Lexington Murder- Mrs Vaught (NC) 1923 Brown 4D
[Single stanza with music from the Brown Collection of NC Folklore; volumes 2 1952 notes (below) and text with music volume 4, 1957.
R. Matteson 2016]
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.'
65. The Lexington Murder
The story of all the versions that follow is very much like that of SharpK i 407, No. 71 A: 'The Miller's Apprentice,' or 'The Oxford Tragedy' ; also BSO 233-5, version C, 'The Murdered Girl.'
4D. 'Lexington Murder.' Sung by Mrs. R. C. Vaught. Recorded at Taylorsville, Alexander county, in June 1923. Measures 3-8 are closely related to those of the 6sA and 307C versions.
My humble[1] parents brought me up,
Provided for me well.
'Twas in the town of Lexington, "
They placed me in a mill.
Scale: Hexachordal, plagal. Tonal Center: e-flat. Structure: abed (2,2,2,2).
1. usually "tender"