Omie Wise: A Song History
"Omie Wise" comes from a real death in North Carolina: in 1807 Naomi Wise was drowned at a ford of the Deep River, and a historical marker recalling her now stands in Randleman.[1] The Traditional Ballad Index catalogs the song as "Poor Omie" (Laws F4, Roud 447), in which John Lewis, wishing to be rid of his pregnant sweetheart, takes her off with a promise of marriage and throws her into the river.[2] Her headstone says 1808, but court records point to 1807, and the Index, drawing on Hal E. Pugh and Eleanor Minnock-Pugh's 2022 book, dates her last meeting with Lewis to April 5 of that year.[3][2] The research it summarizes portrays her as an orphan and indentured servant, likely older than the nineteen years later tellings gave her and already the mother of two children, and notes that forms of "Omie" appear in most of the court papers.[2]
John Hill, Little Falls at Luzerne (No. 1 of The Hudson River Portfolio), aquatint printed in color with hand-coloring, 1822–23. A quiet New York river of the same period, shown in place of North Carolina's Deep River; it has no connection to the song.
Jonathan Lewis, the man accused, was indicted, broke out of jail in October 1807 and fled west, and was found again years later.[2][1] Sources differ on what followed: the Ballad Index reports the Pughs' view that he was apparently acquitted of murder in October 1813 and convicted only of breaking jail, while a writer for the state's Archives and History office found no surviving record of a murder trial and says Lewis was discharged that November as an insolvent debtor.[2][3] A widely read prose account appeared from 1851 under the name "Charles Vernon," later identified as Trinity College president Braxton Craven; the state Arts Council article cited here treats it as a novel with invented dialogue, and notes it spread more widely after a newspaper reprinted it in 1874.[3] A long poem that may be earlier, "A True Account of Nayomi Wise," survives copied into the commonplace book of a North Carolinian named Mary Woody.[3] Folklorist Arthur Palmer Hudson called the ballad the state's "Principal contribution to American folksong," and Eleanor Long-Wilgus counted 147 texts and fragments of it.[2][1]
G. B. Grayson, singing to his own fiddle, recorded it as "Ommie Wise" for Victor in Atlanta on October 18, 1927, with Ralph Peer supervising the session.[4] Harry Smith later chose that record for the Ballads volume of his Anthology of American Folk Music, issued by Folkways in 1952.[5] Clarence Ashley cut it as "Naomi Wise" for Columbia in 1929, and Doc Watson sang a version with nearly all different words on his 1964 self-titled album.[2][3] Among the mountain dulcimer pieces in Song By Song, Vol. I, Aubrey Atwater includes "Omie Wise" in DAD tuning; she publishes the 132-page collection herself, with old-time material for dulcimer, banjo, whistle, guitar and voice.[6]
Sources
- William G. Pomeroy Foundation: "Naomi Wise" (Legends & Lore marker).
- The Traditional Ballad Index: "Poor Omie (John Lewis) (Little Omie Wise) [Laws F4]".
- North Carolina Arts Council: "Murder, Mystery, And Mayhem In The Old North State: The Ballad Of Naomi Wise".
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BVE-40306. Ommie wise / G. B. Grayson".
- Mainly Norfolk: "Anthology of American Folk Music".
- Aubrey Atwater: "Song By Song, Vol. I".
- Image: John Hill, Little Falls at Luzerne (No. 1 of The Hudson River Portfolio), aquatint printed in color with hand-coloring, 1822–23. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.