Poor Omie (John Lewis) (Little Omie Wise) [Laws F4]

DESCRIPTION: John Lewis, to free himself of his pregnant sweetheart, offers to marry her but instead plans to drown her. She begs for her life, promising to go begging, but he throws her in the river. The body is found and Lewis imprisoned. (He escapes into the army.)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1874 (Craven)
KEYWORDS: pregnancy homicide rejection prison drowning
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1807 (some sources, including her tombstone, say 1808, but see below) - Drowning of Naomi Wise in North Carolina
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MA,SE,So)
REFERENCES (36 citations):
Laws F4, "Poor Omie (John Lewis) (Little Omie Wise)"
Belden-BalladsSongsCollectedByMissourFolkloreSociety, pp. 322-324, "Oma Wise" (2 texts)
Randolph 149, "Poor Oma Wise" (5 texts plus 2 excerpts and 1 fragment, 2 tunes)
Randolph/Cohen-OzarkFolksongs-Abridged, pp. 163-166, "Poor Oma Wise" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 149A)
High-OldOldFolkSongs, pp. 37-38, "Poor... Oma" (1 text)
Rainey/Pinkston-SongsOfTheOzarkFolk, p. 28, "Little Oma" (1 text, 1 tune)
Abrahams/Riddle-ASingerAndHerSongs, pp. 56-57, "Little Lonie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore2 300, "Poor Naomi (Omie Wise)" (5 texts plus 1 excerpt and mention of 2 more; it appears that Laws places texts "A" and "D" here, but "H" is also this song, with "F" and "G" being "Naomi Wise" [Laws F31])
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore4 300, "Poor Naomi (Omie Wise)" (2 excerpts, 2 tunes, both probably this)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 786, "(no title)" (1 tune with no text, which Schinhan says is closely related to the tune in Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore4)
Lunsford/Stringfield-30And1FolkSongsFromSouthernMountains, pp. 28-29, "Poor Omia Wise" (1 text, 1 tune)
Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, #38, "Naomi Wise" (2 texts, 1 tune, with the "A" text and tune, locally titled "Sweet William," being "Poor Omie (John Lewis) (Little Omie Wise)" [Laws F4], while the "B" text is "Naomi Wise" [Laws F31])
Hudson-FolksongsOfMississippi 63, pp. 187-188, "Poor Omie" (1 text)
Burton/Manning-EastTennesseeStateCollectionVol1, pp. 64-65, "Omie Wise" (1 text, 1 tune)
Burton/Manning-EastTennesseeStateCollectionVol2, pp. 84-86, "Omy Wise" (1 text, 1 tune)
Moore/Moore-BalladsAndFolkSongsOfTheSouthwest 169, "Pretty Molly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cambiaire-EastTennesseeWestVirginiaMountainBallads, pp. 30-31, "Oma Wise" (1 text)
Henry-SongsSungInTheSouthernAppalachians, pp. 73-75, "John Lewis" (1 text)
Bush-FSofCentralWestVirginiaVol3, pp. 61-62, "Omie Wise" (1 text, 1 tune)
Burton-TennesseeTraditionalSingers, pp. 52-53, "Omie Wise" (1 text, 1 tune)
Leach-TheBalladBook, pp. 793-795, "Naomi (Omie) Wise" (2 texts)
Friedman-Viking/PenguinBookOfFolkBallads, p. 202, "Naomi Wise" (1 text, 1 tune)
Warner-TraditionalAmericanFolkSongsFromAnneAndFrankWarnerColl 116, "The Ballad of Naomi Wise" (1 text, 1 tune)
Carey-MarylandFolkLegendsAndFolkSongs, p.111, "Little Onie" (1 text)
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 138, "Omie Wise" (1 text, 1 tune)
Pound-AmericanBalladsAndSongs, 51, pp. 119-120, "Poor Omie" (1 text)
Sharp-EnglishFolkSongsFromSouthernAppalachians 123, "Poor Omie" (7 texts, 7 tunes)
Burt-AmericanMurderBallads, pp. 25-28, "Omie Wise" (1 text plus some fragments, 1 tune; also an excerpt from another Naomi Wise song, seemingly neither this nor Laws F31)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia1, p. 232, "Poor Naomi" (1 text plus an excerpt of a second)
Leach-HeritageBookOfBallads, pp. 143-144, "Omie Wise" (1 text)
Darling-NewAmericanSongster, pp. 200-201, "Omie Wise" (1 text)
Dunson/Raim/Asch-AnthologyOfAmericanFolkMusic, p. 42 "Ommie Wise" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen/Seeger/Wood-NewLostCityRamblersSongbook, p. 149, "Deep Water" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 225, "Omie Wise" ; p. 227, "Deep Water" (2 texts)
DT 627, OMIEWISE* OMIWISE2*
ADDITIONAL: Braxton Craven (writing as Charlie Vernon), _The Story of Naomi Wise_, The Greensville Patriot, 1874; republished in (Rotary Club of Randleman), _The Story of Naomi Wise and The History of Randleman_, 1944; reissued with a new Foreword 1962, p. 20, "Poor Naomi" (1 text)
ST LF04 (Full)
Roud #447
RECORDINGS:
Finley Adams, "Omie Wise" (AAFS 2796 B1)
Clarence Ashley, "Naomi Wise" (Columbia 15522-D, 1930; rec. 1929; on Ashley04)
Clarence Ashley & Doc Watson, "Poor Omie" (on Ashley03)
Dock Boggs, "Little Omie Wise" (on Boggs3, BoggsCD1)
Mrs. W. R. Buchanan, "Little Omie Wise" (AAFS 2857 B3)
Acie Cargill, Debra Cowan, Kristina Olsen, "Omie Wise" (on HCargillFamily)
Ruth Clark Cullipher, "Little Onie" (AAFS 1031 A1)
Morgan Denmon, "Naomi Wise" (OKeh 45075, 1927; rec. 1926)
Minnie Floyd, "Naomi Wise" (AAFS 1301 A1)
Cleophas Franklin, "Omie Wise" (AAFS 2891 B2)
Charlie Glenn, Shirley Glenn, "Omie Wise" (Piotr-Archive #182, recorded 06/06/2022)
[G. B.] Grayson & [Henry] Whitter, "Ommie Wise" (Victor 21625, 1927; on AAFM1, GraysonWhitter01, ConstSor1)
Goldie Hamilton, "Little Omie Wise" (AAFS 2829 A1)
Aunt Idy Harper & the Coon Creek Girls, "Poor Naomi Wise" (Vocalion 04354 [or 04345], 1938)
Roscoe Holcomb, "Omie Wise" (on Holcomb1, HolcombCD1)
A. J. Huff, "Omie Wise" (AAFS 2877 B3)
Sarah Ison, "Little Omie Wise" (AAFS 2810 B1)
Aunt Molly Jackson, "Oma Wise" (AAFS 824 B2, 1935) (AAFS 3340/3341 A)
Polly Johnson, "Poor Omie" (AAFS 2760 A4)
Mrs. Esco Kilgore, "Oma Wise" (AAFS 2772 A2)
Alexander Kirkheart, "Naomi Wise" (AAFS 1700 A1)
Alec Moore, "Poor Omie Wise" (AAFS 57 B1)
Deirdre Murtha, "Little Omie Wise" (Piotr-Archive #1537, recorded 08/26/2025)
Johanna Shepherd, "Omie Wise" (AAFS 1405 B2)
Lillian Short, "Naomi Wise" (AFS; on LC12)
Della Sibert, "Omie Wise" (AAFS 1486 A2)
Rick Ward, "Omie Wise" (Piotr-Archive #136, recorded 04/18/2022)
Doug Wallin, "Omie Wise" (on Wallins1)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Naomi Wise" [Laws F31] (plot)
cf. "Tragic Romance" (tune)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Naomi Wise
NOTES [4249 words]: Eleanor R. Long-Wilgus wrote an important monograph on this piece ,Naomi Wise: Creation, Re-Creation, and Continuity in an American Ballad Tradition. Chapel Hill: Chapel Hill Press, 2003. viii + 88 pp.
Dr. Long-Wilgus's monograph on (Na)omi Wise proceeds from the apparent original "True Account of Nayomy Wise" to show how both folksongs, "Poor Omie" (Laws F4) and "Naomi Wise" (Laws F32), grew out of this original under the influence of two broadsides (on other murders) from the 18th Century, both exemplifying the "murdered girl" narrative theme. The first printed version of "Poor Omie" was published by Braxton Craven in 1851, the second, "Naomi Wise," was recorded in 1925 by Carson Robison. But Long-Wilgus argues convincingly that the songs are older, modeled on the murdered girl theme (cf. Banks of the Ohio [Laws F5], the Wexford Girl [Laws P35], or Rose Conoley [Laws F6]), and while they show communalities with the eighteenth and nineteenth century broadsides, do not derive strictly from them, but rather increasingly fulfill the conventions of the "murdered girl theme" implied by that original "True Account." - DGE
Arthur Palmer Hudson called this North Carolina's "Principal contribution to American folksong" (Roote, p. 70), though I suspect fans of "Tom Dooley" would disagree. I agree with Long-Wilgus that the ballads as we have them were influenced by older murder ballads -- but also that the Braxton Craven account, which became the standard, was itself influenced by accounts of other murders.
A good brief account of the whole incident is on pp. 51-57 of Polenberg; there is a bibliography (far from complete, but a start) on p. 266 of that book, which indicates that the piece by Long-Wilgus was the only published book on the subject although there is a 1982 masters thesis by Robert Thomas Roote (which Polenberg considers the most important reference for the song). Roote's thesis is not the Roote article cited in this entry; I have not seen the thesis and am citing a 1984 summary). Polenberg's biography was published before Pugh was published, but Pugh is the only significant addition since that time. So there are really only two valuable books about Naomi, Pugh and that by Long-Wilgus, plus Roote's thesis. Of these, I have been able to obtain only Pugh.
Polenberg lists, and Pugh reprints, two early accounts of the Naomi Wise murder, a poem written out by Mary Woody, " "True Account of Nayomy Wise" (sic.) and Braxton Craven's "Naomi Wise, or The Victim." The Woody poem is Pugh's Appendix C and Craven's tale is their Appendix D (although this is not the edition I cite).
Mary Woody probably didn't write her poem herself; rather, she copied it out, possibly as a writing exercise. But her family lived in the area, so they probably had firsthand information, either from watching the trial or seeing talking to those who did (Pugh, p 90). Sadly, although substantial (more than 250 lines), it is neither particularly clear nor straightforward to read; the orthography was extremely inconsistent and punctuation nonexistent. It takes a lot of attention to figure out what it means.
Craven's pamphlet (cited here as "Craven," from an edition older than Pugh's) is longer and more polished, and he may have had some inside information, since there were several Cravens involved in the story. His account was the only version anyone knew for many years. Despite his personal connections to the story, Craven's writing is opinionated, bombastic, moralizing, and patently largely out of his own head. (It's a dreadful read.) Craven's booklet is not only unreliable but heavily fictionalized, including, e.g., conversations between Naomi and Lewis that could not have been preserved by anyone (pp. 10-12, for instance, quotes the words they spoke to each other as they rode to the murder site -- words that no one except Lewis could have reported, and he never did). Craven himself later admitted that it was a "schoolboy composition" (Pugh, p. 91). Despite its self-evident unreliability, Craven's work was reprinted in the 1944 volume which Roote, p. 74, credits to "Randelman" -- i.e. the Rotary Club of Randleman edition cited here. Wellman, p. p. 190, also admits that Craven was his only real source -- and it shows; Wellman's tale is as inaccurate as Craven's.
Craven (born 1822) was an interesting character. Based on the book's index, he was the third-most-often mentioned person in Mills's history of Randolph County.. Himself illegitimate (Pugh, p. 92), he was orphaned at age seven (Mills, p. 51), which the Pughs think influenced how he told Naomi's story, making Naomi-the-orphan's history more like the story of Craven and his own mother. Craven was a major player in education in North Carolina; according to Mills, pp. 36-37, he "was the driving force behind the development of Trinity College." (Which makes it frightening that he passed off a mostly-fictional biography as fact -- though he must have done something right, since Trinity College is now the well-known Duke University). He owned a couple of slaves, tried to get North Carolina and the South to develop more industries (Mills, pp. 50-51), and in 1861 raised a sort of militia company of his students (Mills, p. 58, though this makes it sound as if his purposes was to keep them from being drafted).
Craven published his account in the January and February 1851 issues of Evergreen (so Polenberg, p. 52 and Roote, p. 70; the "About the Author" note in Craven, however, says that it was in the April 1874 Greensboro Patriot; presumably this was a reprint or revised edition. Evergreen was a newspaper that Craven and Reuben H. Brown published from 1850 to March 1851, when Craven turned it over solely to Brown; it failed later that year -- Mills, p. 49).
Craven, p. 1, gives this description of Wise: "Her size was medium; her figure beautifully formed; her face handsome and expressive; her eye keen yet mild; her words soft and winning." (Wellman, p. ix, does remind us that "any woman involved in a major crime... is apt to be described as breathlessly lovely"; there seem to be no non-fictional descriptions of Naomi's appearance.) Similarly, on p. 2 Craven describes the Lewises as fond of no-rules fighting; they were "tall, broad. muscular, and very powerful men," "eminently pugnacious," and prone to drunkenness; they were wild men fond of raiding others and abusive of their children. He gives no source for any of this information, but the Woody poem seems to support her contention.
Wise's tombstone (shown facing p. 1 of Craven as well as in Pugh, p. 77 and in Mills) gives her dates as 1789-1808. But the tombstone, according to Pugh, p. 8, was not carved and placed until the 1940s. The 1808 death date was widely quoted; probably the 1789 date was based on the contention by Craven, p. 5, that she was 19 -- but the tombstone is wrong, because she was murdered in 1807! (according to Pugh, p. 8, it wasn't until 1974 that Roote determined the correct date from court records, but now that the records are known, there is no doubt about her death date). I wouldn't bet on the slab being in the right place, either; her remains probably ended up in that cemetery, but the actual plot is based on handed-down memories (Pugh, pp. 75-77).
Despite Craven's claim that Wise was 19, she was certainly older although her exact age is unknown (she was an orphan who had been indentured as a servant by William and Mary Adams of Randolph County; Polenberg, p. 54, thinks they may also have raised her. Indenturing an orphan was typical at the time). Mary Woody's poem implies that she had been born somewhere else (Pugh, p. 15), probably Hyde County (Pugh, p. 16). She already had two children by the time she became pregnant by John Lewis: a nine-year-old daughter Nancy (born 1798) and a four-year-old son Henry. Thus she really must have been at least 23 at the time of her murder, and 25 or 26 seems more likely. Indeed, it's possible she was older than that. The father of her daughter is apparently unknown; the father of her son is known but had not married her (Polenberg, p. 53; Pugh, p. 18). I can't help but wonder if one reason she left home was to escape her reputation as an unwed mother; other than the vague hint in the Woody poem, there is no record of where Nancy was born. Apparently no one has found reliable records of her in the 1800 census (my casual attempt failed to turn up anything). I also wonder a little, based on a few hints about her, if she was entirely of sound mind.
Long-Wilgus apparently heard reports that she was "rather unattractive" (Pugh, p. 17).
Why did Naomi get pregnant out of wedlock again? We can't know. But it was not easy to get ahead in Randolph County, where Naomi died. The county had no truly navigable rivers (Mills, pp. 25-26), so there weren't many imports or exports, and the population was relatively sparse. Schools did not amount to much; North Carolina did not pass its first school law until 1839, and Randolph County did little prior to that (Mills, p. 34). The county did not have a single newspaper until 1836 (Mills, p. 49). The only real industry, other than farming, was clothmaking; "The 1810 tax listing shows 1,333 handlooms, 400 spindles, and 14 spinning frames producing 86,000 yards of a rather coarse handwoven cotton cloth" (Mills, p. 26). A landless, destitute orphan like Naomi would have few prospects there. The only real hope she had was to try to latch on to a man with prospects. Given what we know about Jonathan Lewis, I wouldn't put it past him that he raped her (his uncle Stephen, after all, was a convicted rapist who had been killed by another family member, according to Push, p. 121, with a copy of the actual 1786 verdict on p. 125; violence seems to have been The Lewis Way), but my guess is that she offered herself to him in a desperate attempt to improve her situation. The attempt failed.
Naomi's lack of home or financial security meant that, in 1804, her daughter Nancy was taken from her and indentured, at the age of not-quite-six, to the family of Joseph Elliott (Pugh, pp. 21-23) -- though the Elliotts lived close to where Naomi worked, so she probably could have visited her daughter.
The "John Lewis" of the song is called "Jonathan Lewis" by Pugh, presumably to distinguish him from various relatives named "John." Lewis's family had lived in the Piedmont area since the 1750s (Pugh, p. 23), and apparently had a reputation for rowdy and violent behavior (Pugh, p. 24); they had mostly supported the British during the Revolutionary War. Their property was in Guilford County, just across the county line from where Naomi lived. John was 24 at the time of Naomi's death. It is ironic to note that he was a Randolph Country constable (Pugh, p. 26) -- a tribute, probably, to his large size. He also worked as a clerk for Benjamin Elliot, a local magistrate and the son of the man to whom Nancy Wise was apprenticed. Thus it is likely that Lewis and Naomi met via the Elliott family, but there are no reliable records about their meeting or what caused her to sleep with him; the Pughs think that for John Lewis is was "simply sport" (Pugh, p. 27). The Pughs suggest that, in a class-conscious area, the indigent Naomi was lower on the social ladder than Lewis, who himself was trying to work his way into the higher-class Elliot family.
Although he had seemingly gotten Naomi pregnant, Lewis did not want to marry her. Craven's story, pp. 6-7, says that Lewis wanted to marry Hettie Elliot, the sister of his boss, who of course had more money; this is possible but, like all things in Craven, it can hardly be trusted.
Naomi's pregnancy was bad news for Lewis in two ways. One was financial: he'd have to pay to support her child (and it appears he already had one illegitimate child; Pugh, p. 28). And it would be bad for his career to have fathered a child out of wedlock. The Woody poem claims he tried to buy Naomi's silence: "he promised her a grate Reward If She Would keep it quite Conceeald And never let it be Reveald" (Pugh, p. 148). But apparently Naomi talked about it a lot. Perhaps she was trying to force him to marry her (Pugh, pp. 29-30). So he told her to come to a secret meeting not too far from Adams's Spring (Pugh, p. 31). One planned meeting was apparently called off (Pugh, p. 31), but they tried again. The new date was Sunday, April 5, 1807 (Pugh, p. 32).
Rather than keep the meeting entirely secret, Naomi took perhaps her only intelligent action in the entire saga: She told Mary Adams about the meeting (Pugh, pp. 31-32).
Lewis reportedly took Naomi away on his horse to the mill dam at Adams's Spring near her home (Polenberg, p. 52, has a later photo of this mill dam). She was never again seen alive.
The next morning, April 6, a worried Mary Adams started asking about Naomi; one William Dennis rode to the Elliots and found that Naomi had not been there. Then it was reported by the Davis Family, which lived near the ford on the Deep River, that they had heard screams overnight (Pugh, p. 35). A search party set out, although no one was able to reach the scene of the crime in the dark. (So, at least, Craven, p. 12, but this detail seems to be accepted by others.) In the morning, Joshua Davis found her body among the rocks there. (Pugh, p. 36; Polenberg, pp. 54-55. You can see these rocks in Google Street View: Go to the Naomi Street bridge in Randleman and look downstream.) Her body was then placed on a flat rock jutting into the stream, now known as "Naomi's Cooling Board" (Pugh, p. 39) until the coroner's jury could examine it. Some artifacts were also found.
Jonathan Lewis had made several stops on that morning, presumably to help establish an alibi (Pugh, p. 37); clearly he didn't realize that the struggle had been overheard. He was quickly taken into custody (Pugh, p. 38).
The coroner's jury, observing bruising on Naomi's neck, concluded she was strangled and/or drowned. In a rather macabre move, they brought Lewis to the rock and made him touch the body (Pugh, p. 40), though that didn't get him to confess or turn into a pumpkin or any such. A Grand Jury returned a bill on March 30, 1807 accusing Jonathan Lewis of murder (Roote, p. 74, although Pugh, p. 39, says that the coroner's jury did not return a verdict of murder until April 8).
It's worth noting that the coroner's jury report was not, properly speaking, an indictment. A grand jury was required for that. But it was enough to put Lewis in jail until the grand jury could meet. (Interestingly, because the local jail was in horrible condition, a guard of five militia members had to be detailed to guard him; Pugh, p. 45). As a result, Lewis was sent to another county until the grand jury convened in October (Pugh, p. 46). The hearing began on October 6. Jonathan Lewis was not without witnesses on his behalf, though Pugh, p. 47, says that several of them were of questionable character. On October 8, the grand jury returned a true bill (Pugh, pp. 48-49). Lewis was scheduled to stand trial on October 26 (Pugh, p. 49).
One has to suspect Lewis had a already prepared plan to get away should be be charged. The very next night, October 9/10, he escaped (Pugh, p. 49; Roote, p. 75). Probably he had help; several people got in trouble about it (Roote, p. 76) -- though, when they went on trial in 1812, they pleaded guilty and immediately produced a pardon from the governor of North Carolina (Pugh, p. 63); the Lewis family had influence.
Jonathan Lewis emigrated to the west -- he had a brother in Indians (Pugh, p. 51) and other members of the family soon moved there as well. (Pugh, p. 53. Note that Indiana was not yet a state but only a territory; there was little government). There, he married a girl named Sarah McCann (Pugh, p 56).
Supposedly (believe this if you want to!) he was discovered when someone sang a song about Naomi (Polenberg, pp. 55-56).
Eventually they located Lewis and took him into custody (Polenberg, p. 55; Craven, pp. 14-15, makes it sound as if it happened very quickly; Pugh, pp. 59-61, describes the North Carolinians as hiring bounty hunters to bring him in and thinks this might have been illegal if extradition papers had not been prepared). In any case, after a difficult campaign to extradite him (Pugh, pp. 57-59), he was finally brought back to North Carolina.
Lewis did not stand trial until October 1813. Given the long time lapse and the lack of physical evidence, it apparently was not possible to prove the case (Roote, p. 78, in fact thinks that no murder trial took place, but Pugh, pp. 70-71, thinks Roote misunderstood a badly-written document; Craven, p. 19, says Lewis was tried and acquitted. Pugh, pp. 65-69, reproduces and discusses a list of witnesses paid by the prosecution. However, no court records from the trial itself have survived. Pugh, p. 69, mentions a suggestion that physical evidence had been lost. More allies of Lewis at work?).
It appears Lewis was acquitted in October (Pugh, p. 71). The only thing Lewis was convicted of was the minor crime of breaking jail -- ordinarily a felony, but because he was considered to have been wrongly arrested, under North Carolina law the charge was automatically downgraded to a misdemeanor (Pugh, p. 71). Having been given a month's sentence and declared that he did not have the money to pay his fine (the legal record is quoted in Craven, p. 210), Lewis actually served 47 days (Roote, p. 77; Pugh. 72), he was finally freed in 1813 and allowed to head to Indiana to return to the wife he had married in 1811.
Although he had escaped justice, he did not enjoy freedom for long; he died in 1817, still in his early to mid thirties (Polenberg, pp. 56-57). Craven, p. 19, claims he confessed to everything, and was haunted by memories of Naomi -- but if there were a confession, someone would have seen it, and the Lewis Craven describes would certainly never have felt any guilt; it's pretty definitely another Craven creation.
Craven said that Lewis died a painful death; Pugh, p. 73, suggests he died of a bite by a poisonous snake. He left two children, a five-year-old girl and a boy who was less than a year old (Pugh, p. 74). I find it fascinating that his wife had re-married barely more than half a year later. It doesn't sound like she missed him too much!
We don't know much about Naomi's children, but their stories do not seem to have been happy. Henry, the younger, went through multiple indentures by the time he was 18, but there are no records of him thereafter; he may well have died before turning twenty (Pugh, p. 78). He is not the Henry Wise who later became a governor and southern general, although they were about the same age.
Nancy, the older child, also went through at least two apprenticeships, the second one as a spinster. Like her mother, she became pregnant out of wedlock, in this case, when she was 21 years old. The father, Joseph Bulla, was well-to-do but seems to have contributed little to the child, John Singleton Wise, who was born at the end of 1819 or early in 1820. In 1822, Nancy was "auctioned off as cheap labor by the Wardens of the Poor" (Pugh, p. 80). Soon after, she required help of a doctor. There is no record of her after that; Pugh, p. 83, thinks she may well have died as a result of her unknown medical condition. If so, she was about 24 at the time of her death. So John Wise made it three straight generations of Wise family orphans. But he managed to break the streak of illegitimacy; he managed to marry and have five children (Pugh, 84). He lived at least until the time of the 1880 census, when he was farming in Kansas (Pugh, p. 86).
It is interesting, in light of the use of the name "Omie" in this song, that at the coroner's warrant which resulted in Lewis's imprisonment refers to Naomi as "Omia Wise" ("Jonathan Lewis,.. Charged with the Murder of a Certain Omia Wise"; Pugh, p. 126; in the formal charges said that "Jonathan Lewis, with both his hands the said Omia Wise in and under the waters of said river... did cast and throw"; Pugh, p. 132; cf. Roote, p. 74) and the governor's pardon for those who let Lewis escape refers to "Omie Wise" (quoted on Pugh, p. 63). At the trial of the men who let Lewis escape from prison we read that Lewis was charged with "the murder of one Omi Wise a single woman." The sherif's paperwork for fetching Lewis from Indiana calls her "Omi Wise" (Pugh, p. 135). The receipt for Lewis's return also refers to "Omi Wise" (Pugh, p. 139). Most of these documents are stunningly illiterate for legal papers, but the governor's pardon for those who let Jonathan Lewis escape knows how to spell, and it refers to the "murder of Omie Wise" (Pugh, p. 139). There is one reference, in the 1813 document charging Jonathan Lewis with breaking jail, to "Neomie Wise" (Pugh, p. 141), but the vast majority calls her "Omie" or "Omi" or Omia." Thus it sounds likely that Wise was known even during her life time as "Omie" rather than "Naomi." Which perhaps is just as well, since the name "Naomi" (which comes from the Biblical book of Ruth) means "pleasant," and Omie's life certainly wasn't that. In any case, there generally weren't birth certificates back then, except what was written in family Bibles, and Omie seems to have had little if any contact with her family (none of them, e.g., were called as prosecution witnesses in Lewis's murder trial, based on Pugh, p. 144). The Mary Woody poem is headlined "A True Acount (sic.) of Nayomy Wise," but the text calls her "Neomy" (Pugh, pp. 147, 152) or "Naomy" (Pugh, pp. 149, 150, 151), or "Naomi" (Pugh, p.149), implying a lack of knowledge of the true spelling. The Woody poem has multiple spellings for other words as well, but still, I think it likely that "Omie" is what Miss Wise usually called herself. Which in turn implies that this song was probably early, before Omie's nickname was forgotten and the name "Naomi" became dominant.
All of this happened in what is now the town of Randleman, but that town did not exist at the time; a cotton mill had been built at Naomi Falls in 1879, and it was combined with the businesses of John Randleman to form the town of Randleman in 1880 (Craven, p. 24).
The Deep River, where Naomi was murdered, has now been dammed above Randleman to form Lake Randleman, but "Naomi Falls," near where she was killed, can still be found in the Deep River Nature Trail through Randleman. Some versions of the song say she was killed "below the mill dam." This was the first mill dam on the Deep River, which had been constructed by John Hinsaw less than a decade before Naomi's death (Pugh, p. 109). That mill dam was washed away, but in the 1870s a new dam was built to power the Naomi Falls Manufacturing Company (Pugh, pp. 109-110). Although it wasn't the original dam, there was a tendency for people to go to Naomi Falls to have their picture taken; Pugh and Mills both have such photos. Those falls don't exist any more, either; when the factory ceased to need the power, the dam was neglected and ruined, and that spot on the river is now a rapids, not an artificial falls. As a result, Naomi Falls is not considered an "official" waterfall in navigation guides.
You can still see it, though. In Google Maps, go to Randeman, NC and look for where US Highway 220 (Business Route) crosses the Deep River. A little ways below that is the "Naomi Bridge," which takes "Naomi Street" across the river; the falls can be seen in the distance from on the north side of the bridge, while the rocks where her body was found can be seen to the south of the bridge.
In addition to Naomi Falls, the Naomi Falls company, and Naomi Street, there was for many years a Naomi United Methodist Church, but it is now gone (Craven, p. 47). A shelter for a time stood over Adams's Spring, also mentioned in the ballad (Pugh, p. 109).
There are at least two novels about the Naomi Wise murder, Sandra Redding, Naomi Wise: A Cautionary Tale, 2013, and Thorn L. Kegley, When the Whip-Poor-Will Cried: The Murder of Naomi Wise, 2015. I have not attempted to see either; Kegley's capsule autobiography, at least, gave no hint of writing skills. It is also one of the stories told in Manly Wade Wellman's "Dead and Gone: Classic Crimes of North Carolina."
Braxton Craven, the source of so much misinformation about Naomi, is himself the subject of a biography, the Life of Braxton Craven by Jerome Dowd.
As regards Pugh: This book is print-on-demand, so it will probably remain in print. It is relatively short. Naomi's own story occupies only 95 pages, and even that part has a lot of sidelights. A brief section on "The Ballad Tradition" follows, including a detailed comparison of three early versions of this song. There are several useful appendices: legal documents relevant to the case (although these are lacking in contextual information), a transcription of the Mary Woody poem, a transcription of Craven (so one no longer needs the edition of Craven cited here), and a very full list of recordings. The discography, however, makes no distinction between "Poor Omie (John Lewis) (Little Omie Wise)" [Laws F4] and "Naomi Wise" [Laws F31].
Pugh, p. 97, mentions a Randolph County tradition that one or the other ballad (since they don't distinguish the two, we can't say which one) was written by Elizabeth Pennington Beeson (1761-1823) and/or her son Levi, who lived in the area, but there isn't much supporting evidence. - RBW
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