"The Knoxville Girl" is an Appalachian murder ballad. It is derived from the 19th-century Irish ballad "The Wexford Girl", itself derived from the earlier English ballad "The Bloody Miller or Hanged I Shall Be" about a murder in 1683 at Hogstow Mill, 12 miles south of Shrewsbury. This ballad was collected by Samuel Pepys, who wrote about the murder of Anne Nichols by the Mill's apprentice Francis Cooper. Other versions are known as the "Waxweed Girl" and "The Wexford Murder". These are in turn derived from an Elizabethan era poem or broadside ballad, "The Cruel Miller". It was recorded by Riley Puckett & Gid Tanner (1924), The Carter Family (1937), The Blue Sky Boys (1938), Cope Brothers (1947), The Louvin Brothers (1956), The Wilburn Brothers (1959), Kevin Shegog (1961), John Duffey and the Country Gentlemen (1963), Jim and Jesse (1969), Osborne Brothers (1972), Dave Loggins (1974), Outlaws (1975), Jimmy Martin (1982) and others. It was printed in Cohen, Seeger and Wood's Old Time String Band Songbook (1964) (Previously published as The New Lost City Ramblers Songbook).