The Hanging of Mary Jo

© 1998 by S. Eve Dickinson

Folks say she was a looker when she first came to town,

With eyes like sparkling emeralds, hair thick and reddish brown.

She stepped down from the stagecoach as graceful as a doe,

And smiling her warmest greetings, said, "Hi, I'm Mary Jo."

She first tried being a school-marm, then clerked at the general store,

But the womenfolk were spiteful; she couldn't take it anymore.

She finally went to singing at the Hitchin' Post Saloon

Where half the men in Burton spent most their afternoons.

She vowed to keep her virtue right from the very start.

But the pleadings of the banker brought on a change of heart.

She thought he was talking marriage and waited for a ring,

Then heard he'd wed another...and she was still there to sing.

So she took the barkeeper's shotgun, saddled up her chestnut roan,

And headed down to Oak Street, right to that banker's home.

She shot him twice without blinking, then slowly turned around,

Set the gun by the doorstep and walked proudly back to town.

When they built the Hanging Tower the whole town came to see

The hanging of this murderer that the judge deemed had to be.

They say folks cried like babies, their tears really did flow

The day they did the hanging -- the hanging of Mary Jo.