Talk: Biography

Collected by Daniel Littlefield Transcribed by Nathaniel Lucy Told by Raymond Smith Locust Grove, Arkansas April 3, 1961 Reel 414 Talk Raymond Smith: Well Danny, I'm sorry I couldn't do any better on that but certainly been a long time since I'd tried to sing anything, let alone that old sing. About what I know about this song is, uh, just what I heard from my Daddy and my uncle. That was - my Daddy was Tom Smith and my uncle was Pete Smith, born and raised down in Madison County. Uh, they was confident it was a true incident all right. I don't think they remembered the incident. Dad was born in 1874. I believe it was before his time but he was confident it was a true incident. And I think the, uh, the person was a resident of Madison County but evidently the crime was committed in Carroll County, or at least the Carroll County had jurisdiction over the case. And of course it was an old log jail of hewn logs. And the way I got the story, they didn't know definitely what happened to the person but it's quite evident he wasn't burned. I think there would have been evidence of it. And I obtained these words from my family by the name of Griggs down in West Texas, back in about 1936. And they were formerly of down in that vicinity and I know the words as they knew 'em which is supposed to be the original ballad itself.Funding for digitization provided by the Arkansas Humanities Council and the Happy Hollow Foundation