John Reginald Birchall was an English con man who came to Ontario in the 1880s. He and his wife lived in Woodstock, pretending to be gentry and amassing large (unpaid) debts. In 1890 he lured Fredrick Benwell, another young Englishman, to Canada, with a get rich quick scheme. In the woods near Gobles, Ontario Birchall murdered Benwell. The trial in Woodstock was an international sensation attracting a lot of attention from the press. Birchall was convicted and in November 1890 he was hanged in the Woodstock Gaol. Birchall stole a lot of things during the course of his career - not the least of which were the tune, and many of the lyrics of his own "death row ballad". This song is clearly based on the "Ballad of Charles Guiteau" who had assassinated American president Garfield a few years earlier. This version was collected in about 1960 from Lamont Tilden, by Edith Fowke. There's a more action-packed version by LaRena Clark elsewhere on this site.