Knoxville Girl- Doris Omega Franklin (IL) 19877
[MS published in Midwestern Folklore - Volumes 13: 2, page 86-87, 1987. Original spelling kept.
R. Matteson 2016]
The Knoxville Girl- from a handwritten copy of Doris Omega (Franklin) Ridlen of Decatur, Illinois.
(stanza 1 is missing)
2 I called at her sister's house
at nine o'clock that night
And made that little fair girl think
I owed her in a site.
I asked her to take a walk with me
into the meadow fair
That we might have a social talk
and name our wedding day.
3 We walked along we talked along
till We came to the level ground
And I picked up a hedgewood stick
I knocked that fair girl down
She fell upon her bended knees
Oh! Lord have mercy she cried
Oh! Will my dear don't murder me here
for I'm not prepared to die.
4. Them very very words she said
I beat her more and more
I beat her till the ground around
stood in a bloody shore
I took her by her yellow hair
I drug her round and round
I drug her to the silver deep
that flows to Knoxville town.
5 And just about six weeks later
that Knoxville girl was found
Floating down the silver deep
that flows to Knoxville town
Her sister swore my life away
she swore with out a doubt
She swore that I was the very lad
that layed her sister out.
6 And now their [sic] going to hang me
a death I hate to die
Their [sic] going to hang me up so high
between the earth o sky.