The Beers tune and text apparently aren't his. It's clearly a version but there is additional material and a completely new chorus. If anyone want to listen to it (link provided) and proof my version there is at least one spot I couldn't understand.
Steve emailed the Gerald Porter pages from SINGING THE CHANGES: VARIATION IN FOUR TRADITIONAL BALLADS by Gerald Porter. The chapter is called "Brake of Briars:" regeneration of a ballad.
Porter provided a regenerated ballad on p. 20-21; it begins:
1. In a seaport town there lived a merchant, He had two sons and a daughter fair; There lived a prentice-boy about there, Who was his daughter's dearest dear.
Porter used the 1904 Overd version from Somerset and the Mayhew version from Missouri (Belden A) apparently thinking these were representative versions but neither version is a superior version. The result isn't bad but Steve Gardham's is so much better because Steve used the best version and added to it.
Porter doesn't seem to have a grip on the extant versions available even in 1991 when this was written. He seems to lump Farmer's Constant Son with Bramble Briar and talks about Canadian and Scotch version although there aren't any. Even tho the Canadian version is CFS he doesn't make the distinction.
There are several mistakes from his lack of knowing the current versions. His regenerated ballad given at the end is only 16 measures long and misses several important details of the story: 1) that the merchant dies 2) The merchants leaves an inheritance for his daughter 3) that the servant was a factor and sailed the seas along with the brothers
This is just from the beginning---- the other problem is the phrases, identifiers and rhymes found in the ur-ballad or missing broadside are missing in his regeneration.
Just an update. I did get the two versions from West Virginia collected by Bush in 1969 and both of them are good. So I've added three more versions on my site and my total is now 55 US versions. I'm starting to write the main headnotes and have made some progress but only have about 4 pages done so far with about 3 more to go. The main difficulty with be comparing all 83 versions to come up with an accurate collation of identifiers, phrases and stanzas.