The song is referred to in Women and Children of the Mills: An annotated guide to Nineteenth-Century American Textile Factory Literature by Judith A Ranta. She says of it:

"The Factory Maid, and The Clove-Hitch Knot" First line:"OH! list the sad tale of the poor factory maid" [Fall River, MA?;n.p. c.1833].
SYNOPSIS: This broadside includes the same two poems as in the entry above for the broadside, "The Clove-Hitch Know, and the Factory Maid". The poems concern the murder or suicide of Sarah Maria Cornell (1802-32;b.Rupert, Vermont), an unmarried weaver in the Fall River, Massachusetts, mills. "The Factory Maid" also appeared as "Song.The Factory Maid" by J.Graham (The Free Enquirer 2.5 [1832-33]:319).

TEXT AVAILABILITY: Held by American Antiquarian Society

(So, despite my earlier thought, the songs may both refer to the same event!).

The same book At Google Books pp110-113 has a desciption of a play written about the event - Sarah Maria Cornell; or, The Fall River Murder, A Domestic Drama, in three acts, New York, n.p. 1833, 48pp, by Mary Carr Clarke. The play is held at Harvard and contains several songs. A detailed synopsis of the play is given there.


Mick