Young Beeham- Cunningham (WV) pre1925 Cox C
[From: Folk-Songs Of The South by John H. Cox, 1925. His detailed notes follow. Cox's assessment the "three West Virginia texts represent 'Polly's Love, or, The Cruel Ship Carpenter,' an English song in eleven stanzas" is incorrect. West Virginia A, B and C are similar to the standard text taken from the Fleet/Roxburghe" broadsides from the 1700s. Part of the standard text is also found in "Polly's Love" - however, none of the identifying text from Polly's Love" is present.
This title is clearly taken from Child no. 53- Young Beichan (or Young Bekie). This is a rare US version with text similar to Fleet/ Roxburghe "Gosport Tragedy" Type Aa.
R. Matteson 2016]
89 COME, PRETTY POLLY
The three West Virginia texts represent "Polly's Love, or, The Cruel Ship Carpenter," an English song in eleven stanzas, which is a condensation of "The Gosport Tragedy; or, The Perjured Ship Carpenter," a long broadside ballad that goes back at least to the middle of the eighteenth century (Ebsworth, Roxburghe Ballads, viii, 143, 173). Polly's lover is a ship carpenter. After the
murder he goes to sea, but the ship "cannot sail on," because he is on board. The captain suspects that there is a murderer among the crew. William, like the rest, protests innocence, but he is torn to pieces by Polly's ghost. In "The Gosport Tragedy" the ghost appears before the ship sails, and the captain is afraid to leave port with a murderer as shipmate; the ghost causes the guilty man to die raving distracted.
For references see Kittredge, Journal, xx, 261. Add Ashton, Real Sailor-Songs, 86, and A Century of Ballads, p. 101 ; Sharp,
Folk-Songs from Somerset, rv, 8; broadsides by Catnach, Such (No. 142), Dalton (York, No. 17), Gilbert (Newcastle, No. 59), Cadman (Manchester, No. 213), Bebbington (Manchester, No. 343). A comic version of "Polly's Love" called "Molly the Betrayed, or The Fog-bound Vessel" was popular on the English stage about the middle of the last century (broadsides by Bebbington, Manchester, No. 477; W. S. Fortey; Sam CowelVs Budget from Yankee Land, p. [12]; cf. Ebsworth, Roxburghe Ballads, viii, 143).
For American texts from oral tradition see Journal, xx, 262 (Kentucky); Campbell and Sharp, No. 39 (Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee); Mackenzie 55 (NovaScotia: " The Gaspard Tragedy "). " The Gosport Tragedy " was printed in this country as a chapbook (at Philadelphia?) in 181 6, and again (at Philadelphia) in 1829 (Harvard College Library, 25276, 43, 81). It
occurs also in The New American Song Book (Philadelphia, 181 7), p. 69, in The Forget Me Not Songster (New York, Nans & Cornish), p. 232, and elsewhere. There is an American broadside of about 1820, "The Ship Carpenter, or, The Gosport Tragedy" (Harvard College Library).
C. "Young Beeham." Contributed by Professor Walter Barnes; obtained from Mr. G. W. Cunningham, Elkins, Randolph County.
"O pity your infant and spare my sweet life,
And I'll go distressed and not be your wife."
He stepped up to her with a knife in his hand,
Saying, "Come, fairest Polly, no time for to stand."
He pierced her to the heart, the blood it did flow;
He covered her over and home he did go.
Charles Green, a bold sailor, of courage so brave,
Was hunting one night and he stepped on her grave,
And a beautiful woman to him did appear,
And she in her arms held a baby so fair.
"O captain, O captain, some murder's been done!
Far away from this harbor our ship ne'er can run;
For a beautiful woman to me did appear,
And she in her arms held a baby so fair."