The Leonard Roberts book finally arrived (and it's a good one). Here's the version Roberts collected:

FLOYD FRAZIER

1. Come all you blessed people
From every nation fair,
And hear the circumstances
Of what Floyd Frazier done.

2. He killed poor Ellen Flannery
And he knew that he had done wrong,
He prayed for it to rain
And wash away the blood.

3. Oh, she had seven little chillern
From door to door they run,
They's crying for their mother,
Yet no mother never come.

4. Their little hearts were hungry
And they all did fall asleep,
The morning waked them breaking
But no mother never come.

5. He crept into his cabin
There for to stay all night,
He thought his crime was hidden
From everybody's sight.

6. Fare-you-well, Floyd Frazier,
Ask God what you have done,
You killed an innocent woman,
But you've got the race to run.

7. Floyd Frazier used to be a young man
And the girls all knowed him well,
They hugged and they kissed his cheeks,
They bid him now farewell.

8. They took him down to the jailhouse,
They locked him in a cell,
He killed an innocent woman
And sent his poor soul to hell.


Notes: 31. Floyd Frazier (Laws F 19)
The only evidence Laws had for placing this ballad in tradition was a text in Combs, Folk-Songs du Midi (pp. 155-157), plus a recording from Kentucky titled 'Ellen Flanary,' and four from Virginia. When it was sung to me in 1952 by Dave, he said, 'It happened over here in Letcher County on the Pine Mountain Road, and her body was hid behind a big log. The old rotten log is laying there yet. A girl made up this song and went around to the jailhouse and sung it to him. He said, 'Let me out of here and kill her and then I don't care what you do with me.''

In due time I made my way to Letcher County and found a man, Mr. J. C. Day of the county clerk's office, who gave the following information:

'I was justice of the peace at the time of the hanging of Floyd Frazier in 1908, 1910, somewhere in there. It was the biggest crowd of people ever to come to Whitesburg, 'cause that was the only legal hanging in this county 'a man was took out of jail and hung before that and a colored feller later.

'Ellen Flanary, a widder with five or six children, was out pickin' greens in the early spring. Floyd must have tried to rape her and then thought he had to kill her - he never confessed. He covered her up with rocks behind a log - I weighed them for the court - 250 pounds, left just her feet sticking out. They took him horseback to Bell County for safe-keepin'. He broke jail and went to workin- down there - never changed his name. First jury was hung, eleven for hanging him. Got a jury from Knott County and they sentenced him to hang. He got an appeal. Next jury was from Floyd County and they sentenced him to be hung.

I went with him to the court records and found entries for this case from 1908 to 1909. The last paragraph may suffice here, the order from the Floyd County jury verdict:

It is therefore ordered and adjudged by the court that the defendant, Floyd Frazier, be taken by the sheriff of Letcher County and on July 9, 1909, between sunrise and sunset on said day by said sheriff, be hanged by the neck until he is dead. Commonwealth Order Book, No. 7, p. 260, Letcher County Court.

When the derk took me to the archives to pull down the books, he pointed to a file and said I might want to see the rope. There in the drawer lay a noose with a tag on it reading: 'Used in the hanging of Floyd Frazier, 1910.' This date is incorrect. The rope is gone now, reported missing from the drawer recently.'

Source: Sang Branch Settlers: Folksongs and Tales of a Kentucky Mountain Family, #31, page 123. By Leonard Roberts, ©1974 by the American Folklore Society.