Talk:Poor Ellen Smith

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

I've been researching this topic and have found quite a lot of information that is not included in the article as well as some basic facts this article gets wrong. I'm unfamiliar with wikipedia editing, so I didn't want to go in there and start writing things without knowing how to properly cite. If anyone is interested, I have a handful of suggestions:

The date of the murder listed (1894) is incorrect. It occurred on Wednesday July 20, 1892 (Twin City Daily Sentinel July 21, 1892)

I have found no sources from the era that attest her being mentally challenged, only that she was "a girl of bad character" (Statesville Record and Landmark, July 28, 1892) (This phrasing was used whomever wrote the wire service copy, as the text identical across multiple NC newspapers from the same week). She had a child out of wedlock (by all accounts DeGraff's), who died shortly after birth only three month before her murder (Western Sentinel, July 28, 1892).

The first version of the song was first published by Western Sentinel on September 14, 1893 and is not credited to DeGraff, but to a fellow prisoner and "friend" named Charles Pepper. The version of the song published proclaims DeGraff's innocence, as do many earlier recorded versions of the song.

The story became a media sensation fueled by the Democratic-aligned newspapers (Twin City/Western Sentinel, Raleigh News and Observer, et al.) in an effort to humiliate and oust the Republican sheriff, Milton E. Teague, from office (1892 was an election year). The Twin City Daily Sentinel (and it's weekly counterpart The Western Sentinel) published dozens of spurious (by his own admission, DeGraff left for Mt. Airy the day after the murder) stories about DeGraff being sighted in Winston to make the sheriff look weak. The effort was successful, and Teague lost reelection to Robert McArthur in November 1892. Reports of DeGraff sightings ended after the election.

DeGraff was arrested in June 1893 after returning to Forsyth Co.. He testified during his trial that he returned to Winston-Salem to perform a ritual to see the ghost Ellen Smith at the scene of the crime. (Western Sentinel, August 17, 1893). He was convicted on August 15, 1893 and executed on February 8, 1894. He swore innocence all the way through the trial and appeals process, but confessed on the gallows. Multiple newspapers published his gallows confession (Durham Globe, February 8, 1894 and Western Sentinel, February 8, 1894).

Anyway... this is all a lot of disparate thoughts. The song is one of the best documented murder ballads when you dig into it and I felt the current article does not do it justice. I will happily share my sources with anyone who would like them. QuimbyMouse (talk) 02:19, 19 April 2026 (UTC)