Nothing like a good murder ballad to brighten up the day. This ones from McNeil, Southern Folk Ballads.
NELLIE CROPSEY
On the twentieth of November,
A day we all remember well,
A handsome girl was coldly murdered,
Of her story I will tell.
Girls, I pray you all take warning,
Be careful how you trust a man,
For they will pretend they love you,
Then will kill you if they can.
She had scarce passed sixteen summers,
With eyes of blue and sunny curls,
Perfect were each handsome feature,
With red lips shutting over pearls.
One night the lover called to see her,
But they hardly spoke a word,
For they'd had a lover's quarrel,
So the neighbors all had heard.
Three months later, her dear mother,
Glimpsed a speck out on the river,
Oh 'tis my dear Nell I know,
For my dream has told me so.
Soon they brought the body homeward,
Oh how sad it was to see,
Father, mother, sisters, brothers,
Round her bowed upon their knees.
Just behind them stood the lover,
With his cold and hateful smile,
Making light of the dear parents,
Weeping for the darling child.
We all think that Nell's an angel,
Shining brightly as the stars,
As for Jim, the jealous lover
Peeps behind prison bars.
Young man, I pray you to take warning
Be careful what you do and say,
Remember life is very short,
And there's a judgment day.
The book of life it will be brought,
The Judge he will unfold,
And everything that you have done,
Is there wrote down in gold.
Collected by Lucy Maria Cobb from Mrs. Bessie Wescott Midgett, Manteo, North Carolina, May 1927.
McNeil says that Lucy Cobb contends that the song was written by Bessie Wescott Midgett in about 1905. Nellie Cropsey was murdered in 1901. The prime suspect was her sweetheart, Jim Wilcox.
McNeil does not include a tune in his book He suggests "The Lexington Miller" may be the tune Midgett used.
Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry for this song:
Nell Cropsey (I)
DESCRIPTION: One night Nell's former lover Jim (Wilcox) calls on her. She disappears for three months, then her mother sees her body on the river. Her lover winds up in prison
AUTHOR: credited to Bessie Wescott Midgett
EARLIEST DATE: 1912 (Chappell)
KEYWORDS: murder
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1901 - Murder of Ella Maude "Nellie" Cropsey, presumably by her former lover Jim Wilcox
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
BrownII 307 "Nellie Cropsey" (2 texts)
Chappell-FSRA 61, "Nell Cropsey, I" (1 text)
McNeil-SFB2, pp. 82-84, "Nellie Cropsey" (1 text)
ST MN2082 (Partial)
Roud #4117
CROSS-REFERENCES:
"cf. The Jealous Lover (Florella, Floella) (Pearl Bryan II) (Nell Cropsey II)" [Laws F1]
cf. "Nell Cropsey (III -- Swift Flowing River)"
Notes: This song is item dF45 in Laws's Appendix II, but should certainly have been listed higher; he did not know the Brown version.
There are extensive historical notes in Brown, which concur with the song in saying that she was very pretty but list her age as 19, not 16 as in the text of the song.
Chappell has four songs associated by title with Nellie Cropsey, but only two (I and IV) mention her name: This one and the Nell Cropsey subfamily of "The Jealous Lover."
To tell this from the Jealous Lover version, consider this first verse:
On the twentieth of November,
A day we all remember well,
When a handsome girl was murdered,
Of her story I will tell. - RBW
File: MN2082
Jealous Lover (I), The (Florella, Floella) (Pearl Bryan II) (Nell Cropsey II) [Laws F1A, B, C]
DESCRIPTION: The jealous lover lures (Florella/Pearl Bryan) into the woods with the promise that they will discuss wedding plans. Once there, he stabs her. When captured, he is imprisoned for life
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1903 (Belden)
KEYWORDS: murder prison jealousy death lover
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Feb 1, 1896 - Discovery of the headless body of Pearl Bryan, killed along with her unborn child by Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling, near Fort Thomas, Kentucky
1901 - Murder of Ella Maude "Nellie" Cropsey, presumably by her former lover Jim Wilcox
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MA,MW,NE,Ro,SE,So) Canada(Mar,Newf,Ont)
REFERENCES (31 citations):
Laws F1, "The Jealous Lover (Florella, Floella) (Pearl Bryan II) (Nell Cropsey II)"
Belden, pp. 324-330, "Florella (The Jealous Love)" (2 full texts plus 7 fragments which may be this piece and references to 9 others, 2 tunes)
Randolph 138, "The Jealous Lover" (7 texts plus 3 excerpts, 4 tunes)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 158-161, "The Jealous Lover" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 138A)
Eddy 104, "The Murdered Girl" (8 texts, 2 tunes; the D and E texts apparently belong here)
Gardner/Chickering 21, "The Jealous Lover" (1 text plus an excerpts and mention of 2 more, 1 tune)
Creighton-NovaScotia 146, "Sweet Fair Ella" (1 text, 1 tune)
Manny/Wilson 67, "Fair Florella" (1 text, 1 tune)
Doerflinger, pp. 287-288, "The Jealous Lover" (1 text, 1 tune)
BrownII 250, "Florella (The Jealous Lover)" (5 texts plus 7 excerpts, 2 framents, and mention of 9 more; Laws places the "A", "B", "C" (apparently), "H," and "L" texts with F1A and "U" with F1B)
Chappell-FSRA 64, "Nell Cropsey, IV" (1 text plus 2 fradments, 2 tunes, apparently a local adaption to the Nell Cropsey story, for which see Nell Cropsey (I); Chappell's seem to be the only known versions of this adaption)
Fuson, pp. 65-66, "Edward" (1 text, probably this although it has at least hints of the "Willow Garden" versions of "Rose Connolly")
Cambiaire, p. 109, "Pearl Bryant" (1 short text, probably this though it is not long enough to be certain)
MHenry-Appalachians, p. 251, "Fair Ellen" (1 fragment, probably of this family though it's too short to tell)
Brewster 46, "Florella" (3 texts plus mention of 3 more, all of the F1A type though Laws does not list them); 61, "Pearl Bryan" (3 texts plus an excerpt and mention of 3 more; 1 tune; the "C" text is this piece (of the F1B group) while "A" and "B" are Laws F2)
Flanders/Brown, pp. 59-60, "The Fair Flo-ella" (1 text)
Greenleaf/Mansfield 180, "Florella" (1 text)
Peacock, pp. 632-633, "Sweet Florella" (1 text, 1 tune)
Burt, p. 31, "(Pearl Bryan)" (1 stanza)
Leach, pp. 787-789, "Fair Florella or The Jealous Lover" (2 texts)
McNeil-SFB2, pp. 85-87, "Pearl Bryan" (1 text, 1 tune)
Friedman, p. 203, "The Jealous Lover" (1 text)
Combs/Wilgus 63D, pp. 174-175, "Pearl Bryan" (1 text)
Ritchie-SingFam, pp. 137-138, "[Fair Ellen]" (1 text, 1 tune)
Abrahams/Foss, pp. 29-31, "Fair Florella/Pearl Bryan" (1 text plus a fragment, 1 tune)
LPound-ABS, 43, pp. 101-102, "The Jealous Lover"; pp. 102-103, "The Weeping Willow" (2 texts, of which the first is "The Jealous Lover (II)" but the second could well be this)
JHCox 38, "The Jealous Lover" (5 texts plus mentions of three more; of these, Laws identifies D and E as this song, belonging to the Pearl Bryan group)
JHCoxIIB, #5A-B, pp. 130-132, "The Jealous Lover," "Blue-Eyed Ellen" (1 text plus a fragment, 1 tune; the "A" fragment might be this or "The Jealous Lover (II)"; the "B" text is probably the latter)
Darling-NAS, pp. 197-198, "The Jealous Lover" (1 text)
DT, JLSLOVR2*
ADDITIONAL: Fred W. Allsopp, Folklore of Romantic Arkansas, Volume II (1931), p. 204, "(The Jealous Lover)" (1 text)
Roud #500
RECORDINGS:
[Richard] Burnett & Leonard Rutherford, "Pearl Bryan" (Columbia 15113-D, 1927; rec. 1926; on BurnRuth01, KMM)
Isabel Etheridge, "Nellie Cropsey" (on OBanks1)
Eugene Jemison, "Fair Florilla" (on Jem01)
David Miller, "Sweet Floetta" [Floella?] (Champion 15413, 1928/ Conqueror 7839, 1931)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Lily of the West"
cf. "Pearl Bryan I" [Laws F2]
cf. "Pearl Bryan III" [Laws F3]
cf. "Pearl Bryan IV"
cf. "Nell Cropsey (I)" (subject of some versions) and references there
cf. "The Jealous Lover (II)"
SAME TUNE:
The Philadelphia Lawyer (by Woody Guthrie) (File: Grnw283)
[The Drew Murder] (Hudson, no number or title, pp. 233-234)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Lone, Lone Valley
Down in a Lone Valley
The Love Valley
Notes: The antecedents and relationships of this ballad are immensely complex, and cannot be described here. There are many related pieces.
There is some debate over whether the ballad is in fact a "native American" piece. Although most of its present forms are uniquely American, Barry points to a connection with the British piece, "The Murder of Betty Smith." For this song, see e.g. the broadside NLScotland, L.C.Fol.73(126), "Murder of Betty Smith," Robert McIntosh (Glasgow), c.1850.
(Belden also mentions a possible connection to T. H. Bayley's "She Never Blamed Him." This seems a stretch even in the versions where the girl forgives the murderer.)
Given the number of similar songs, the reader is advised to check references under Laws F2, Laws F3, "The Jealous Lover II," etc.
Fuller details on the story of Pearl Bryan may be found in the entry on Pearl Bryan (I) [Laws F2].
Laws breaks this ballad up into three subgroups. F1A is "The Jealous Lover" (Florella, Floella, Blue-Eyed Ella, etc.); F1B is the Pearl Bryan group; F1C is the Nell Cropsey song. I decided to "lump" the songs, however, as they differ in very little except names.
The "Pearl Bryan" versions of this song (Laws F1B) are told from other Pearl Bryan songs by a first verse similar to this:
Way down in yonder valley
There the violets fade and bloom,
There lies our own Pearl Bryan
In a cold and lonesome tomb. - RBW
Peacock is another who believes "this is an American ballad freely based on an English broadside and a sentimental English song by T.H. Bayly called She Never Blamed Him [sic], written in the 1820's and widely popular during the American Civil War." You can read the lyrics of "She Never Blam'd Him, Never," by Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1829), on the Library of Congress American Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets site, digital id as203280. Judge the likelihood for yourself.
Here's a description of "She Never Blam'd Him, Never": He visits and she receives him, vainly trying "to look the same." Though she was dying, only losing him made "her sweet voice ... faulter." She never blamed him for luring her "from the isle where she was born" into "the cold world's cruel scorn." He leaves and "she heard the bugle's sound... and strangers found her Cold and lifeless on the ground."
In any case, T.H. Bayly's name has appeared in this index in connection with other songs [sometimes as Bayley]. What kind of poet writes songs that do pass into tradition? You can find out more about him and his songs in Andrew Lang's Essays in Little - BS
File: LF01
Nell Cropsey (III -- Swift Flowing River)
DESCRIPTION: "Oh, swift flowing river, A secret you hold, Way down in the depths Of the water so cold." The singer begs the river to tell its secret. A "fair girl" is missing, "stolen away in the night." "The secret, Oh River, You surely must know."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (Elizabeth City _Daily Advance_); reportedly collected 1902
KEYWORDS: murder river
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1901 - Murder of Ella Maude "Nellie" Cropsey, presumably by her former lover Jim Wilcox
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Chappell-FSRA 62, "Nell Cropsey, II" (1 text)
ST ChFRA062 (Partial)
Roud #4117
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Nell Cropsey (I)" (subject of some versions) and references there
Notes: Although Chappell lists this as a Nell Cropsey song, and the details (such few as the song contains) fit that case, Cropsey is not mentioned in the text; it might be about another murder.
Roud lumps this with all the other Nell Cropsey songs, but it is clearly distinct. The real question is, Is it traditional? The only collection is Chappell's, from a printed source, allegedly based on a poem (song?) taken down around the time of the murder. - RBW
File: ChFRA062Go to the Ballad Search form
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