Pearl Bryan (VI)

DESCRIPTION: The song relates the murder of Pearl Bryan in Kentucky. "Poor Pearl! Poor girl, she thought she was doing right. She had no dream of murder...." Scott Jackson bears much blame. Young girls should take warning
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1943 (source: Cohen); the earliest version was dated by the informant to c. 1913
KEYWORDS: homicide mother father warning
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Feb 1, 1896 - Discovery of the headless body of Pearl Bryan, killed along with her unborn child by Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling, near Fort Thomas, Kentucky
Mar 20, 1897 - Execution of Jackson and Walling
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
MidwestFolklore, Donald M. Winkelman, "The Brown County Project," Volume 11, Number 1 (Spring 1961) p. 29, "Pearl Bryan" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Anne B. Cohen, _Poor Pearl, Poor Girl!: The Murdered-Girl Stereotype in Ballad and Newspaper_, Publications of the American Folklore Society, Memoir Series, Volume 58, University of Texas Press, 1973, pp. 67-72, "Pearl Bryan VI" (2 texts)
Roud #500
NOTES [290 words]: It appears to me that what most distinguishes this from the other Pearl Bryan ballads is the chorus:
Poor Pearl, poor girl,
She thought she was doing right,
She had no dream of murder
On that dark and stormy night
She pleaded with her executioner;
Pleading was in vain;
It was the hand of Jackson
And that was all to blame.
Cohen believes there were six traditional Pearl Bryan ballads, four of them described by Laws and two added to the list by Cohen. I accept her classification of "Pearl Bryan (V)" as separate from the four types Laws described. I'm a lot less confident of this one. Cohen, p. 126, lists only three versions of this type -- one of twelve verses, the other two of six. Of the twelve verses she has identified, fully eight are found in the "Pearl Bryan (I)" type, where they adapt the "Jealous Lover" type of song. That leaves just four unique verses and the chorus -- less than half the song.
The key to Cohen's argument is that the full 12-verse version was dated by the informant to 1913. But it was not published until thirty years after that. I'm not sure, given the paucity of versions and the late dates of all all the others, that we can be confident this is distinct from Pearl Bryan (I). Until and unless that 1913 date can be supported, I'd incline to file this as a recension of Pearl Bryan (I). Cohen, p. 68, does point out that this text includes details of the crime that seem to have been forgotten in other Pearl Bryan ballads, and that seem to derive from contemporary newspapers. This may well argue for an early date -- as a broadside. Not as a traditional song.
Roud appears to lump it with Pearl Bryan (II).
For background on the Pearl Bryan murder see the notes to "Pearl Bryan (I)" [Laws F2]. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: PearBr6

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