I've just found this fascinating bit about a woman who was hanged in New Hampshire for concealing her stillborn child in 1768. Was wondering if anyone has run across the whole text of the ballad and could add it, plus a tune?

The following is from a complete hypertext of An old town by the sea by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, published in the late 1893:

(In Portsmouth, NH) The first execution that ever took place there was that of Sarah Simpson and Penelope Kenny, for the murder of an infant in 1739. The sheriff was Thomas Packer, the same official who, twenty-nine years later, won unenviable notoriety at the hanging of Ruth Blay. The circumstances are set forth by the late Albert Laighton in a spirited ballad, which is too long to quote in full. The following stanzas, however, give the pith of the story --

"And a voice among them shouted,
   'Pause before the deed is done;
We have asked reprieve and pardon
   For the poor misguided one.'

"But these words of Sheriff Packer
   Rang above the swelling noise:

Page 74

'Must I wait and lose my dinner ?
   Draw away the cart, my boys I'

"Nearer came the sound and louder,
   Till a steed with panting breath,
From its sides the white foam dripping,
   Halted at the scene of death;
"And a messenger alighted,
   Crying to the crowd, 'Make way!
This I bear to Sheriff Packer;
   'T is a pardon for Ruth Blay I "'

But of course he arrived too late -- the Law led Mercy about twenty minutes. The crowd dispersed, horror-stricken; but it assembled again that night before the sheriff's domicile and expressed its indignation in groans. His effigy, hanged on a miniature gallows, was afterward paraded through the streets.

"Be the name of Thomas Packer
   A reproach forevermore!"