Flatt & Scruggs Lyrics
"Last Public Hanging In West Virginia"

Rock of ages cleft for me

Now that could be the voice of John F Morgan in the
Ripley jailhouse singin' hymns

Well ol' Johnny might just be singin' hymn this mornin'

Cause this is gonna be a hangin' day for him

Now people say that Johnny was a bad man and that he
had a aim for bein' mean

He took a hatchet one cold weary morning he killed
two children and the widow Green

Five thousand people gathered there in Ripley invited
by the sheriff Jay O Sean

Havin' fun and drinking moonshine liquor and listenin'
to ol' Johnny singin' hymn

The day dawned cold in Ripley West Virginia the scaffold
stood in silence in a field

Johnny kept on singin' in the jailhouse waiting there to eat his final meal

Then rumor started flying through the gathering

That John F Morgan might get his reprieve

The people started yelling toward the sheriff

Afraid they'd miss for all they come to see

But Jay O Sean the sheriff of Jackson County

Afraid that such a thing could have been done

Said I said there was gonna be a hangin' and I still
mean it there's a gonna be one

They led John Morgan from the Ripley jailhouse

And he rode through the happy laughin' crowd

But when John Morgan stepped upon the scaffold

They grew quiet when he tip his hat and bowed

They listened to the preacher say the last words

They fixed the noose and tied John Morgan's hand

The signal came and someone sprang the dead's trap

And sent John Morgan to another land

The last public hanging in old West Virginia a true
story written in this song

On the sixteen of December in fifteen ninety seven

John F Morgan paid the price of doing wrong