Durn. I don't know about border ballads, Sandy. Care to explain? (click here for information, but I still can't figure out which ballad Sandy's talking about).
Here are the notes from the Burl Ives Songbook:

Only religious songs were approved in the New England colonies. However, ballads on current happenings could not be suppressed and broadsides describing events often took the place of newspapers. The broadsides were accounts in verse associated with or written to traditional tunes. About the year 1730, John Webb and Bill Tenor were imprisoned at Salem, Mass. Their imprisonment was unpopular. The jail raid which freed them was much applauded and a twenty-verse broadside was printed describing the incident. This song, madrigal in form, was composed from the broadside. Government officials advertised unsuccessfully for information regarding author and printer.

-Joe Offer-