Jack Rogers

DESCRIPTION: "Come all you tender Christians, I hope you will lend ear... For the murder of Mr. Swanton I am condemned to die." "My name it is Jack Rogers, my name I'll never deny." Drunk, he assaults Swanton in the street, flees, is captured, and is condemned to die
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1922 (Dean-FlyingCloud); 19C (Wolf)
KEYWORDS: homicide drink gallows-confession fight trial punishment execution
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Oct 17, 1857 - A drunken James Rodgers kills John Swanston in an unpremeditated fight (source: Cohen)
Nov 12, 1858 - Execution of Rodgers
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Dean-FlyingCloud, pp. 50-51, "Jack Rogers" (1 text)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia1, pp. 108-111, "The Lamentation of James Rodgers" (1 text)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #1212, p. 83, "Lamentation of James Rodgers" (1 reference)
Roud #9557
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Charles Guiteau" [Laws E11] (form & meter) and references there
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Confession of Jack Rodgers
NOTES [57 words]: Although the earliest dated version of this appears to be Dean-FlyingCloud's, it was certainly composed in the nineteenth century; Edwin Wolf 2nd, American Song Sheets, Slip Ballads, and Political Broadsides 1850-1870, Library Company of Philadelphia, 1963, p. 83, lists a broadside, "Lamentation of James Rodgers," which is surely this. - RBW
Last updated in version 3.5
File: Dean050

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