The Knoxville Girl
This ballad was collected by Samuel Pepys, who wrote about the murder of Anne Nichols by the Mill's apprentice Francis Cooper.[1] Possibly modelled on the 17th-century broadside William Grismond's Downfall, or A Lamentable Murther by him Committed at Lainterdine in the county of Hereford on March 12, 1650: Together with his lamentation., sometimes known as The Bloody Miller.She fell down on her bended knees, for mercy she did cry "Oh Willy dear, don't kill me here, I'm unprepared to die" She never spoke another word, I only beat her more Until the ground around me within her blood did flowI started back to Knoxville, got there about midnight My mother, she was worried and woke up in a fright Saying "dear son, what have you done to bloody your clothes so?"They carried me down to Knoxville and put me in a cell My friends all tried to get me out but none could go my bail I'm here to waste my life away down in this dirty old jail Because I murdered that Knoxville girl, the girl I loved so well The song features prominently in If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O, the first book in the Ballad mystery series by Sharyn McCrumb.