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Floyd Frazier (Ellen Flannery) [Laws F19]
DESCRIPTION: Floyd Frazier kills Ellen Flannery and hides her body. A search is started after her orphaned children are found crying. Her body is discovered, and Floyd is arrested. He confesses to the crime; the singer hopes he will be hanged
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1937 (catalogued by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax)
KEYWORDS: homicide children orphan
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
May 21, 1907 - Reported death date of Ellen Flanary
May 19, 1910 - Scheduled date of the execution for Floyd Frazier for the murder of Ellen Flanary (ee NOTES)
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Laws F19, "Floyd Frazier (Ellen Flannery)"
Combs/Wilgus 68, pp. 155-157, "Floyd Frazier" (1 text)
Roberts, #31, Floyd Frazier" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 735, FLOYFRAZ
Roud #695
NOTES: Roberts, pp. 333-334, was given a lead by one of his informants which led him to discover details of the case. Ellen Flanary was "a widder with five or six children," according to a local official. Frazier, it is believed, tried to rape her, then murdered her and partly covered her body with rocks. He was tried twice and sentenced to death both times. The account in Roberts does not reveal any of the evidence against him.
Although the excerpt printed by Roberts says Frazier was supposed to die on July 9, 1909, I found an online copy of a Whitesburg, Kentucky newspaper (May 26, 1910), which says that he was hung on May 19, 1910. He was still in his early twenties, reportedly having been born in 1886.
Roberts reports that, contrary to the song, he never confessed. Supposedly three thousand people witnessed the execution.
Earlier editions of this Index reported a date for the song of 1909, but did not reveal where I found that date. My guess is that it was someone's error for the date of Frazier's trial. The date is barely possible, since the longest versions (Combs's and Roberts's) don't actually refer to the execution, but I very much doubt it. - RBW
Last updated in version 4.2
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Roberts -- Leonard Roberts (with music transcriptions by C. Buell Agey), Sang Branch Settlers: Folksongs and Tales of a Kentucky Mountain Family (American Folklore Society/University of Texas Press, 1974). Ballads cited by Number. Indexed by Robert B. Waltz. Added in version 4.2. NOTE: This book starts with a hundred folk songs, then several dozen tales, jokes, and riddles. The items identified as folk songs are indexed. Only a few of the tales -- those which I could instantly identify with songs -- were indexed.
Here are the lyrics we have in the Digital Tradition, taken from Combs & Wilgus. Corrections in italics.
FLOYD FRAZIER
Come you people of every nation,
And listen to my mournful song;
I will tell you of a circumstance,
Which happened not very long.
FiovdFloyd Frazier is now in prison,
And ought to hang-ed be,
For the killing of an innocent woman,
This world may plainly see.
He killed poor Ellen Flannery,
And hid her in the woods,
And made a quick return
To wash away the blood.
He crept into his cabin,
And lay there all night,
Believing his crime was hidden
From everybody's sight.
She had five little children,
From door to door they run,
To look for their poor mother
But yet no mother come.
Their little hearts grew hungry,
At last they fell asleep,
To rise up in the morning
To cry and mourn and weep.
The night it passed away,
And the morning it did come;
Her neighbors all did gather,
To see what there was done.
They searched all round her cabin,
Went wandering up and down;
At last Joseph Williams found her,
And she was deadly wound'.
They found her poor body lying
Mouldering on the ground;
The rocks piled upon her,
They weighed sixty pound.
They took her to her house,
And there not long to stay,
And then unto the graveyard,
Until the Judgment Day.
The people all did gather
To see her dreadful wounds;
The sight it was the greatest
That ever has been found.
She suffered in great mis'ry,
In trouble and in pain;
I hope her soul is in heaven,
Forever there to reign.
This young man was arrested,
And rushed into the jail;
The jury pronounced him guilty,
They did not allow. him bail.
He owned that he did kill her,
And all that he had done;
I think his case is dangerous,
He has all the risk to run
They carried him to Pineville,
And there awhile to dwell;
I'm afraid the crime he's committed
Will send his soul to hell.
This song came to me
By day and by night;
I think it is right to sing it
In this vain world of delight.
DT #735
LawsÿF19
@murder
FromCoombsCombs & Wilgus
Collected from Margaret Green of Smithsboro Kentucky
filename[ FLOYFRAZ
SOF
apr97
The version in the Digital Tradition is Laws F19, #68 in Folk-Songs of the Southern United States (Folk-Songs du Midi des Etats-Unis), by Josiah H. Combs, edited by D.K. Wilgus Page 155, ©1967 by the American Folklore Society.
The song was collected (1909?) from Mrs. Margaret Green, Smithsboro, Knott County, Kentucky. Originally published in 1925 in Folk-Songs du Midi des Etats-Unis.
Except for a few minor OCR errors, the Digital Tradition lyrics are an accurate transcription of the lyrics in the book published in 1967 by the American Folklore Society.