then go across the river to her father’s if the water was not too high, otherwise she would remain on that side with some of the relatives who were quite numerous. The river was then past fording for vehicles, but was being crossed on horse back. About 8 o’clock in the morning Holly and his wife started away leaving Simmons and Miss Noel together at their house. This was the last ever seen of her alive. Instead of returning home on Sunday, Holly and his wife remained at her father’s the next few days. Lula had not come home, but no great uneasiness was felt as she was supposed to be at some of the relatives across the river. On Monday and Tuesday inquiry was made when it was ascertained she was not in the neighborhood. A letter was at once dispatched to an uncle at Webb City, with whom she made her home part of the time, and it was thought probable she had gone there. When the answer came back that she was not there, the anxiety of her parents and family that had been growing deeper all of the time suddenly increased to a frenzy of excitement. Their beautiful daughter and sister was gone, lost; no one knew where, and only those who have experienced the feeling can realize the agony which clung to them day and night.
Her father and Mr. Holly went to Joplin on Friday to see what tidings they could gain. At the trial Holly swore that he saw Simmons and said to him, “Will, your girl’s gone.” Simmons trembled violently a few seconds and replied, “Is that so?” He asked no questions concerning her and appeared to be desirous of avoiding the conversation. When asked if she came away with him he replied that she did not. They stood in silence a few moments when Simmons remarked, “You don’t suppose the fool girl jumped in the river and drowned herself, do you?” They returned home that night and the next day, Saturday December 17, just one week from the day she was last seen, a systematic search was begun. The whole country was aroused and hundreds of people joined to aid in finding the body for it was now the universal opinion that she had been killed. The hills from the Holly house towards Lanagan were gone through for a while in the early morning then the crowd repaired to the river. The deep holes were dragged, giant powder exploded and every spot examined for some distance up and down the stream. Finally about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, in a narrow, swift place in the river at the lower end of a large, deep hole of water, the body was found where some of the clothing had caught in a willow that projected into the water. It was but little more than a quarter of a mile below her father’s house and within a few feet of the road along which her parents had passed that fatal Saturday afternoon unconscious of the great tragedy that had been enacted. On examination afterwards conclusive evidence of a violent death were found. A bruise on one temple, one spot on one cheek and three or four on the other, as though a hand had been placed over her mouth to stifle her screams, finger prints on the throat, were all plainly visible. Besides a bruise the size of the palm of one’s hand on the back of the head and her neck broken. The lungs were perfectly dry and all evidences of drowning were absent. The evidence was wholly circumstantial but pointed very strongly to the guilt of the defendant.
There were tracks of a man and woman corresponding in size and shape with Simmons and Miss Noel’s found leading from the Holly house across the field to near the river bank at the upper end of the big hole of water above mentioned. At the lower end was a ford, and it is the supposition that the two walked down to the river, she intending to wait at the ford and call to her parents as they passed on their way home to take out a horse from the wagon and assist her across.
The finding of her body naturally increased the excitement. A warrant was at once issued for Simmons and he was apprehended in Joplin just as he was preparing to leave. Had be been brought to Pineville at that time it is likely he would have been summarily dealt with, but he waived examination and remained in the jail at Neosho. At the February term of our court 1893 an indictment was returned against him for murder in the first degree. A change of venue was granted to Newton county and the case tried at the following May term. Some seventy witnesses were examined and the case was hotly contested by both sides. The jury were unable to agree and were finally discharged. The trial again came on at the following November term. At this trial the attorneys for the state took the position that there was a probability or, at least, a possibility that the killing was done on a sudden impulse and without deliberation and asked for and was granted an instruction for murder in the second degree as well as in the first degree. The jury returned a verdict for murder in the second degree and assessed the punishment at ten years in the penitentiary. Thus ended another of the most noted criminal cases ever on the docket in our county.
In Randolph's B version, he presents the following testimony: "Mrs. Shockley insists that this piece is called "The Noel Girl," and has never doubted that it referred to the murder of Lula Noel. When asked what "the city of Lexton Town" had to do with this murder she said that perhaps Lexton was an old name for the village now called Pineville, and cited several cases in which the names of nearby settlements had been changed within her own memory."
Even though the ballad was called "The Noel Girl," this version of The Lexington Murder, Ta, was not rewritten to include Lula Noel and William Simmons and neither are the locations Lanagan and Joplin found in the ballad text. A North Carolina version by Betty Bostic, also a "Lexington Murder" variant, became attached to yet another similar murder: The beautiful 19 year-old Nellie Cropsey was murdered by rejected suitor Jim Wilcox in Elizabeth City on Nov. 29, 1901 and dumped in the river.
After her body was found in the river and Jim Wilcox was convicted of murder, a number of ballads about the tragedy arose. The ballads were based on regional murder ballads like "Florella, the Jealous Lover" and our NC version of the ballad known locally as "The Lexington Murder." The Frank C. Brown Collection editors reported an account of the murder in Volume 4:
Nellie (Ella Maude) Cropsey was the daughter of a truck farmer who, in 1901, was living with his family at Elizabeth City in a house beside the Pasquotank River. Nineteen years of age and pretty, she had many admirers. Favored among these was James Wilcox, a shipyard worker, son of a former sheriff of the county. Early in November a lovers' quarrel between the two occurred, and for two weeks Wilcox stayed away from the Cropsey home. On the evening of the twentieth he called again and conversed with the family. As, shortly after eleven o'clock, he was taking his leave, he said, 'Nell, I want to see you in the hall for a minute.' She complied. Her family never again saw her alive. Missed before morning, she was sought in vain. Wilcox, not being able to give a satisfactory account of her whereabouts, was arrested next day. Nellie's disappearance aroused the interest of the whole Atlantic seaboard, and search for her was systematic and widespread. Not until December 24 was her body found, in the Pasquotank River, about 150 yards in front of her home. (Raleigh News and Observer, Nov. 22— Dec. 31, 1901.) A coroner's jury turned in a verdict of death by violence and recommended that Wilcox's probable guilt be investigated. Public feeling against him, aggravated by his cold and impassive attitude throughout the investigation, ran so high that the local naval reserve was called out to guard him. At the March 1902 term of Pasquotank court he was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to be hanged. From this judgment he appealed to the Supreme Court on the ground that in the course of the trial demonstrations within the courtroom and disorders outside occurred to influence the jury and prejudice his rights (North Carolina Reports, 131:490-92). Granted a new trial with change of venue, he was tried at the March 1903 term of Perquimans Superior Court, found guilty of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to thirty years in the state penitentiary. Losing a second appeal (ibid., 132:791 ff.), he began serving his sentence. On December 20, 1918, he was pardoned by Governor T. W. Bickett (letter from the office of the Governor of North Carolina). On December 4, 1934, Wilcox committed suicide (letter from W. G. Gaither, Elizabeth City, N. C, to his daughter, Bettie Gaither — letter given by Miss Gaither to A. P. Hudson).
The Brown editors added[22]: "The ballad about Nellie Cropsey, a North Carolina girl murdered early in the present century (see no. 307), is in most of its texts modeled very closely on 'The Lexington Murder.' "
No. 307 in the Brown Collection, Volume 4 is titled, "Nellie Cropsie" and one stanza of text with music of the Lexington Murder is given that was sung by Miss Lucy Dunnegan of Durham in 1921. The Brown editors also report additional instances: "Mrs. Church's second version, bearing the same date, is somewhat shorter. The girl bears the name Nell, which suggests that this text was felt to belong to the 'Nell Cropsey' story." Also Brown M in Volume 4, as sung by B. C. Reavis, is titled 'Poor Nell.' A complete version sent in to Amos Abrams at Appalachian State University is the following ballad:
Nellie Crospie- sung by Betty Bostic of Mooresboro, NC on March 5, 1938 as learned from her grandmother[23].
1. My tender parents brought me up
Providing for me well,
And in that city of Londonshire
They placed me in the mill.
2 And there I spied a pretty fair maid
And on her I cast mine eye
I promised that I would marry her
And she believed the lie.
3. I went into her sister's house,
At eight o'clock one night
But little did that creature know
At her I had a spite.
4. I asked her for to take a walk,
With me a little ways,
That she and I might have a talk,
About our wedding day.
5. We walked along until we came,
To a lone and desert place,
I took a rail off of the fence,
And struck her in the face.
6. She fell upon her bended her knees,
And loud for mercy did cry,
For heaven's sake don't murder me
I'm unprepared to die.
7. But little I paid to what she said;
But only struck her more
Until I saw the innocent blood
That I could ne'er restore.
8 I wrung my hand thru her cold black hair,
To cover up my sin;
I drug her down to the riverside
And there I plunged her in.
9 I returned unto the mill
I met my servant John.
He asked me why I looked so pale
With it so very warm.
10 I lit my candle and went to bed,
Expecting to take my rest.
But ti seemed as though the fires of hell
Were burning in my breast.
11 Come all young men and a warning take
And to your lover prove true;
Don't never let the devil get,
The upper hand of you.
In his 1939 book, Folk Songs of the Roanoke and Albemarle, Louis Chappell also gave a complete text collected in 1912 from an informant in Tyner, NC. The same text sung for Nellie Cropsey was sung throughout the North Carolina Appalachian region in the 1800s and early 1900s. The ballad was collected and various versions have been found in the Abrams Collection, Greer Collection and Frank C. Brown Collection. It was known under the generic title, The Lexington Murder, and is one of the four primary reductions. Many North Carolinians who sang the ballad, like Pat Frye of East Bend in Yadkin County, probably assumed Lexington to be Lexington, North Carolina-- home of world's famous Lexington bar-b-que, a location only 20 miles from where Uncle Pat Frye lived. However, the first reference to Lexington in the US was the Lexington Miller broadside in Boston, Massachusetts. Even though that broadside had little effect on tradition, it was hard to pin down which Lexington was which since another well-known Lexington was located nearby in Kentucky. It seems that any x-word will do and Oxford in the Berkshire Tragedy became Wexford in the Cruel Miller and in the US it became Knoxville and Expert/Export as well as the aforementioned Lexington. It was under the title, Knoxville, that the ballad became best known in the US. In 1791 the name of White's Fort, a settlement in Tennessee built by James White in 1786, was changed to Knoxville. There is little doubt that this city in Tennessee is the location of this ballad name. Curiously, the first two "Knoxville" recordings were by musicians from Atlanta, Georgia. Six early country recordings were done of "The Knoxville Girl" before 1940. First came Riley Puckett's in 1924 although it was not issued[24]. Then came the most important recording made by Arthur Tanner of Atlanta in 1925, then two blind musician from Kentucky, McFarland and Gardiner, recorded the murder ballad in 1927. Then Doc Roberts and Asa Martin recorded it in 1928, and Asa Martin followed with a similar recording with James Roberts in 1931. The last "Knoxville" title before 1940 was recorded by the Blue Sky Boys in 1937. The McFarland and Gardiner version was a standard traditional version and not related to the "Tanner" commercial recordings. The Carter Family named the ballad after the Lexington last verse: "Never Let the Devil Get the Upper Hand of You" and is a Virginia version of the Lexington Murder. Other versions were recorded under the well-know titles, Export Gal and Waco Girl which were not influenced by the "Tanner" recording.
The first released "Knoxville Girl" record was an up-tempo waltz made by Arthur Tanner (1903- 1972) during June, 1925 (Silvertone 3515) in Chicago, Illinois[25]. Arthur Tanner from Atlanta, Georgia was the brother of fiddler Gid Tanner of Skillet Lickers fame. Members of the Skillet Lickers had already made commercial recordings for Columbia before 1925: guitarist and singer Riley Puckett first recorded solo in 1924 and then Puckett and Gid Tanner recorded along with harmonica player Fate Norris. Why Puckett's 1924 version of "Knoxville Girl" was never issued is not known-- perhaps the murder was too graphic. Arthur Tanner probably got his version from Puckett or at least it was a local version the Skillet Lickers all knew. Somehow Arthur managed to get his version released- maybe Columbia executives couldn't understand the lyrics as well!!! In the mid-1920s Atlanta was one of the main hubs of early country music and besides Fiddlin' John Carson boasted other talented Skillet Licker performers like Clayton McMichen (fiddle), Lowe Stokes (fiddle), Bert Layne (fiddle- whose music notebook I still have), Ted Hawkins (Mandolin), Gordon Tanner (Gid's son- fiddle). Arthur recorded his version again in 1927 with renown fiddler Earl Johnson-- here's my transcription[26] of the 1925 version:
Knoxville Girl - recorded by Arthur Tanner (guitar and vocal), probably Earl Johnson on fiddle in Chicago, Illinois, during June, 1925.
I met a little girl in Knoxville
A town you all know well;
And every Sunday evening
Out in her home I’d dwell.
We went to take an evening walk
About one mile from town;
I picked a stick up from the ground
I knocked that fair girl down.
She fell upon on her bended knees
For mercy she did cry;
"Willie dear, don’t kill me here
I’m not prepared to die."
She never spoke another word,
Just beat her more her more;
Until the ground around her,
Within her blood did flow.
I taken her by her golden curls
And dragged her round and round
I throwed her into the river,
That flows from Knoxville Town.
“Go there, go there, you Knoxville Girl,
With the dark and rolling eyes,
Go there, go there, you Knoxville Girl,
You'll never be my bride.”
I started back to Knoxville,
Got there 'bout midnight;
And mama she was worried,
Woke up in a fright.
"My son, my son what have you done
To bloody your clothes so?"
The answer I gave mother,
"Was bleeding at my nose."
I called for me a candle,
To light myself to bed;
Also for me a handkerchief
To bind my aching head.
I rolled and tumbled the whole night long,
Was trouble there for me;
Flames of hell around my bed,
And in my eyes could see.
[They] carried me to the Knoxville jail,
They locked me in cell.
My friends all tried to help me
But none could pay my bail.
Her sister swore my life away,
She knew without a doubt;
Saying I was a same young man
That carried her sister out.
Most of the subsequent recordings[27] of "Knoxville Girl" are based on Tanner's version except for the last stanza since Tanner's lyrics were difficult to understand and were left off. Substantially different traditional versions of "The Knoxville Girl" were also collected which means traditional versions with similar opening stanzas after 1925 have been influenced by Tanner's or similar recordings (see examples of cover versions in the Brown Collection- G[28], the Ozark Collection or Robert's 1954 recording of Kentucky folksinger Frank Couch[29]). One of the identifiers of the recorded versions is the "Lie there, Lie there, you Knoxville girl" (or, "Lay there/Go there/Go down-- you Knoxville girl") stanza[30] which is an attempt by the murderer to blame her for his murder-- as if she was somehow responsible for his actions. This stanza is also found in tradition in the 1800s in different regions[31]. In the commercial recordings all the beginning stanzas are missing: he is no longer an miller's apprentice who got a fair maid pregnant and is forced to marry her. The shocking nature of the 'Tanner" commercial records is this: there is no motive for the murder-- he just brutally attacks her for no apparent reason. Another identifier for these recorded versions not found in tradition is "golden curls"-- "I took her by her golden curls." Even though the beginning stanzas are eliminated, two important traditional stanzas are included: 1) The "bloody clothes and nosebleed" stanza and 2) The "candle and handkerchief" stanza found only in traditional versions in the North America and Scotland.
One popular title found in the US is "The Oxford Girl." Oxford has a long history since it is found in the Berkshire Tragedy broadsides from the 1700s:
By chance I met an Oxford lass,
I cast a wanton eye;
And promis’d I would marry her,
if she with me would lie. [Berkshire Tragedy Broadside c. 1700]
The early Oxford reduction is archaic (the Harmon and Ritchie versions) and is taken from Berkshire and a typical standard "Oxford" version has been developed from a later reduction that resembles the "Wexford" Reduction without the ending. Even though the Oxford lass was from Oxford, England, in the American south some informants think "Oxford" is in the state of Mississippi. In the 1800s the shortened broadside, The Cruel Miller, the "Oxford" found in The Berkshire Tragedy was changed to "Wexford" and "wanton eye" became "dark(black) and rolling eye" and in America the marriage and wedding are usually left off as well as the marital agreement-- that he will marry her if she will with him lie. The fact that she was pregnant and expected him to marry her is only found in two versions in North America.
Here's an "Oxford" version that s not associated with England. In 1924 A.P. Hudson visited Mrs. G. V. Easley, who lived 25 miles from Oxford, Mississippi. Naturally Mrs. Easley sang a version of the ballad titled, "The Oxford Girl" which was "one of the most popular 'ballets' in Calhoun county in her girlhood[32]":
"The Oxford Girl."
I. I fell in love with an Oxford girl
With dark and rolling eye.
I asked that girl to marry me;
She said, "I'll never deny."
2. I called up to her sister's house
At eight o'clock one night,
And her not knowing I was there,
I took her on surprise.
3. I told her that we'd take a walk
To view the meadow gay,
That we might have some secret talk
About our wedding day.
4. We walked along, we talked along
Till we come to Oxford town,
And there I upped with a heavy wood stick
And knocked that maiden down.
5. She fell upon her bended knees,
She cried, "Oh, Willie, dear boy,
Don't murder me here, oh, please,
For I'm not prepared to die."
6. I listened not to a word she said,
But I beat her more and more,
Until the ground where she lay
Was in a bloody gore.
7. I picked her up by her lily-white hands
I threw her round and round
I threw her in the river stream
That flows through Oxford town.
8. "Lay there, lay there, you Oxford girl;
Lay there, lay there, I say;
Lay there, lay there, you Oxford girl;
My bride you never will be."
9. I called up to my mother's house
At twelve o'clock that night,
And her not knowing I was there,
I woke her in a fright.
10. "O Willie, my boy, what have you done
To bloody your hands and clothes?"
I answered her in a low sweet tone,
"A bleeding at the nose."
11. I asked her for a handkerchief
To bind my aching head;
I asked her for a candlestick
To light my way to bed.
12. I rolled and tumbled all night long;
Not a moment did I sleep,
For the demons of hell around my bed,
And I could not sleep a wink.
13. Six days, six weeks, six weeks or more,
This maiden's body was found,
Floating down the deep river stream
That flows through Oxford town.
14. Her brother swore my life away,
He swore it o'er and o'er;
He swore that I was the very boy
That caused his sister's death.
15. O Lordy, they're going to hang me now
Between the earth and sky;
They're going to hang me by the neck -
What an awful death to die!
The "Oxford Girl" title is not just found in Mississippi where Hudson found around a dozen traditional versions in the 1920s and 30s. Both Belden and Randolph used the title and nearly a dozen other mid-west versions also are named "Oxford Girl." The title is usually associated with the American south and southwest.
Wexford Girl, Canada and the North-East
Although Canada's tradition dates back to the at least to the early 1800s, no record of the ballad was found until late 1800s[33]. Many versions are titled "Wexford Girl" or the similar "Waxford Girl" and/or feature Wexford or Waxford town. Versions with the Wexford title have been thought by collectors (Manny; Wilson; Peacock etc.) to be Irish or of Irish descent. The Wexford Girl's association with Ireland is uncertain since no "Wexford" versions have not been found in Ireland-- a country which has no proven tradition and only two complete versions: one sung by a tinker from Belfast in 1952 and the other collected from an Irish traveller[34]. Wexford's influence is evident as the city named in the Cruel Miller, a popular English broadside from the early 1800s. "Wexford town" and the "black(dark) and rolling eye" text are also found the Cruel Miller broadsides[35].
The "Wexford Girl" variants have been attached to two similar murder ballads in Canada: 1) "The Moncton Tragedy" -- John E. Sullivan murdered a woman and her son in mid-September, 1896, at Meadow Brook, eight miles from Moncton, New Brunswick and burned their house down. He was caught and hanged. 2) “Benjamin Deane.” --A New Brunswick man named Ben Deane murdered his wife on Wednesday May 4, 1898 in Berlin, New Hampshire.
Manny and Wilson[36] write about "The Moncton Tragedy" as patterned on "Wexford Lass" although the ballad they collected in 1948 is completely rewritten-- and the standard "Wexford Lass" text is nearly gone. According to Ives[37], “Benjamin Deane” is similarly rewritten but shows similarities in the text and form to "Wexford Girl":
10. She was raised by honest parents,
And raised most tenderly,
But little did they ever think
That she’d be slain by me.
Neither the "The Moncton Tragedy" or “Benjamin Deane” is a version of the Canadian "Wexford Girl" or "Wexford Lass" which are similar to the shortened traditional version in the UK but are fuller and each complete version averages 16 stanzas. Of the four versions from New Brunswick as sung by the Miramichi in the mid-1900s my favorite is Marie Hare's "The Wexford Lass" recorded by Sandy Paton the the 1960's:
Waxford Lass- sung by Marie Hare of Strathadam, New Brunswick, Canada taken from "Ballads and Songs of the Miramichi," on Paton's Folk Legacy label, recorded circa 1964.
1. I was born in Boston, but not of a high degree;
My parents reared me tenderly, they had no child but me.
I fell in love with a Wexford lass, with a dark and roley eye;
I promised for to marry her, the truth I'll not deny.
2. I went to her father's house 'bout eight o'clock that night,
But little did that fair one think I held to her a spite;
I asked her for to take a walk to view those meadows gay,
Perchance that we'd find a little spot to 'point our wedding day.
3. We walked like doves together till we came to a rising ground;
I picked a stake from out the fence, with it I knocked her down.
As she fell down to her bended knee, in mercy she did cry,
"Oh, do not murder me Jimmy dear I'm not prepared to die."
4. He grabbed her by those yellow locks, he threw her on the ground;
He threw her into the river that flows through Wexford town:
"Lie there, lie there, my pretty fair maid with me you'll never be tied;
You never shall share my wandering life, you never shall be my bride."
5. I went to my father's home, 'bout twelve o'clock that night,
But little did my father think, to see such a fright'ning sight,
Crying, "Son, dear son, what have you done? There's blood stains on your clothes?"
The answer that I made him was, "bleeding from the nose."
6. At first I asked for a candle to light my way to bed,
And then I asked for a handkerchief to tie around my head.
The twisting and the turning, no comfort could I find;
For the gates of Hell was open, before my eyes did shine.
7. And all 'bout nine days later this Wexford lass was found
A-floating down the river that flows through Wexford town;
Her sister swore my life away but not a word of doubt;
He had me for suspicion for having this fair one out.
8. So come all you lads and lassies, a warning take by me,
It's never murder your own true love, Whoever whom she be.
But if you do you're sure to rue until the day you die,
You'll hang a public scandal, upon some gallows high.
I assume Marie Hare's version was adapted from local version similar to the older version by Frank Ramsay of Chatham Head in 1947 for the Lord Beaverbrook Collection since several details are the same. Her version is unique and includes new details such as Boston[38] being the city where the murdered was born. This story is told about the Miramichi versions by Helen Creighton[39]:
For years I was puzzled to know why singers gave me so few lullabies in English. This was answered one day following a Miramichi folksong festival when a young father arrived at the home of Dr. Louise Manny with five children from three to six years of age. They sat on the verandah beneath the pines and spruces, and when asked to sing, their childish voices rendered these sadistic lines from "The Wexford Girl":
He took her by the yellow locks
And drug her o'er the ground.
Two versions of Wexford Lass are from the well-known Wilmot MacDonald family of Glenwood, NB who performed regularly at the Miramichi folksong Festival in the 1960s and 70s. The New Brunswick "Wexford Lass" is similar to, but varied from, the other versions from Maritime Canada which are purported (Peacock) to have an Irish origin. Identifiers of the Miramichi versions include the murderer named "Jimmy" (also found in Maritime versions) and an opening similar to, or based on, "The Girl I left Behind Me." Standard Wexford/Oxford versions have the "tender" parents but the murderer is sent to work in a mill. These version have "handkerchief" as found in Scotch tradition but "handkerchief" is missing in many other Canadian versions. Jimmy, the murderer goes to "her father's house" and after the murder goes to "his father's house"-- both changed from the normal "mother's house" and the original UK or broadside "sister's house and "master's/miller's or mother's house." In the Miramichi ending-- her sister swears his life away- and he gives a warning to all lovers before announcing his fate upon the gallows.
Another unusual related variant from New Brunswick is "The Wexford Girl," which was collected by Helen Creighton[40]. It names the murderer as Edward Gallovan from Wexford and his victim Mary Riley. The motive for the murder is money, not to avoid a marriage forced by pregnancy.
The Wexford Girl- sung by Angelo Dornan, Elgin, N. B. as learned when he was a child about 1911 from his parents who emigrated from Northern Ireland in the 1800s.
1. My name is Edward Gallovan, in Wexford I was born,
For the murder of Mary Riley I die in public scorn,
It is of a beautiful fair one who might have been my wife,
But for the sake of curs-ed gold I took away her life.
2. When first I kept her company her friends did on me frown,
And by her hard industory she saved twenty pounds,
She believed my false vows but I led her quite astray
Saying, "My dear we will sail without delay unto Americay."
[I had not gone one mile with her until Satan tempted me[41]
For to rob her of her money and then her butcher be.]
3. Those words that she had said to me would grieve your heart full sore.
Before that I had murdered her and left her in her gore.
She said, "Dear James here are my keys and in my box you'll find
An order on the savings bank for the sum of twenty pounds."
4. "Your money it will take me unto some foreign shore,"
I then gave her a deadly blow, I need not say no more,
with a loaded whip I murdered her, her body I concealed,
Her blood it cried for vengeance, the murder soon revealed.
5. I was apprehended as you may plainly see,
May the Lord look to my sinful soul, give me some time to pray,
The judge he made me answer, "you gave no time to pray
To that innocent young creature whose life you took away."
6. Now my song is ended, I mean to drop my pen,
I hope my fate a warning will be to every young man,
I hope my fate a warning to young and old may be
To shun drinking and night walking and keep good company.
Although Dornan's version is a hybrid recreation and is not similar to any other traditional version, it gives an additional motive for the murder-- money. According one online source[42], Dornan's ballad was changed and some of the details of the murder eliminated by his mother because he was only nine when he heard the ballad and began singing it.
Perhaps Canada's greatest contribution to the ballad is supplying some of the evidence[43] that an Irish tradition, missing in Ireland, was brought to the North American in this case-- the Maritimes-- and moved west into remote areas in New Brunswick. Tying in with Canada's tradition are the similarly titled versions from New England. Of the eight collected versions, four are reasonably complete. The New England titles are Wexford/Waxford Girl, Hanged I Shall Be[44] and one older version which is related to The Berkshire Tragedy which is titled Lexington Tragedy. The older versions include excellent versions from Alonzo Lewis (York, Maine) John Galusha (Minerva, New York) and Lily Delorme (Caddyville, New York).
Waco Girl and the Ballad in the Southwest
In 1960 John Q. Anderson published an article, "The Waco Girl": Another Variant of a British Broadside Ballad" in Western Folklore, about a different title of this murder ballad. It is the ballad named "Waco Girl" instead of "Oxford Girl" or "Wexford Girl." Anderson offers anecdotal evidence through his sister and Aunt that a version of the ballad with the Waco Girl title was sung in the early 1900s in Oklahoma and Texas. Lomax recorded a version in Louisiana in 1934 and a version was collected in a California migrant camp in 1938 and recorded in 1940. Although Anderson did not understand the lineage of the ballad, he provided two new versions of Waco Girl. All four versions are in my collection-- the 1929 recording of "Waco Girl" by Herman Thacker for Victor was never issued and I'm sure was lost during the Great Depression.
Waco Girl -sung by Fred Ross, Arvin, Calif., FSA Camp, on August 1, 1940. Learned from a migrant girl named Dorothy Ledford at Indio Camp in 1938.
It was down around bout Waco town
I used to live and dwell;
It was down around bout Waco town
I owned a flourin' mill.
I fell in love with a Waco girl
With dark and rolling eyes,
I asked her would she marry me
And me she would despise.
I called on her sister's house
At eight o'clock one night
I asked her if she'd walk with me
And view the meadows so bright.
We walked along and we talked along
'Till we came to the level ground,
I picking up a stick of hedge wood
I stoked that fair maid down.
And down she fell on her bending knees
"O mercy me," she cried;
"O Willie, my dear, don't murder me here;
I'm not prepared to die."
I paid no attention to what she said,
But stoked her as before
I stroked her 'till the ground around
Was covered in her gore.
Then picking her up by the yellow hair
I swung her round and round
And drug her to the waterside,
And threw her in to drown.
I went back to my mother's house
At twelve o'clock that night,
My mother was awoken
And in an awful fright.
"O son, O son what have you done
To dirty your hands and clothes?"
The answer that I gave her
Was bleeding at the nose.
I called out for a handkerchief
To bind my weary head.
And also for a candle
To light me off to bed.
I kicked, I rolled and I tumbled down,
No mercy could I find;
The fires of hell around me
Right in my eyes did shine.
'Bout three weeks or later
The Waco girl was found
A-floating down the waters
Which ran through Waco town.
They taken me on suspicion
They locked me up in jail;
I had no one to comfort me,
No one to go my bail.
Her sister swore against me,
She swore my life away,
She swore I was the very young lad
That'd taken her sister away.
O Lord, they're going to hang me;
It is the day to die;
O Lord, they're going to hang me
Between the earth and sky.
Anderson says[45], "I am sure that the singers of the ballad in the Texas Panhandle accepted it as an account of an actual murder in Waco, Texas." Located on the Chisholm Trail, the "Waco Village" was formed in 1849 and incorporated in 1856. It seems likely that a version titled "Oxford" or "Wexford" was renamed "Waco" and another local version was formed. Since versions originated in Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana and California it's another mystery of origin. Only Herman Thacker's unissued 1929 recording was from Texas.
The ballad usually under the Oxford or Export/Expert titles was very popular in the Southwest with over 50 collected versions. Vance Randolph himself found over a dozen version in Missouri and Arkansas. His wife Mary Celestia Parler and other Ozark collectors rounded up 20 more versions that can be viewed and heard at the Ozark Folksong Collection online. The John Quincy Wolf Collection and The Max Hunter Folk Song Collection both have a number of versions. According to William Owens the ballad was well known in Texas and he gives a version from his childhood in Texas Folk Songs. One the oldest reported versions, learned in Texas about 1890, came originally from Kentucky, although it is a variant of the Lexington Murder:
The Old Mill- sung by Mr. Lair to his daughter in Texas about 1890.
1 In a lonely spot by an old, old mill,
I spied a pretty fair maid;
The devil brought it in my mind
To take her life away.
Many of the Western and Ozark versions are varied and some feature melodies in minor keys.
Brief Comparison of Ballad Reductions and Titles in North America
There are very few older versions from North America that are similar to or based on the 1700s Berkshire Tragedy Reduction. Only the Hick/Harmon version I've titled "Wittenham Miller" and Ritchie's "Oxfordhire Lass" are clearly based on or similar to the Berkshire Reduction also callad the archaic Oxford Reduction, while Mary Eddy's "Lexington Girl" has several places of agreement with Berkshire and is a very old example of Lexington Reduction. In other ballads a stanza or a few words are borrowed from the older reductions. The presence of the devil is found in Berkshire Tragedy but not, for example, in The Cruel Miller, and other reductions. Here's Berkshire stanza 9:
9. About a month since Christmas last,
oh! cursed be the day,
The devil then did me persuade,
to take her life away.
The presence of this stanza or usually part of it, indicates an early association with Berkshire Reduction or Lexington Reduction. At least four versions from North Carolina usually titled "The Bloody Miller[46]" begin with this very stanza:
1. One month of May since Christmas last,
that most unhappy day
That the devil persuaded me
to take her life away. [Bloody Miller- Jane Eller (NC) 1901 Abrams A]
This following stanza is found in the older NC and VA versions of The Lexington Murder. This concluding warning stanza was recreated in the Lexington Reductions to tie in with the devil being the cause of the murder:
Come all young men and warning take
Unto your lovers be true
And never let the devil get
The upper hand of you. [Carter Family 1937, "Never Let the Devil Get the Upper Hand Of You"]
Part of stanza 12 of the Berkshire Tragedy (below)is found in North America. When he took her "unto a private place" and "struck her in the face," this is not found in Cruel Miller or the Wexford Reduction:
12. Thus I deluded her again,
unto a private place:
Then took a stick out of the hedge,
and struck her in the face.
Below is the same stanza below as it appears in a number of traditional versions of the Lexington Reduction.This example is from Parler (Ozark Folk Songs- G version) titled, "The Murdered Sweetheart" as sung by Mrs. Ollie Riggins of Fayetteville, Ark. on April, 1964:
We strolled together side by side
'til we came to a silent place,
I taken a stick from off of the fence
and struck her in the face.
In stanza 1 of Berkshire the adjective "tender" is used to describe the murderer's parents, but tender is not found in the Cruel Miller, the Standard Wexford or Standard Oxford reductions. Here's the beginning of the Cruel Miller:
My parents educated [me], good earning gave to me,
They bound me to a miller to which I did agree,
as compared to Berkshire's text:
3 My tender parents brought me up,
provided for me well;
And in the Town of Wittam then,
they plac'd me in a Mill.
Another stanza found in the Berkshire but not Cruel Miller and the Standard Wexford/Oxford reductions is the "lay trembling all the night" stanza where "rest" rhymes with "breast:"
Where I lay trembling all the night,
For I could take no rest,
And perfect flames of hell did flash
Within my guilty breast.
This important stanza from the Berksire/Lexington reductions is found is some US/Canadian versions. It's taken from "The Murdered Sweetheart" as sung by Mrs. Ollie Riggins of Fayetteville, Ark. on April, 1964 (Parler G):
I lit my candle, went in my room,
as if to take my rest,
It seemed like me like the fire of Hell
was burning in my breast.
The next example (below) is from the most archaic version which was collected from Pollyanna Harmon:
14. I lay there all that long night;
I had but little rest;
I thought I felt the flames of hell
Strike within my guilty breast.
This is the Hicks/Harmon version I've titled "Wittenham Miller" which was brought to Tennessee from North Carolina by the Harmon in the 1880s. From these few examples it's clear that some North American versions pre-date The Cruel Miller broadside and some of the Standard Reductions and were similar to or based on archaic Berkshire Reductions and Lexington Reduction tha pre-date The Cruel Miller. They provide additional evidence that the ballad came to North America in the 1700s.
The last 20 stanzas of Berkshire Tragedy are not usually found in tradition. Jason Ritchie's "The Oxfordshire Lass" has two ending stanzas that correspond to stanzas 42 and 44 of Berkshire. The last stanza of Berkshire resembles the last stanza as sung by Pollyanna Harmon where the murderer begs God for mercy.
There are two English versions that have borrowed some text from "The Distressed Maid/Lily-White Hand" ballads -- the best example is the version titled, "Oxford Girl" by traveller Phoebe Smith. I've also found similar text in two US versions from Missouri and Arkansas[47] (see titles below).
Versions that have lines from The Distressed Maid/Lily-White Hand
1. The Knoxville Girl - As sung by Mrs. George Ripley, Milford, Missouri on November 21, 1959; Max Hunter E
2. The Knoxville Girl-- Sung by Mrs. Maxine Hite of Prairie Grove, Arkansas on January 9, 1959; Parler C.
Ballad Reductions and Associated Titles
There are a large number of titles in North America, although nearly all can be categorized as one of the four main ballad reductions. The ballad reductions appear in general regions although reductions like the "Lexington Murder" have migrated from North Carolina and Virginia to the west and have been found more recently in the Ozarks. Reductions were also substituted for two murders in the late 1800s- Lula Noel in Missouri (Oxford Girl) and Nellie Cropsey in North Carolina (Lexington Murder). Since the titles were often interchangeable (Export/Oxport/Expert) assigning characteristic text identifiers specific to a title becomes more difficult. Here are some characteristics of the titles:
1) The Oxford Girl (standard, not archaic)- title is found in the south, mid-west and specifically Mississippi (related city is Oxford, MS). Laws says this is of American origin however I consider it a later reduction that continues the "Oxford" name from the original Berkshire broadside. Several English traditional versions also use the Oxford name.
2) Wexford/Waxford Girl (standard, not archaic)- the title for Miramichi versions is Wexford Lass (New Brunswick) and Wexford is common in many Canadian versions, especially from Irish settlers (ref. Peacock). This is also the main title for the New England versions. The similar title, Waxford is used as a substitution. There is no difference between Wexford and Waxford- although the mid-west titles are Waxford/Waxferd/Waxweed etc. and are generally not Wexford. The mid-west versions are, in general, similar versions with a similar title. In approximately one third of the Wexford versions, there is a two stanza ending. The murderer is generally named "Johnny" in US versions and "Jimmie" or "Willie" in Canada and New England.
3) Lexington Murder/Lexington Girl- A mainly North Carolina and Virginia variant which is identified perhaps with the city, Lexington as found in the US but no specific city by that name is the certain city of the original. Lexington is an old American title and one of the oldest reductions. The murderer is usually named "Willie."
4) Knoxville Girl- traditional from south, related to the city Knoxville, TN. It similar to the standard Oxford/Wexford texts and frequently has the "Now they're going to hang me" ending stanza. It seems to be a post Civil War variant based on the standard Oxford Reduction.
5) Knoxville Girl (Commercial Recordings)- Although different commercial recordings were made, these are specific to Arthur Tanner's "Knoxville Girl" with slight variation in the ending as found in The Blue Sky Boys, Hall Brothers, Louvin Brothers, and Wilburn brothers commercial covers of the Tanner recording. Nearly all the commercial recordings are text specific and replicate Tanner's opening stanzas which have a modified and shortened opening. The Tanner text is also the standard bluegrass version.
6) Waxweed/Waxford/Waxferd Girl- Mostly found in mid-west, these are variants of the standard Wexford Reduction. Waxford, is the most common substitute title, see also Wexford Girl no. 2.
7) Waco Girl- from the US southwest, this is an Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana variant (5 versions) circa 1900. Different in title and name only, this is the standard Oxford Reduction.
8) Noel Girl- Missouri variant sung with standard text from several reductions (Lexington/Wexford) about the Lula Noel murder in 1897.
9) Nell Cropsey- North Carolina variant sung with the standard "Lexington Murder" text about the murder of Nellie Cropsey in 1901. Minor name changes in at least two texts (Brown Collection- but complete texts are not given/see also: North Carolina Folklore) where the murdered sweetheart's name is given as "Nell."
10) Expert/Export Girl- part of the standard Wexford/Oxford reductions. Charles Wolfe says that "The Export Girl" was named for a town on the Arkansas-Louisiana line, however, this may be coincidental.
The difficulty arises when any type of timeline is proposed to organize the ballad types that were supposedly descendants of either The Berkshire Tragedy, Lexington Miller or Cruel Miller. Malcolm Laws, in his American Balladry, p. 119, represents the line of descent as follows:
THE BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY>
The Lexington Miller -- The Cruel Miller>
The Lexington Murder ---The Butcher Boy>
The Wexford Girl (from Cruel Miller and Butcher Boy)>
The Oxford Girl>
[other North American versions]
Laws chart suffers from the lack of new information gathered about Berkshire since 1957 and his failure to understand and identify the various reductions. The three known print reductions are now The Lexington Miller (Boston broadside), Wexford Tragedy (chapbook), and The Cruel Miller (English broadsides with different titles). They are of the same approximated age (1815-1830) and all represent secondary reductions. The Lexington Miller has one variant from tradition, The Wexford Tragedy has one similar version from tradition and The Cruel Miller's effect, although evident in some English traditional versions, is less than previously imagined-- especially in North America. The question Laws failed to ask is: If these three print versions are just shortened versions of Berkshire, how and when did this shortening take place? Assuming the date of circa 1700 is close to the accurate date when Berkshire was created, print reductions and traditional renderings of them would be taking place concurrent with this printing and especially when the broadside was deemed worthy of additional printings and became popular. Although no accurate date for the creation of the four main reductions may be given, an estimated date of c.1760 seems reasonable. The first reduction would be the Berkshire/archaic Oxford Reduction as proven by two traditional version collected in the US: The Whittenham Miller (Pollyanna Harmon) and the Oxfordshire Lass (Jason Ritchie).
These important American versions indicate that Berkshire was shortened and brought to this country long before the Cruel Miller was in print and that these reductions are entirely independent of The Cruel Miller. Laws did not understand, for example, The Lexington Miller was printed from Berkshire and an earlier missing reduction similar to The Lexington Murder which resulted in the Lexington Miller broadside and the title Lexington. Looking at Laws descent chart above, I believe the reductions found in North America--The Lexington Murder (mainly Appalachian), the Wexford Girl (New England/Canada originally Irish) and The Oxfordshire Lass (Berkshire/Oxford)-- all predate the three print versions.
And what about the handkerchief "to bind his head" that is not found in any print version yet is common both in America and Scotland? Because the handkerchief stanzas is common to The Butcher Boy Reduction (Scottish) and the Wexford Reduction (irish) shows that these two main reductions shared a common ancestry. Laws descent chart places "Wexford Girl" as a descendant of the "Butcher Boy." Then "Oxford Girl" descends from "Wexford Girl" and I assume Oxford is the originator of other versions from North America.
The text of the standard "Oxford Girl" is generic and is found also in the standard Wexford reductions, as well as Knoxville Girl and other titles (Export/Waco etc.). Although the basic text is shared, some titles and versions in a locality are distinct. The four Miramichi versions from New Brunswick titled, Wexford Lass, are examples of distinct version in a locality. From distinct versions such as Lexington Murder, small changes in text through oral transmission can help determine the approximate age of the version.
Conclusions--
The ballad is varied in North America and some of the older names (Oxford; Lexington; Wexford) of the reductions are changed to represent a local setting (Knoxville, Shreveport, Vicksburg, Export, Waco) or murders (Noel Girl; Nellie Cropsey). The ballad has been associated with at least four local murders; two in the US ("Noel Girl"-Missouri and "Cropsey Girl"-North Carolina) and two involving New Brunswick men ("The Moncton Tragedy" with murderer John E. Sullivan[48] and "Benjamin Dean," named after a new Brunswick man who murdered his wife in New Hampshire[49]-- sung in Canada and the US northeast).
What is the meaning of Wexford? "Wexford Town" is a location where the murderer falls in love with a "Wexford Girl." In the standard Wexford reductions, it is a town where the murderer lived and was born and a town where he owns a flour mill. "Wexford Town" is found in "The Cruel Miller," a broadside reduction derived from 1700s Berkshire Tragedy broadside with bits of text from the Wexford reduction and the other sources. "Wexford Girl" is not the title of an "Irish version" as no version from Ireland bears that name. Only two complete Irish versions have been collected in the UK and "Wexford" is not a name found in either. Since there are no known Irish broadsides, one clue to the text of missing early Wexford Reduction is the chapbook reduction "Wexford Tragedy" of 1818 and the Canadian "Worcester Tragedy." The standard reduction (a more modern reduction) is found in Irish-Canadian or Irish-American versions with the "Wexford Girl" title. "Wexford" is the main title in Maritime Canada, New England and with the Miramichi in New Brunswick. Irish Canadians like Angelo Dornan and Irish-American emigrant John W. Green of Michigan, have given us a glimpse of the standard Irish tradition which was and is missing in Ireland.
As far as the story line, changes have been made in America. He no longer proposes marriage "if she would with me lie." Gone also is the "Till at length she proved with child to me" line[50] which forces him into a marriage he doesn't want. Some traditional singers suspect the victim was pregnant. Fields Ward commented to Alan Lomax[51]: "I guess she was in a family way and he didn't want to marry her." Jason Ritchie said about the ballad, "They'uz sweethearts, and. . . she got pregnant. went'n told 'im 'bout it and he killer 'er. . . tuck 'er off in th' night." However, once this motive has been eliminated from the text[52], what is left is a girl being suddenly and brutally attacked and killed by her lover for no apparent reason. The popular early country recordings of Knoxville Girl begin similarly[53]:
I met a little girl in Knoxville
A town you all know well;
And every Sunday evening
Out in her home I’d dwell.
We went to take an evening walk
About a mile from town;
I picked a stick up from the ground
I knocked that fair girl down.
What was a peaceful country stroll by two lovers becomes to a violent attack in six short lines. Not even the devil is to blame in these commercial recordings. Although rare, several traditional versions[54] have attempted to provide an alternative a motive for the attack-- in one variant he was seeing another girl and the devil wanted him to get rid of his first lover. In a version from Canada[55], he kills her to get her money. In some traditional version of the Knoxville girl[56], the murderer proposes marriage but is denied which supplies an additional plausible motive. Although in most versions no justification for murder is provided, perhaps the perpetrator's capture, placement in a jail cell and death sentence are enough to satisfy the listeners that he will pay for his dastardly deed. His repentance before the gallows is a warning- be true to your lover or else this will happen to you!
Along the path of redemption some new lines, stanzas and warnings have been recreated in North America that are not found in print or in the UK.
I told her that I’d marry her
If me she’d never deny. [The Waxfort Girl- sung by Mrs. Donia Cooper of West Fork, Ark. on August 14, 1959.]
I ran my fingers through her [coal-black] hair
To cover up my sin
I carried her to the river's edge
And there I plunged her in[57]. [Town of Vicksburg- Nancy Philley (AR) 1959 Parler N]
I called for me a candle
To light myself to bed
I called for me a handkerchief[58]
To bind my aching head [in many versions including Knoxville Girl commercial recordings]
A number of commercial early recordings followed the 1925 "Knoxville Girl" recording that used essentially the same text and melody. From that recording came The Blue Sky Boys "Story of the Knoxville Girl," the Hall Brothers "Mountain Girl" and the Louvin Brothers' "Knoxville Girl." This recording in fast waltz time was covered by the Wilburn Brothers and also by a large number of bluegrass recording artists including Hylo Brown, Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin, Jim and Jesse, Country Gentlemen, and Mac Wiseman. It's easily identified as "not traditional" by the opening verse:
I met a little girl in Knoxville
A town you all know well;
And every Sunday evening
Out in her home I’d dwell.
The complete text of Tanner's version is given further above. The number of cover versions of this standard text is well over 50 and it remains one of the most popular murder ballads of all time. It's important to mention that another well-known American murder ballad, Banks of the Ohio (AKA Banks of the old Pedee) is modeled after Knoxville Girl, has also borrowed a stanza and has a derivative plot.
R. Matteson 2016]
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Footnotes:
1. Additional print information for Lexington Miller from Tom Pettitt.
https://www.academia.edu/16917625/Memory_Print_and_Performance_The_Cruel_Miller_Revisited_
2. This reduction to 23 stanza included 3 new stanzas of Lexington Miller, one at the beginning and two at the end. I've examined most of the extant versions from North America and only one version is clearly based on The Lexington Miller broadside. It's titled Lexington Tragedy and was sung by Alonzo Lewis at York, Maine on 10-01-1948. The location, Lexington, is well-established in older versions from Appalachia. The Lexington Murder as well as a copy of the Berkshire broadside appear to be the source of the Lexington Miller broadside.
3. The source of this tradition is unknown but similar to Eddy C, an archaic traditional version from Ohio. Text from this tradition would be represented by stanza 8 which begins, "Now straight unto the Mill I went" which is taken from a reduction similar to the Lexington Murder Reduction.
4. Dozens of versions of Lexington Murder have been collected throughout the US south mainly in NC and VA. The consistent text indicates an unknown print version or versions which would pre-date the 1829 Lexington Miller. Several older variants include Eddy C "Lexington Girl" and the related "Bloody Miller" from NC.
5. This single version from Maine has recently been found and transcribed from Flanders' online collection.
6. Ib, "Lexington Girl," taken from Mrs. Mary Boney, Perrysville, Ohio by Mary Eddy reveals the source of several stanzas of the Lexington Miller not found in the standard Lexington Murder variants.
7. John Harrington Cox, Folk Songs of the South, 1925
8. The Pollyanna Harmon version from TN via NC is 18 stanzas and the Miramichi texts consistently average 16 stanzas. These, along with the standard Wexford versions, are the longest extant traditional versions from North America.
9. The marriage agreement-- he agrees to marry her if she will with him lie, is found in a number a version although the agreement is usually reworded. While the pregnancy is inferred it is found in the text only in a couple versions. The last line of the stanza with the marriage agreement has been changed. The original agreement is:
I promised I would marry her,
If with me she would lie.
The last word "lie" needs to rhyme with "eye" (dark and rolling eye). A viable alternative is "If me she'd not deny" or "My wishes to comply" but instead it has also been changed poorly into "And she believed the lie." Several version keep the original but only three have the pregnancy stanza and another implies it (the "folly" stanza) which for all practical purposes means her pregnancy has effectively been removed.
10. "The Worcester Tragedy." Collected by Kenneth Peacock in 1959 from Mrs Charlotte Decker [1884-1967] of Parson's Pond, NL.
11. The Virginia Colony represents Virginia before the Revolutionary period. I'm not implying that the ballad can be proven to be pre-Revolutionary-- although it could be. Certainly the only record of it in the UK are the various Berkshire Tragedy broadsides and prints, the earliest are dated by two sources-- Ebsworth and the Bodleian ballads online-- as circa 1700.
12. The Waco Girl seems to be named after Waco, Texas and is unusual because it lacks an "x" in the title. Curiously the versions in some cases have come to the Texas area from eastern states like Tennessee. It's doubtful that the title was "Waco" in Tennessee.
13. From Edinburgh; School of Scottish Studies; SA1952.21.A5. The Butcher Boy sung by John Argo of Ellon, Aberdeenshire as recorded by Hamish Henderson in 1952. John Argo heard this song from his mother while she was nursing his baby brother.
14. Laws pointed out that in a NY version taken from an Irish emigrant the murderer refers to himself as a "butcher boy."
15. The handkerchief is most commonly found in Child 272, The Suffolk Miracle where it plays an important role. Both the candle and handkerchief are found, for example, in "The Sailor Boy." The candle is already found in Berkshire-- only her handkerchief has been added, with no apparent significance to the plot. The stanza is a ballad commonplace or floating stanza.
16. Even though it seems presumptuous for me to call the title incorrect-- it was clearly given by Mellinger Henry to a ballad whose text doesn't mention "Lexington" in any way. This is a problem as I believe, in most cases, that the title should be local and at least be reflected in the text.
17. This and most of the following information come from my research on the Hicks/Harmon families of Beech Mountain, NC area. Anyone who dares to read this jumble of undocumented research (500 pages) can find it on my site: Roots>Hicks-Harmon Family.
18. See Betty Smith's book "Jane Hicks Gentry: A Singer Among Singers," 1998. I believe Big Sammy was Council Harmon's grandfather and it's unlikely that Pollyanna knew him. She was, however, raised with music of Big Sammy, since "Old Counce" grew up and absorbed the ballads and jack tales of Big Sammy and his son, Little Sammy.
19. It's "Hindley Ferry Town" in the Berkshire Tragedy but is "Hillsferry town" in the "The Miller of Whittingham Mill."
20. Besides a MS of the ballad being found in Missouri dated circa 1870, the ballad's attachment to the 1892 Noel murder is enough evidence that ballad was well known at that time.
21. From Volume 3 of Vance Randolph's Ozark Folksongs (Four Volumes) 1946-1950.
22. The Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, Volume 2, 1952.
23. From the Amos Abrams Collection online from Appalachian State. Curiously, the Brown Collection does not title the G.L. Bostic version similarly. Betty Bostic's version was published in North Carolina Folklore Journal - 1973, page 139.
24. The recording information is from this section is from Guthrie Meade's "Early Country Music Sources."
25. Ibid.
26. This is a transcription of the Tanner 1925 recording and not the 1927 version which differs in some textual details.
27. McFarland and Gardiner's "Knoxville Girl" in 1927 is one of the few commercial recordings by that title that is a standard traditional rendering of the ballad and was not influenced by Tanner's version.
28. The Brown Collection- version G: 'The Knoxville Girl.' One of two texts contributed by Mrs. Minnie Church of Heaton, Avery county, in 1930.
29. Frank Couch's version although clearly based on Tanner's but has some traditional text mixed in at the end.
30. Specific recordings have "lie there" (Tanner) or "go down" (Wilburn Brothers) which can identify the source recording that was used.
31. The standard Wexford/Oxford reductions both have the "Lie there" stanza.
32. "The Oxford Girl." 1926 Written down from memory by Mrs. G. V. Easley, Tula, Mississippi, who describes it as one of the most popular 'ballets' in Calhoun county in her girlhood. From Ballads and Songs from Mississippi- Arthur Palmer Hudson The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 39, No. 152 (Apr. - Jun., 1926), pp. 93-194.
33. The "Wexford Murder," as sung by Walter Church was learned in Canada in the late 1800s and is dated c. 1900. From Garners Gay, EFDS Publications, 1967, p.40. This is an Irish-Canadian version learned by an Englishman.
34. Hb is "Dublin City" sung by Mary Doran (tinker), Belfast, recorded and collected by Peter Kennedy in 1952 and Hc "Town of Linsborough" sung by an Irish traveller in England named Mary Delaney in the early 1970s.
35. Only in "Cruel Miller, or Love and Murder" is the town left blank, as in ____ town-- the name of the town is left blank to be filled in by a local town name.
36. See: "Songs of the Miramichi" by Manny and Wilson, 1968.
37. See Ives article, "How the Apples Got In?" in The Folklore Historian, Volume 14.
38. Boston is also the city in two versions from Mellinger Henry's "Folk Songs from the Southern Highlands," J. J. Augustin, 1938 and in Hare's "Wexford Lass".
39. Folksongs from Southern New Brunswick by Helen Creighton; Kenneth Peacock. Published Ottawa: National Museums of Canada, 1971.
40. Ibid.
41. Additional text in brackets supplied by Dornan who wasn't sure of the location of this text in his ballad.
42. An online source is Catherine Crowe who also has posted some of Dornan's recordings.
43. Beside Donnan's and Walter Church's early version, Wexford versions were collected by Peacock and by Leach.
44. "The Hanged I Shall Be" title is taken from the JAF title by Flanders/Brown and has nothing to do with that English variant nor is that text found in the Flanders version.
45. See: "The Waco Girl": Another Variant of a British Broadside Ballad by John Q. Anderson; Western Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1960), pp. 107-118; Published by: Western States Folklore Society.
46. "Bloody Miller" from a MS by Jane Eller of North Carolina in 1901 Abrams A.
47. For details see the texts attached to this page on left hand column.
48. John E. Sullivan killed a widow and her son, took her money, and set her house afire. A daughter survived and blamed Sullivan. He fled to Calais, where he was caught, brought back, tried, convicted and condemned to hang.
49. According to the Maine Folklife Center: “Benjamin Deane” is a classic example of a confessional ballad, with a man in prison lamenting how he came to be there: bootlegging, adultery, and murder. The song was written by Joe Scott sometime in mid-1898, not long after the events it describes took place: Ben Deane murdered his wife on Wednesday May 4, 1898 in Berlin, NH. (Scott was almost certainly in the area on a river drive at the time, if not exactly in Berlin when the murder happened.)
50. Several American versions still have the pregnancy line but they are very rare-- two with the pregnancy line are Maryanna Harmon's version (TN-1930) and "The Worcester Tragedy" as collected by Kenneth Peacock in 1959 from Mrs. Charlotte Decker [1884-1967] of Parson's Pond, NL.
51. "Our Singing Country," Lomax, 1941.
52. See footnote 50. The senselessness of the murder is apparently part of the intrigue of the ballad.
53. These are the the multitude of commercial recordings that use a version of the "Tanner" text from 1925.
54. An example of this motive is given from "My Confession" contributed by Miss Sylvia Vaughan, of Oakland City, Indiana on March 5, 1935:
2. And there I saw a pretty fair maid;
She pleased me in my mind.
I promised her I would marry her
If with me she would comply.
3. At length I saw another one
That pleased me fully as well;
The devil put it in my head
My first true-love to kill.
55. The motive is given by Angelo Dornan of Elgin, N. B. who learned his version when he was a child about 1911 from his parents who emigrated from Northern Ireland in the 1800s.
56. Se for example, "The Knoxville Girl," sung by J.F. "Farmer" Collett of Marrowbone Creek; Gardner, KY (Leslie County).
57. This is reminiscent of Berkshire stanza 16, although modified.
58. The 2nd half of the stanza (with handkerchief) is found in the standard Wexford/Oxford reductions and related variants (Knoxville etc.) as well as The Butcher Boy in Scotland.
______________________________________________________________
CONTENTS: (To access individual texts, click on the blue highlighted title below or on the title as it's attached to this page on the left hand column with green border)
1) Lexington Miller- (MA) 1829 Deming broadside
[Lexington]
2) Prentice Boy- Harry Fore (MO) c1870 Belden A
[Oxford Town]
3) Wittenham Miller- P. Harmon (TN-NC) 1880 Henry A
[town of Wickedness] [John] [Harry Fairy Town]
4) Orphan Girl- J. Will Short (MO) 1890 Randolph G
[Washington] [Orphan Girl]
5) Hanged I Shall Be- Nellie Richardson (VT) c.1890 Flanders/Brown
[town of Oxford] [town of Eaglewood]
6) The Old Mill- F. H. Lair (KY-TX) c.1890 Payne
7) Wexford Girl- Walter Church (CAN/UK) c.1900 Hamer
[town of Idalo] [town of Wexford] [Willie]
8) Miller Boy- C. G. O'Neill (MO) 1900 Randolph F
9) Bloody Miller- Jane Eller (NC) 1901 Abrams A
10) Waxford Gal- Long Tom (WS) pre-1901 F. Dublin
[town of Eagle, O] [town of Waxford] [Waxford Gal] [Willie]
11) Waco Girl- Esther Anderson (TX) 1906 Anderson
Knoxville Girl- Florence Mathis (TN) 1906 Boswell
Knoxville Girl- Lily Brown (MI) 1910 Gardner A
Oxford Girl- William A. Owens (TX) c. 1910 Owens
Wexford Girl- Angelo Dornan (NB) c.1911 Creighton
Nell Cropsey- John S. Chappell (NC) 1912 Chappell
Oxford Girl- Addie McClard (MO) 1913 Belden B
Oxford Girl- Almeda Riddle (AR) c.1914 Wolf A
Lexington Murder- Mrs. Baird (NC) 1915 Brown A
Bloody Miller- I. G. Greer (NC) 1915 Brown B
Knoxville Girl- Sgt. Kirkheart (WV-KY) 1916 Lomax
The Tragedy- Dayton Wiles (WV) c.1916 Cox A
Johnny McDowell- Snoah McCourt (WV) 1916 Cox B
Flora Dean- Wilson & Townsley (KY) 1917 Sharp A
Miller's Apprentice- Mrs. Poff (KY) 1917 Sharp B
Miller's Apprentice- D. Knuckles (KY) 1917 Sharp C
Miller's Apprentice- B. Creech (KY) 1917 Sharp D
Oxford Girl- Lockie Wiseman (KY) 1917 Sharp MS
Miller's Apprentice- Dol Small (VA) 1918 Sharp E
Poor Nell- B. C. Reavis (NC) 1920 Brown M
Wexford City- Mrs. Walters (NL) 1920 Greenleaf
Nellie Cropsey- Lucy Dunnegan (NC) 1921 Brown 4C
Willie, My Son- Thelma Stevens (VA) 1922 Stone
Come All of You- Madge Nichols (NC) 1922 Brown C
Lexington Murder- G. Allen (NC) 1923 Brown D
Lexington Murder- Mrs Vaught (NC) 1923 Brown 4D
Lexington Murder- Abie Shepherd (NC) 1923 Carter
Oxford Girl- Mrs. G. V. Easley (MS) 1924 Hudson A
Knoxville Girl- Arthur Tanner (GA) 1925 REC
Lexington Girl- Mary Riddle (NC) 1925 Henry D
Oxford Girl- Audrey Hellums (MS) 1926 Hudson B
Miller's Prentice- Laura Thornton (MO) 1926 Rand C
Knoxville Girl- McFarland & Gardner (KY-TN) 1926
City of Pineville- Mrs Stevens(MO) 1927 Randolph A
Expert Girl- Sanford Hughston (MS) 1928 Hudson C
Noel Girl- Eva Shockley (MO) 1928 Randolph B
Waterford Town- Daniel Brown (NS) 1928 Mackenzie
Boston Girl- Ray Bohanan (TN) 1929 Henry B
Boston Girl- Mac Hardin (TN) 1929 Henry C
Lexington Murder- N. Lancaster (NC) c.1930 Brown F
Knoxville Girl- Minnie Church (NC) 1930 Brown G
Flora Dean- Molly Jackson (KY) 1930 Lomax REC
Wexford Town- Mabel Tatro (VT) 1930 Flanders F
Lexington Miller- Martha Hodges (NC) 1931 Brown J
Knoxville Girl- Selma Chubb (NC) c.1932 Scarb A
Knoxville Girl- Bessie Musick (VA) c.1932 Scarb B
Knoxville Gal- Clementine Douglass(NC)1932 Scarb C
Expert Girl- Lucile Morris (MO) 1933 Randolph D
Expert Girl- Lucile Morris (MO) 1933 Randolph E
Hanged I Shall Be- G. Edwards (VT) 1933 Flanders G
Export Girl- Louisiana Lou (LA-MS) 1933 REC
Waco Girl- Eddie Murphy (LA) 1934 Lomax REC
Oxford Girl- Fred Harris (FL) 1934 Morris
Lexington Murder- Wesley Hargis (NC) 1934 Lomax
Waxford Girl- Mrs McClellan (MI) 1935 Gardner B
My Confession- Mrs. Vaughan (IN) 1935 Brewster
Knoxville Girl- unknown (TN) 1936 Crabtree A
Knoxville Girl- unknown (TN) 1936 Crabtree B
Knoxville Girl- Nora Begley (KY) 1937 Lomax REC
Never Let The Devil- Carter Family (VA) 1937 REC
Lexington Murder- Fields Ward (VA) 1937 REC
Lexington Murder- Nora Hicks (NC) 1937 Abrams D
Story Of Knoxville Girl- Blue Sky Boys (NC) 1937
Knoxville Girl- E. Minyard (KY) 1937 Lomax REC
Knoxville Girl- Trusty sisters (KY) 1937 Lomax REC
Knoxville Girl- Reva Osborne (KY) 1937 Lomax REC
Knoxville Girl- Howard Collins (KY) 1937 Lomax REC
Knoxville Girl- J. F. Collett (KY) 1937 Lomax REC
Knoxville Girl- Davis sisters (KY) 1937 Lomax REC
Waco Girl- Dorothy Ledford (CA) 1938 Sonkin REC
Waxford Girl- Mrs. Hattie Bitner (IL) 1938 Neely
Bloody Miller- Faye Aldridge (NC) c1938 Abrams B
Nellie Crospie- Betty Bostic (NC) 1938 Abrams C
Bloody Miller- Mrs. Church (NC) c.1938 Brown H
Lexington Girl- Pete Steele (KY-OH) 1938 Lomax
Wexford Girl- John W. Green (MI) 1938 Lomax REC
Printer's Boy- Sylvia Vaughan (IN) 1938 Brewster B
Knoxville Girl- Ken Williams (IN) 1938 Brewster C
Waxford Girl- Mrs. Robertson (OH) 1939 Eddy A
Lexington Girl- Mary Boney (OH) 1939 Eddy C
Lexington Murder- Mrs Bostic (NC) 1939 Brown 4A1
One Saturday Night- Colon Keel (FL) 1939 Lomax
Lexington Murder- Mrs Trivette (NC) 1939 Brown 4A2
Lexington Murder- unknown (NC) c. 1939 Brown 4A
Knoxville Girl- Fred Painter (MO) 1941 Randolph I
Expert Town- Mildred Tuttle (AR) 1941 Randolph J
Expert Girl- The Freemans (AR) 1941 Randolph K
Oxford Girl- Sula Hudson (MO) 1941 Randolph L
Export town- Mrs. Matilda Amos (AR) 1941 Garrison
Wexford Girl- Eldin Colsie (ME) 1941 Flanders D
Waxford Girl- John Galusha (NY) 1941 Warner
Rexford Girl- G. Dunaway (AR) 1942 Randolph H
Waxford Girl- Lily Delorme (NY) 1942 Flanders C
Waxford Girl- Alice Mancour (VT) 1942 Flanders B
Knoxville Girl- female singer (NC) 1943 Brown 4G
Lexington Murder- Pat Fry (NC) 1944 Abrams E
Wexford Lass- Frank Ramsay (NB) 1947 Manny
Mountain Girl- Hill Brothers (TX) 1948 Savoy REC
Lexington Tragedy- A. Lewis (ME) 1948 Flanders E
Knoxville Girl- Artus Moser (NC) 1949 Botkin BK
Town of Waxford- James W. Cline (NY-NJ) 1949
Oxfordshire Lass- Jason Ritchie (KY) pre1949
The Mill Boy- Mrs. McCracken (AR) 1950 Parler F
A Murder Scoundrel- W.A. Ammons (WV) pre1951
Wexford Girl- John James (NL) 1951 Leach REC
Wexford City- Mike Kent (NL) 1951 Peacock B
Waxwerd Girl- Fred High (AR) 1951 Hunter I
Wexford Girl- Charlie Chamberlain (NB) pre1951 Doerflinger A
Knoxville Girl- Roberta & Bob Blair(AR)1952 Wolf H
Export Girl- Julie Powell (AR) 1953 Wolf E
Export Girl- Mr & Mrs Sutterfield (AR) 1953 Wolf F
Lexington Murder- W. D. Collins (MO) c.1953
Oxford Girl- Leroy Gardner (AR) 1953 Parler K
Knoxville Girl- Mrs. Jessie Monroe (WV) 1953
Knoxville Girl- Frank Couch (KY) 1954 Roberts
Export Girl- Jimmie Driftwood (AR) 1954 Parler A
Knoxville Girl- Washam/Crymes (AR) 1954 Parler D
Knoxville Girl- Louvin Brothers (AL) 1956 REC
Waco Girl- Ray Barlow (TN-TX) 1956 Anderson B
Wexford Girl- Arthur Nicolle (NL) 1958 Peacock A
Waxweed Girl- David Pricket (AR) 1958 Hunter A
My Tender Parents- Hammond (MO) 1958 Hunter B
Waxwell Girl- Roxie Phillips (AR) 1958 Hunter C
Export Girl- Mrs. Daugherty (AR) 1958 Wolf B
Knoxville Girl- Al Bittick (AZ) 1958 Parler B
Prentice Boy- Marybird McAllister (VA) 1958 Foss
Oxford Girl- Mrs. Donna Everett (AR) 1958 Parler H
Waxford Girl- Pearl Brewer (AR) 1958 Parler R
Worcester Tragedy- C. Decker (NL) 1959 Peacock C
Knoxville Girl- Maxine Hite (AR) 1959 Parler C
Knoxville Girl- Mrs. Ripley (AR) 1959 Hunter E
Lexington Murder- Susie Wasson (AR) 1959 Parler E
Town of Vicksburg- Nancy Philley(AR)1959 Parler N
Vicksburg Girl- Mrs G.C. Philley(AR)1959 Parler O
Waxfort Girl- Mrs. Donia Cooper (AR) 1959 Parler Q
The Jealous Lover- Ruby Vass (VA) 1959 Shellans
Oxford Girl- Betty Lee Jones (AR) 1960 Parler L
Miller Boy- James M Keeping (NL) 1960 Peacock D
Oxford Girl- George Marshall (OK) 1960 Parler J
Oxford Girl- Linda Lee Jones (AR) 1960 Parler M
Waxford Girl- Mrs. W.F. Bell (AR) 1960 Parler P
Waxford Lass- Dellas Macdonald (NB) 1961 Ives
Export Girl- Jewel Hawkins (AR) 1962 Wolf D
Oxford Girl- James Turner (AR) 1963 Parler I
Lexington Girl- Fleecy Fox (AR) 1963 Wolf C
Export Girl- Lowell Harness (AR) 1963 Wolf G
Oxford Town- Earnest Hugley (CO) pre1964
Murdered Sweetheart- Riggins (AR) 1964 Parler G
Wexford Lass- Marie Hare (NB) c.1964 Paton REC
Rich Old Farmer- Paul B. Lacy (KY) 1964 Boswell B
Knoxville Girl- Tab Ward (NC) 1966 Burton II
Knoxville Girl- Ralph E. Frazier (TN) 1966 Burton
Knoxville Girl- P. Weddington (AR) 1968 Hunter D
Waxford Girl- Reba Dearmore (AR) 1969 Hunter F
Notchville Girl- Betty Copeland (AR) 1969 Hunter G
Export Town- Ollie Gilbert (AR) 1969 Hunter H
Wexford Girl- Mrs. Alvin Reed (WV) 1970 Bush A
Knoxville Girl- Mrs. Basil Casto (WV) 1970 Bush B
Waxford Girl- Nora Carpenter (KY) 1972 REC
Nell Cropsey- Grace Zurawicki (NC) 1974
Town of Expert- Bob Carter (US) c.1975 Mudcat
Knoxville Girl- Doris Omega Franklin (IL) 1987
Wexford Girl- Rita Emerson (WV) 1998 Davies
________________________________________________
Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S301497)
First Line: I met a little girl in Knoxville
Source: Riverside RLP 12-617 ('Southern Mountain Folksongs & Ballads')
Performer: West, Harry / West, Jeanie
Date: 1955
Place: USA : New York
Collector: Goldstein, Kenneth S.
Brown Collection of NC Folklore volumes 2, 1952 notes:
65. The Lexington Murder
Variously known as 'The Oxford Girl,' 'The Wexford Girl,' 'The Lexington Girl,' 'The Knoxville Girl,' 'The Bloody Miller,' and in England as 'The Wittam Miller' and 'The Berkshire Tragedy,' this ballad tells a story similar to that of 'The Gosport Tragedy' and also to that of the American 'Florella,' 'Poor Naomi' ('Omie Wise'), 'Pearl Bryan,' 'Nell Cropsey,' and others. See the headnote to 'The Gosport Tragedy,' and also FSS 311 and BSM 133-4, both of which give extensive references showing the diffusion of the ballad; add also Davis, FSV 271-2 for texts from Virginia, Morris, FSF 336-9, for texts from Florida, and Randolph, OFS II 92-104 for texts from Missouri and Arkansas. The texts selected for presentation here are reckoned to belong to the tradition of 'The Wittam Miller' because of the names under which they are known in North Carolina or because they are, most of them at least, marked by the killer's excuse for his appearance that it is due to "bleeding at the nose." Most of them also remember that the murderer is a miller or a miller's apprentice. The ballad about Nellie Cropsey, a North Carolina girl murdered early in the present century (see no. 307, below), is in most of its texts modeled very closely on 'The Lexington Murder.'
----------------
[From Ballads and Songs, Belden 1940- notes. Belden gives info about the Bloody Miller but not the 1744 info given by Cox. Belden also fails to mention The Cruel Miller.]
The Oxford Girl
The story of the girl murdered by the man who has seduced. her takes many forms in street balladry, as it has done, no doubt, in our social history. The earliest that I have come upon is that in the Pepys collection, The Bloody Miller (Rollins III 118-22), a piece of ballad journalism on the murder of Anne Nicols on the 10th of February, 1684[1]. The murderer here is a miller, but the place is Hocstow near Shrewsbury, not Oxford or Wexford, and there is no fence stake and no drowning. Bleeding figures, but it is at the trial, not on his return from the murder. The nearer antecedent of the Ameriean ballad is the English broadside of The Berkshire Tragedy, or, The Wittam Miller, found in the Douce and Roxburge collections (Roaburghe Ballads VIII 629-31, where Ebsworth says it is originally of date circa 1700') and printed in the nineteenth century by Pitts, Such, Catnach, Birt, and no doubt by others. Here the scene is at Wittam near Oxford (sometimes Wexford, and in one print preserved in the British Museum it is at Maidstone in Kent), the man is a miller or a miller's apprentice, the girl is beaten with a stick pulled from a hedge and then thrown in the water to drown, and the man explains (either to his master or his mother or his servant) the blood on his clothes as due to nose-bleed. These features persist, for the most part, in the versions from tradition listed below and also (with a change of place-name) in the early nineteenth century Boston broadside of The Lexington Miller (for which see JAFL XLII 249-50). For distinct American pieces on the same theme see Oma Wise and. Florella, later in the present volume.
The Oxford Girl, under various names, has been reported. from tradition in Norfolk (JFSS VII 23), Dorset (JFSS VII 44-5), Newfoundland (BSSN 119), Nova Scotia (BSSNS 293-4), Vermont (VFSB 88-90), Virginia (SharpK T 409, SCSM 161-2), West Virginia (FSS 311-3), Kentucky (SharpK, 407-9), Tennessee (JAFL, XLV 725-30, FSSH 214-9), North Carolina (JAFL XIII 247-8, 290, Xiivi 29-30, SCSM 160-1, 162-4, FSSH 219), Mississippi (JAFL, Xxxix 725-9, FSM 141-3), Illinois (TSSI 150), and. Texas (PFLST VI 212-4). probably derived from this, tho lacking the special features listed above as diagnostic, are two texts, one (The Old, Shawnee) from Nebraska and the other (On the Banks of the Old Pedee) from Wyoming, in ABS 108-9.
_______________________________________
FOLK-SONGS OF THE SOUTH p. 311-313 (Cox excellent notes, 1925)
90. THE WEXFORD GIRL (THE CRUEL MILLER)
In West Virginia this ballad is known as "The Tragedy" and as "Johnny McDowell." It has been found in oral circulation in Virginia and Tennessee (Focus, IV, 370), Missouri (Belden, Journal, xxv, n), and Kentucky (Shearin and Combs, pp. 13, 28). Belden has noted that it is "a reduction of 'The Wittam Miller.'" Of "The Berkshire Tragedy, or, The Wittam Miller" the
Harvard College Library has English broadsides of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth century (Stonecutter-street, Fleet Market; J. Evans; Howard & Evans; Turner, Coventry; Pitts; cf. Roxburghe Ballads, ed. Ebsworth, vm, ii, 629). According to an Edinburgh chapbook of 1744 (catalogued by Halliwell, Notices of Fugitive Tracts, Percy Society, xxix, 90), the miller's name was John Mauge and he was hanged at Reading (Berkshire) in that year. An American broadside of the early part of the nineteenth century (Boston, Corner of Cross and Fulton Streets) affords a condensed version of "The Wittam Miller" under the title of "The Lexington Miller." A condensed text, "The Cruel Miller," substantially like the West Virginia version, is found in modern English broadsides (Catnach; Ryle; Such, No. 622); see also Journal of the Folk-Song Society, vil, 23, and cf. Baring-Gould and Sheppard, Songs of the West, IV, xxx.
______________________________
Sources:
Tom Pettitt, 'Mediating Maria Marten: Comparative and Contextual Studies of the Red Barn Ballads',
Wilgus "Tensions of Essences in Murdered-Sweetheart ballads"
Ballads and Broadsides in Britain, 1500-1800 edited by Patricia Fumerton, Anita Guerrini, Kris McAbee
-----------------------------
Death and Dying in Central Appalachia: Changing Attitudes and Practices
By James K. Crissman [unknown, footnote 64 missing in preview]
I fell in love with a Knoxville Girl
with dark and rolling eyes,
I promised her I'd marry her
if me she'd ne'er deny.
I called her at her sister's house
about nine o'clock at night,
And little did that fair girl think
I owned her in[1] a fright.
I said to her "Let's take a walk
and view the meadows gay,
That we might have a little talk
and plan our wedding day."
We walked along, we talked along,
Until we came to level ground
There I picked up an edgewood stick
and I knocked that fair girl down.
She fell upon her bended knee,
"Oh Lord, have mercy!" she cried.
"Oh, Willie, dear, don't murder me here.
I'm not prepared to die."
Not minding one word she said,
I beat her more and more
I beat her till the ground around
stood in a bloody gore.
I took her by her long yellow hair,
I dragged her round and round.
I dragged her to still waters deep
that flows through Knoxville town.
-------------------------------------------------------
Musica International- Irish folksongs
Text sent in, from unknown source
1. When I was but a friendless boy
Just nineteen years of age
My father bound me to a miller
That I might learn the trade.
2. I fell in love with one dear girl
With dark and roving eyes,
I promised her I'd marry her
If me she would not deny.
3. Up stepped her mother to the door
So boldly she did say,
Oh honey do marry her
And take her far away.
4. Her mother she persuaded me
To take her for a wife,
Oh, Satan persuaded me
To take away her life.
5. I asked her for to take a walk,
Over the blooming field so good,
That we might have some secret talk
And name our wedding day.
6. We had not travelled very far
When I looked all around and around,
I picked up an old fence stick
And straight way knocked her down.
7. She fell upon her trembling knees
For mercy sake she cried,
Oh Johnny dear don't murder me
For I'm not fit to die.
8. I took her by her little hand
And threw her 'round and 'round,
Then I drug her to the riverside
And threw her in to drown.
9. And I returned to the miller's house
It was ten o'clock that night,
But little did the miller know
What I had been about.
10. She looked at me most earnestly
Said Johnny what bloodies your clothes,
I answered her most quickly
I was bleeding at the nose.
11. About three days and better
This damsel she was seen,
Floating by her sister's house
Down in old Wexford Town.
----------------------------------------------
[Standard Bluegrass text taken from Louvin Brothers/Blue Sky Boys/ Arthur Tanner recordings]
“Knoxville Girl” from Country Gentlemen: From THE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN - Bluegrass Country
1. I met a little girl in Knoxville, a town you all know well
And every Sunday evening out in her home I'd dwell
We went to take an evening walk about a mile from town
I picked a stick up off the ground and knocked that fair girl down
2. She fell down on her bended knees for mercy she did cry:
Oh Willie, dear, don't kill me here, I'm unprepared to die
She never spoke one another word I only beat her more
Until the ground around me within her blood did flow
3. I took her by her golden curls I dragged her round and round
Throwing her into the river that flows through Knoxville town
Go down go down you Knoxville girl with the dark and roving eyes
Go down go down you Knoxville girl you can never be my bride
4. I started back to Knoxville got there about midnight
My mother she was worried and woke up in a fright
Saying: Dear son, what have you done to bloody your clothes so?
I told my anxious mother I was bleeding at my nose.
5. I called for me a candle to light myself to bed
I called for me a handkerchief to bind my aching head
Rolled and tumbled the whole night through as troubles was for me
Like flames of hell around my bed and in my eyes it seen
6. They carried me down to Knoxville then put me in a jail
My friends all tried to get me out but none could go my bail
I'm here to waste my life away down in this dirty old cell
Because I murdered that Knoxville girl, the girl I loved so well
_________________________________________________
A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-songs, 1911
by Hubert Gibson Shearin, Josiah Henry Combs
The Waxford Girl (Wexford Girl), 4a3b-lc3b, G: A youth murders his sweetheart and throws her into a stream. He tells his mother, who sees the blood on his clothes, that his nose has been bleeding. He is haunted by the ghost of the dead girl (Cf. Lizzie Wan, Child, No. 51, and Miller-boy, page 28.)
_____________________________________
Miller's Boy- sung by Paul Clayton 1956 British and American Murder Ballads [no source named]
My tender parents brought me here, providing for me well
And in the city of Lexington they placed me in a mill
Along there came a wanton lass and she had a wanton eye
I promised her I'd marry her and with her I did lie.
Twas only a few weeks afterwards this lass to me did cry
I pray you John, come marry me, you've gotten me with child.
Perplexed was I on every side, no comfort could I find
But to take my darling's life my wicked heart inclined.
I went to my love's sister's house at nine o'clock at night
Little did the poor creature think at her I had a spite.
Come take a walk with me, my love, a little ways away
And we will have a little talk about our wedding day.
We walked along the lonesome road will we reached a lonely place
I drew a stake from out of the fence and hit her in the face.
She fell down on her bending knee, for mercy she did cry
O Johnny please don't murder me, I'm unprepared to die.
I listened not to her pleading, I struck her o'er and o'er
Until the ground around her was in a bloody gore.
I kept on hitting more and more, she did resign her breath
Now, wasn't I a crazy soul to put my love to death?
I took her by the hair of the head to cover up my sin
I drug her to the river's edge, and there I plunged her in.
Then straight back to the mill I ran, the miller was amazed
He saw the blood all over me and steadily he gazed.
What means this blood upon your hands, likewise upon your clothes?
I answered him immediately, from bleeding at the nose.
I lay there trembling all that night, I could not take my rest
I could but feel the pains of hell a-burning in my breast.
The morning dawned, the sheriff came and took me to the jail
And bound me down for 6 long months and then in death to wail.
Her sister swore my life away, I'm hellbound without doubt
She swore I was the very man who took her sister out.
________________________________________________________
Knoxville Girl [same as standard texts from Blue Sky Boys/Louvin Brothers from Arthur Tanner]
ARTIST: From the Wilburn Brothers
I met a little girl in Knoxville a town we all know well
And every Sunday evening out in her home I'd dwell
We went to take an evening walk about a mile from town
I thought of how she cheated me so I knocked that fair girl down
I picked a stick up off the ground and knocked that fair girl down
Oh Willy dear don't kill me here I'm not prepare to die
She never spoke another word I only beat her more
Until the ground around me within her blood did flow
[fiddle - guitar]
I took her by her golden curls I dragged her round and round
Then threw her into the river that flows through Knoxville town
Go there go there you Knoxville girl with dark and rolling eyes
Go there go there you Knoxville girl you'll never be my wife.
I rolled and tumbled the whole night through my dreams were living hell
And then they came from Knoxville and carried me to jail
I'm here to waste my life away and time is passing slow
Because I killed that Knoxville girl the girl I loved so.
--------
Wexford Girl (Mackenzie's version from NS, 1928)
ARTIST: Recorded by Benny Barnes
Born: January 1, 1936
Died: August 15, 1987
It was in the town of Waterford
Where I was bred and born
It was in the city of Baltimore
That I owned a flowered farm
I courted many a Wexford girl
With dark and roving eyes
I asked her for to marry me
And yes, was her reply;
I went up to here father's house
About 8 o'clock one night
I asked her for to take a walk
Our wedding day to appoint
We walked along quite easily
Til I came to a level ground
I broke a stake out of the fence
And beat this fair maid down;
Down on her bended knees she fell
And, "mercy she did cry"
Oh, Willie dear, don't murder me here
I'm not prepared to die
He heeded not the words she said
But he beat her all the more
Til all the ground for yards around
Was in a bloody gore.
I went up to my mother's house
About 12 o'clock that night
My mother, she'd been sittin' up a-waitin'
She took an awful fright
Oh son, dear son, what have you done
What bled your hands and clothes
The answer that I made to my mother
"I was bleeding at the nose;"
I asked her for a candle
To light my way to bed
Likewise, for a handkerchief, to wrap
Around my aching head
I tied it and I twisted it
But no comfort could I find
The flames of hell shown around me
My true love not far behind;
It was in about three weeks before
This fair maid was found
Floatin' down the river
That leads to Wexford town
And all that saw her said
She was fair, a handsome bride
That she was fit for any king
Or any Squire's bride;
I was taken on suspicion
And locked in the Wexford jail
For there was none to pity me
Or none to go my bail
Come ye, all you loyal true lovers
A warning take by me
And never treat your own true love
To any cruelty;
For if you do, you'll rue like me
Until the day you die
You'll hang like me, a murderer
All on the gallows high.
___________________________________________________
Wexford Girl [one stanza- different song]
John James NFLD 2 Tape 10 Track 8 [perhaps related but not same opening]
Trepassey
In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht gave control of Trepassey to England and shortly thereafter it became one of the major centres of the English migratory and bank fisheries that thrived in Newfoundland during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Audio: http://www.mun.ca/folklore/leach/songs/NFLD2/10-08_51.htm
Ballad from MacEdward Leach (1897-1967)
--------------
Gideon Thomas article
The Oxford Girl, The Wexford Girl and The Knoxville Girl - Part 2
Gideon Thomas; Published March 25, 2015
Overview
Going deeper once again, we look further into the history and the circumstances of the English version of our song, The Oxford Girl. What’s it about, who did what, and why? Find out more here.
In my last article, I introduced a collection of songs based around the murder of a woman by a man, which is found in various forms, and including the prominent use of placenames, in England, Ireland and the United States. I proposed an outline of the stories used in the songs, and the occurrences of the different versions. In similar ways to other songs I have written about for Beacon, I explained how and why the songs have changed and appeared in altered forms over time and space. I started to look at the history of the song and its story, and made some suggestion of the stopping-off points I am going to use in this series of articles.
Today I will focus on the English take on the story, the Oxford Girl, looking in further detail at both Norma Waterson’s performance of it and others. I want to go further into the song, its feel and the detail of its story, and to relate more of its background and meaning. As I explained last time, I will look further at the story’s treatment of both men and women, and what this means for the tradition as a whole.
In a story as old as time itself and as new as can be, we are transported to another world. We know, from the Norma Waterson version at least, only a precious few details of the protagonists of the Oxford Girl. A miller, or an apprentice miller in this case, was surely a common enough occupation, and nothing out of the ordinary. Part of the inherent beauty of traditional song is that it deals with exactly that, the ordinary, the normal, something we can all access and something which is part of all of us.
Much like falling in love, something that (hopefully) happens to us all. Marriage is discussed, as are promises of sexual congress. The union continues, but something in Jimmy’s mind changes. He thinks he’s too young, or wants his cake to eat it, so decides to call it all off. What we don’t know, is why he decides to kill, to commit murder.
He even picks the spot. How cruel, how cruel. His sweetheart’s innocent life is not enough, and must be taken. She begs, she cries, but to no good. Jimmy commits the deed, and, seemingly, goes about his business, with little contrition or afterthought. It is only into the night that the event troubles his mind, with thoughts that he himself will die as a result of the crime.
The story of this song is one of the more long and convoluted of the songs I have dealt with thus far. As would be befitting a song with so many versions, the story seems to be a generic one, or one which has undergone a series of changes and modifications. It is, according to Roud/Bishop, possibly based on facts, and, in any case, derives from broadsides and chapbooks from the 18th and 19th centuries. A possible starting point for our story is a black letter broadside entitled The Bloody Miller, dated from c. 1684, but, as will all of these things, a single point of origin is not the point, as, as Wilgus highlights, the ‘complex’ of songs which makes up the group of ballads, are a group of versions, all valid in their own right, and all telling a story of their own (p. 288). More widely, the songs in the Oxford/Wexford/Knoxville group are connected with a wider collection of songs, including the sea-faring ballad of James Harris, which I will look at in the next series of articles.
Steve Roud commented in the liner notes of Harry Cox’s Topic Records 2 CD anthology, The Bonny Labouring Boy :
“Quite widely collected in Britain by Cecil Sharp and his contemporaries, and in the repertoire of several well known post-war singers such as Cecilia Costello, Jeannie Robertson, and Phoebe Smith, this song was even more well-known in North America, where dozens of versions (under such titles as The Wexford Girl or The Lexington Miller) have been noted and published. As pointed out by Laws (American Balladry from British Broadsides, 1957), in a chapter on “ballad recomposition”, the original text appeared in the mid-18th century asThe Berkshire Tragedy or The Wittam Miller, and has since undergone not simply the vagaries of oral tradition, but deliberate re-composition, apparently on more than one occasion. Comparing Harry’s with the Original, his is severely truncated and avoids the wordiness of 18th century texts, but it includes many of the most telling details, such as the stake from the hedge, and the dragging by the hair. Nevertheless, the omission of the original motif of pregnancy leaves the murder motiveless in Harry’s version, which heightens either the song’s stark horror, or the sordidness, according to the listener’s own viewpoint.”
In the next piece, I will start to look at the roles of the characters in the songs, and how the stories still resonate today.
_______________________________________________________
"Old Rachel" by Frank Hutchison January 28, 1927 Okeh 45093 rec NY [has similar murder/ beating]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03en5tuuJ54
Hello boys, this is Old Rachel, been married 49 times. Never could [even] one man do anything with her, and that was old Bill, last she married. And this is the way she started out on old Bill:
Rachel went down the street to get a glass of rye,
Sign on the door said, "Rachel, walk by."
This morning, little Rachel, you'll have to keep kindly quiet.
Old Bill he's at fence, corner of Washington, he didn't know nothin' about it.
Rachel down the street to get a glass of gin,
Sign on the door said-a, "Rachel, step in."
This morning, little Rachel, now please keep kindly quiet.
What'd old Bill do when she walked in the saloon?
Bill jerked a rail off a picket fence,
Worked on Rachel like he had some sense,
This morning, little Rachel, you'll have to keep kindly quiet.
Hit her 'cross the head, and he hit her 'cross the back,
You oughta saw Rachel do the ball and jack,
This morning, little Rachel, now please keep kindly quiet.
Run old Rachel over rocks, stumps,
Didn't old Rachel ever jump?
This morning, little Rachel, you'll have to keep kindly quiet, now.
Took old Rachel to the milkshake stand,
Rachel raised sand with the milkshake man,
This morning, little Rachel, now please keep kindly quiet.
Went right on a-raisin' sand
He grabbed up a bar then tore off the door
The boys smoked Rachel with a .44,
This morning, little Rachel, you'll have to keep kindly quiet, now.
What'd old Bill do to Rachel?
Shot her through the head, shot her through the side
That's the way old Rachel died,
This morning, little Rachel, you're layin' mighty quiet.
Sent for the doctor, the doctor come,
"Good mornin', Rachel, what have you done?
"This morning, little Rachel, you'd better kept kindly quiet."
Well, he looked at Rachel right through his specs,
"Guessed old Rachel done cashed her checks,
"This morning, little Rachel, you better kept kindly quiet."
Where'd old Rachel go when she died?
One leg up, toenail draggin'
Went to the Devil in a hoodoo wagon,
This morning, little Rachel, you'll have to keep kindly quiet, now.
Went to the Devil raisin' sand right on
She went to the Devil with a bucket on her arm,
"Good mornin', Devil, it's mighty warm,"
This morning, little Rachel, now please keep kindly quiet.
How'd the Devil meet old Rachel?
Come in a walk, come in a grin,
"Good mornin' Rachel, just step right in,"
This morning, little Rachel, you'll have to keep kindly quiet down here, now.
Got so bad the Devil he couldn't do nothin' with her, he had to send her to another place, never heard tell of before. Where'd he send old Rachel?
Send old Rachel to the Land of Nod,
Seven big devils and there wasn't nary god,
This morning, little Rachel, I guess you'll keep kindly quiet, now.
________________________________________________________-
[ Notes from Brewster's "Ballads and Songs of Indiana; Indiana University Publications, Folklore Series," 1940.]
My Confession- Mrs. Vaughan (IN) 1935 Brewster
36 THE WEXFORD GIRL (THE CRUEL MILLER)
Only one Indiana text of this ballad has been found, the title being given as "My Confession." Belden notes that the song is "a reduction" of the English broadside "The Berkshire Tragedy, or, The Wittam Miller." In the early part of the nineteenth century appeared a condensed American version of "The Wittam Miller," under the title of "The Lexington Miller."
For references and other American versions, see Cox, p. 311; Dobie, Texas and Southwestern Lore, p. 213; Greenleaf and Mansfield, p. 119; Hudson, Folksongs, p. 141; Journal, XXV, 11; XLV, 126; Mackenzie, Ballads, p. 293; Payne, "Songs and Ballads Grave and Gay" (PTFLS, VI, 213); Shearin and Combs, pp. 13, 28; Neely, Tales and Songs of Southern Illinois, p. 150; Henry, Folk-Songs fromn the Southern Highlands, p. 214; Scarborough, Song Catcher, p. 160.
___________________________________________________________________________
New Brunswick resident murders wife in NH [new ballad adapted from Wexford Lass]
“Benjamin Deane” is a classic example of a confessional ballad, with a man in prison lamenting how he came to be there: bootlegging, adultery, and murder. The song was written by Joe Scott sometime in mid-1898, not long after the events it describes took place: Ben Deane murdered his wife on Wednesday May 4, 1898 in Berlin, NH. (Scott was almost certainly in the area on a river drive at the time, if not exactly in Berlin when the murder happened.) Before discussing the murder itself, though, a brief history of the actors in this drama may be interesting. Deane was born in St John, NB on May 6, 1854. His parents moved to Portland, ME within a year of his birth and that is where he was raised. He arrived in Berlin, New Hampshire sometime before 1881, when his first child was born, and the song says he moved into town twenty years before the murder, so that provides a reasonably good approximation. His wife’s name was Mary Elizabeth Blodgett, or Lizzie, and was nine years younger than Ben. Berlin was in a boom period due to prosperous pulp mills, as well as plenty of work in the woods and the services needed in a growing town.
_____________________________________________________
Missing versions:
Audio Recording [see Moser's version by Botkin]
Knoxville girl sound recording | Sung by Estelle Harris. (Statement Of Responsibility). Renfro Valley Folk Festival (Venue). Sound Recording (Form).
Contributor: Moser, Artus - Harris, Estelle
Date: 1946-04-00
Audio Recording
Knoxville girl sound recording | Sung with guitar by Carlie Tart. (Statement Of Responsibility). Guitar (Instrument). Sound Recording (Form).
Contributor: Botkin, Benjamin Albert - Semmig, Arthur - Tart, Carlie
Date: 1944-09-00
Audio Recording
Knoxville girl sound recording | Sung with guitar by the Fuller sisters (?). (Statement Of Responsibility). from radio, WWNC Roundup, Asheville, N.C. Guitar (Instrument). Sound Recording (Form).
Contributor: Moser, Artus - Fuller Sisters
Date: 1942-08-22
Audio Recording
The Knoxville girl sound recording | Sung by Mrs. C. A. Burkett. (Statement Of Responsibility). Sound Recording (Form).
Contributor: Lomax, John Avery - Burkett, C. A., Mrs
Date: 1936-07-00
[Roud index]
The Wexford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S164973)
First Line: It's once I courted a Waxford girl
Source: Edith Fowke Coll. (FO 3)
Performer: Gooley, Bill
Date: 1957 (Mar)
Place: Canada : Ontario : Peterborough
Collector: Fowke, Edith
-----------------
The Wexford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S164974)
First Line: 'Twas once I courted a Waxford girl
Source: Edith Fowke Coll. (FO 3)
Performer: Cavanagh, Tom
Date: 1956 (Dec)
Place: Canada : Ontario : Douro
Collector: Fowke, Edith
Roud No: 263
---------------
The Butcher Boy
Roud Folksong Index (S140040)
First Line: In New York city there did dwell
Source: Edith Fowke Coll. (FO 56)
Performer: Hill, Mrs. A.
Date: 1964 (May)
Place: Canada : Ontario : Toronto
Collector: Fowke, Edith
Roud No: 263
-----------------
[no text just tune in MS ]
Oxford Tragedy
Roud Folksong Index (S248203)
First Line:
Source: Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Tunes p.3963
Performer: Middleton, Maud / Mrs. Ida Sizemore
Date: 1917 (1 Sep)
Place: USA : Kentucky : Pine Mountain
Collector: Sharp, Cecil J.
-----------------
The Wexford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S265515)
First Line:
Source: Library of Congress recording 3219 B1
Performer: Rice, David
Date: Jan., 1937
Place: USA : Missouri : Springfield
Collector: Robertson, Sidney
--------------
The Miller's Boy
Roud Folksong Index (S274025)
First Line: My parents raised me tenderly
Source: West Virginia Folklore 3:4 (Fall 1953) pp.62-63
Performer: Gerwig, Mrs. Viola D.
Date: 1953
Place: USA : W. Virginia : Braxton County
-------------
The Wexford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S265514)
First Line:
Source: Library of Congress recording 3401 B1
Performer: Osborne, Alfred
Date: 1938
Place: USA : Michigan : Port Huron
Collector: Walton, Ivan
------------------
The Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S241690)
First Line: I met a little girl in Knoxville
Source: Solomon, Sweet Bunch of Daisies (1991) pp.30-31
Performer: Andress, Bobby
Date: 1958-1962
Place: USA : Alabama
Collector: Troy State Univ. Students
----------------
The Wexford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S319548)
First Line: There was a rich old merchant
Source: Jean Thomas Coll. (Dwight Anderson Music Lib, Univ. of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky) Box 4A folder 204
Performer:
Date: 1930s?
Place: USA : Kentucky?
Collector: Thomas, Jean
--------------
The Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S273953)
First Line: O in the town of Knoxville
Source: West Virginia Folklore 9:2 (Winter 1959) pp.26-27
Performer: Monroe, Mrs. Jessie
Date: 1959c
Place: USA : W. Virginia : Looneyville
Collector: Tawney, Mrs. G.G.
-----------------------------------------
The Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S261680)
First Line:
Source: Library of Congress recording 838 A3
Performer: Burkett, Mrs. C.A.
Date: 1936
Place: USA : N. Carolina : Mabel
Collector: Lomax, John A.
------------------
Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S304665)
First Line: I met a little girl in Knoxville
Source: National Geographical Society 703 ('Music of the Ozarks')
Performer: Copeland, Wilma / Copeland, Betty / Copeland, Dale
Date: 1972c
Place: USA
---------------
The Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S385227)
First Line: I met a girl in Knoxville a town you all know well
Source: Tennessee Folklore Society TFS 103 ('The Mountains')
Performer: McBee, Hamper
Date: 1974
Place: USA : Tennessee : Grundy County
----------------
The Wexford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S164975)
First Line: 'Twas in the town of Waxford where I do live and dwell
Source: Edith Fowke Coll. (FO 43, FO 44)
Performer: Woodcock, Emerson
Date: 1957 (Sep)
Place: Canada : Ontario : Peterborough
Collector: Fowke, Edith
---------------
Lexington Murder [See: Fields Ward]
Roud Folksong Index (S261837)
First Line:
Source: Library of Congress recording 4081 A2 & B2
Performer: Ward, Mrs. Crocket
Date: 1940
Place: USA : Virginia : Galax
Collector: Lomax, John A. & Ruby T.
---------------
The Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S385163)
First Line:
Source: Helen Creighton collection (Nova Scotia Archives) AR 5985 / 3828
Performer:
Date: 1960
Place: Canada
Collector: Creighton, Helen
------------------
WPA Collection
The Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S241682)
First Line:
Source: WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.755 (version a)
Performer: Hensley, Mamie
Date: 1942 (17 Mar)
Place: USA : Virginia : Bridgetown
Collector: Morton, Susan R.
Roud No: 263
he Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S241683)
First Line:
Source: WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.755 (version b)
Performer: Kilgore, Miss Etta
Date: 1939 (8 Jun)
Place: USA : Virginia : Wise
Collector: Hamilton, Emory L.
Roud No: 263
The Waxford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S255264)
First Line:
Source: WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.755 (version c)
Performer: Stapleton, Mrs. Laura
Date: 1940 (5 Jul)
Place: USA : Virginia : Esserville
Collector: Hamilton, Emory L.
The Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S241684)
First Line:
Source: WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.755 (version d)
Performer: Calhoun, Ellen
Date: 1940 (11 Jul)
Place: USA : Virginia : Hawthorne Coal Camp
Collector: Hamilton, Emory L.
The Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S241685)
First Line:
Source: WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.755 (version e)
Performer: Tolliver, Mrs. Verie
Date: 1940 (5 Aug)
Place: USA : Virginia : Norton
Collector: Hamilton, Emory L.
The Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S241686)
First Line:
Source: WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.755 (version f)
Performer: Holyfield, Mrs. Winfred
Date: 1939 (5 Dec)
Place: USA : Virginia : Wise
Collector: Hamilton, Emory L.
The Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S241687)
First Line:
Source: WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.755 (version g)
Performer: Nickels, Miss Myrtle
Date: 1940 (25 Jun)
Place: USA : Virginia : Stantons Creek
Collector: Hamilton, Emory L.
Roud Folksong Index (S241688)
The Knoxville Girl
First Line:
Source: WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.755 (version h)
Performer: Pegram, Howard Roy
Date: 1941 (27 Feb)
Place: USA : Virginia : Big Laurel
Collector: Adams, John Taylor
Wexford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S255635)
First Line:
Source: WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.755 (version j)
Performer: Roberts, Dicy
Date: 1940 (14 Mar)
Place: USA : Virginia : Big Laurel
Collector: Adams, John Taylor
Roud No: 263
--------------------
Wexford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S363711)
First Line: I fell in love with a Wexford girl
Source: Bronner: Midwestern Folklore 38:1-2 (2012) pp.54-56
Performer: Tharp, Peggie
Date: 1949 (14 Jul)
Place: USA Colorado : Aspen
Collector: Eskin, Sam
Roud No: 263
------------------
The Waxford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S374882)
First Line:
Source: Hummel, Ozark Folk-Songs (1936) p.74
Performer:
Date: 1936c
Place: USA : (Ozarks)
Collector: Hummel, Lynn Ellis
-------------
Prince's Boy
Roud Folksong Index (S311122)
First Line: When I was a prince's boy, sixteen years of age
Source: Duncan, Ballads & Folk Songs Collected in Northern Hamilton County (1939) pp.134-137 (version a)
Performer: Welch, Mrs. Ethel
Date: 1938 (13 Sep)
Place: USA : Tennessee : Daisy
Collector: Duncan, Ruby
--------------
The Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S310679)
First Line:
Source: Haun, Cocke County Ballads & Songs (1937) p.121
Performer: Haun, Fred
Date:
Place: USA : Tennessee : Cocke County
--------------------
The Waxford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S255265)
First Line:
Source: WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.755 (version i)
Performer: Cannaday, Miss Vera
Date: 1939 (20 May)
Place: USA : Virginia : Ferrum
Collector: Sloan, Raymond H.
-------------
Coal Black Hair (lexington Girl)
Roud Folksong Index (S373686)
First Line: As I was working in the mill
Source: Bronner, Midwestern Folklore 39:1-2 (2013) pp.15-17
Performer: Bradshaw, Laura
Date: 1948 (Mar)
Place: USA : N. Carolina : Bingham Township
Collector: Eskin, Sam
--------------
The Wexford Lass [Have family version]
Roud Folksong Index (S342218)
First Line: As I as born in Sheffield, brought up to a high degree
Source: Ives, Wilmot Macdonald at the Miramichi Folksong Festival (2002) pp.50-52
Performer: Macdonald, Wilmot
Date: 1961 (Aug)
Place: Canada : New Brunswick : Glenwood
----------------
The Wexford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S388116)
First Line: I fell in love with an Oxford girl
Source: James Madison Carpenter MSS Collection (American Folklife Center, Library of Congress / VWML, London) pp.11241-11242
Performer: Grant, Evelyn
Date: 1929c-1935c
Place: USA : Mississippi : Plantersville
Collector: Carpenter, James Madison
Roud No: 263
--------------
The Wexford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S374880)
First Line:
Source: Steely, Folk-Songs of Ebenezer Community (1936) p.108
Performer:
Date: 1936c
Place: USA : N. Carolina : Ebenezer County
Collector: Steely, Mercedes S.
---------------
The Wexford Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S311421)
First Line:
Source: Anderson, A Collection of Ballads & Songs from East Tennessee (1936) p.62
Performer: Kirby, G. West
Date:
Place: USA : Tennessee : Sevierville
-----------------
Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S385025)
First Line: We went to take an evening walk
Source: Helen Creighton collection (Nova Scotia Archives) AR 5999 / 3983
Performer: Milson, Freda
Date: 1961
Place: Canada
Collector: Creighton, Helen
Roud No: 263
-----------------
Knoxville Lady
Roud Folksong Index (S310683)
First Line:
Source: Perry, A Sampling of the Folklore of Carter County, Tennessee (1938) p.183
Performer: Hicks, Alvin
Date:
Place: USA : Tennessee : Carter County
--------------
Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S241680)
First Line: I knew a little girl in Knoxville
Source: Helen Creighton collection (Nova Scotia Archives) AR 5033 / AC 2215 / 46
Performer: Richards, Thomas
Date: 1943
Place: Canada : Nova Scotia : Halifax
Collector: Creighton, Helen
--------------
Export Town
Roud Folksong Index (S374881)
First Line:
Source: Garrison, Forty-Five Folk Songs Collected from Searcy County, Arkansas (MA thesis: Univ Arkansas, 1944) p.55
Performer:
Date: 1960c (?)
Place: USA : Arkansas : Searcy County
Collector: Garrison, Theodore Roosevelt
----------------
Knoxville Girl
Roud Folksong Index (S241681)
First Line: O in the town of Knoxville
Source: Helen Creighton collection (Nova Scotia Archives) AR 5157 / AC 2269 / 1317
Performer: Muise, J. Stillman
Date: 1949 (31 Aug)
Place: Canada : Nova Scotia : Yarmouth
Collector: Creighton, Helen
----------------
The Wexford Lass
Roud Folksong Index (S385156)
First Line: As I was born in Stephney, brought up of a high degree
Source: Helen Creighton collection (Nova Scotia Archives) AR 5983 / 3818
Performer: MacDonald, Jessie / MacDonald, Vera
Date: 1960
Place: Canada
Collector: Creighton, Helen
-----------------------------------
Audio Recording
The Oxford girl sound recording | Sung by Marion Stoggill. (Statement Of Responsibility). Elizabeth Lomax
My father bound me apprentice boy (First Line). Sound Recording (Form).
Contributor: Stoggill, Marion - Lomax, Alan - Lyttleton, Elizabeth
Date: 1938-04-04
---------------------------------------
[partial text]
Daylight in the Swamp: Logging in Northern Michigan
William R. Overlease, Edith Overlease
Bayside Printing, Incorporated, 1996 - Benzie County (Mich.) - 147 pages, 1978 p. 109
Oh, Willie dear
Don't murder me here,
I'm not prepared to die.
He took her by the lily white hand
And swung her round on high.
Then he shoved her into the river
And there he sat and watched her die.
And then she made that statement before
Oh, Willie dear
Don't murder me here,
I'm not prepared to die.
--------------------
Bessie Mae Eldreth - has sung Lexington Murder text?
Bessie Mae Eldreth: An Appalachian Woman's Performance of Self
https://books.google.com/books?id=kUYeAQAAMAAJ
Patricia Sawin - 1993
I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes Eldreth recordings: I have heard Mrs. Eldreth sing this, but do not have recordings ... related to "The Lexington Murder," distinctive feature of this murder ballad is murderer's explanation of the blood on his clothes by saying he was "bleeding at the nose" (Belden and Hudson 1952:II:240-6 )P65); sung in Kentucky (Roberts 1974 #15)
---------------
North Carolina Folklore Journal - 1973 Page 139 [Bostic version]
https://books.google.com/books?id=crMnAQAAIAAJ p. 139 "The Lexington Murder" 1973
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Folklore Forum - Volume 7 - Page 24, 1974 [Tanner version]
Knoxvile Girl Design SDLP-613— "Hootenanny" John Duffy and the Country Gentlemen Credit: none given Refrain: none . Rhyme: aabb Voices : duet throughout Reference : Laws P 35
I met a little girl in Knoxville,
a town we all know well
And every Sunday evening
Out in her hall I'd dwell
we went to take an evening walk,
About a mile from town,
I picked a stick up off the ground
and knocked that fair girl down.
I started back to Knoxville,
got there about midnight
My mother she was worried,
and woke up in a fright.
Saying "Bear Son, what have you done,
to bloody your clothes so?"
I told my anxious mother,
I was bleeding at the nose.
---------------------------------------------
[From: West Virginia Folklore - Volumes 2-3, 1951 page 62, 63
8. I paid no heed to all her cries
But smote her more and more
Till finally I took a life
That I could not restore.
9. Returning to the mill again
I met one by the way
Who asked, "What makes you look so pale?
You seem quite gone astray"
10. "Pray what occasioned so much blood
Upon your hands and clothes?"
To which I quickly did reply,
"A bleeding of the nose."
11. Her body was searched for far and near,
But never could be found;
At last a magistrate was called
And I in prison bound.
12. Young people, all both far and near,
Come listen unto me;
Be led by your parents
And shun bad company
13 Be faithful to your promise
And to your love prove true;
And then the devil will not get
The upper hand of you.