[ BALLAD] Tom Bolin Was A Scotchman Born. Illustrated American Broadside -

A trimmed ballad sheet measuring approx. 9 5/8 x 6 1/2 inches, with later newspaper repairs or reinforcements, and later still archival tape. Back has what appears to be an ink transfer from an early manuscript, possibly a letter, from which we can clearly make our the words "Merrill" and "New Hampshire", though I suspect a bit more patience and technological magic will coax a good deal more. See reverse image,

Whatever may be on the back, the front is TOM BOLIN, a ballad in 15 stanzas about a poor "terrible fellow", a "Scotchman" eagerly seeking matrimonial bliss and then immediately escaping from its bonds. 3 curious, seemingly random, cuts along the top edge--the center one might be a busking balladeer. (Note the tipi in cut 1.) A distressed example of a ballad popular from the late18th century through the early part of the 19th-- though its roots go back a few centuries still.

This is a contemporary variant, with different images, layout, and even text, of an item AAS describes as:

Verse in fifteen stanzas; first line: Tom Bolin was a Scotchman born./ Nathaniel Coverly, Jr. is first listed at this address in the Boston directory for 1810. American Antiquarian Society copy bound in the Isaiah Thomas collection of broadside ballads, v. III, no. 59, presented to the society in August 1814./ Text in two columns; printed area measures 23.2 x 20.0 cm./ Not in Shaw & Shoemaker.

Link to AAS: https://gigi.mwa.org/netpub/server.np?preview=19806&site=public&catalog=catalog&aspect&width:4000