"Poor Ellen Smith" is a late 19th-century murder ballad recounting the shooting death of Ellen Smith, a maid in the home of a Winston-Salem merchant, and the trial and execution of her murderer. The song is based on real events in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1894, a ne'er-do-well named Peter DeGraff had a love affair with Ellen Smith, who may have been mentally challenged and was unable to understand his rejection of her. Smith became pregnant by DeGraff, but their child died at birth. Afterwards she began following DeGraff around town, and eventually he sent her a note that asked her to meet him in a secluded area, worded in such a way that Smith would have believed DeGraff wanted to reconcile. Instead, when she arrived, DeGraff shot her through the chest. He later reported that Smith's only words after being shot were "Lord have mercy on me." DeGraff confessed to the crime on the gallows, shortly before he was hanged. Despite the fact of DeGraff's confession, the song follows the pattern of the "criminal's last good night" type and has him proclaim his innocence. Like "Tom Dula", Peter DeGraff claims to have never touched the victim. The song and its variants have been performed and recorded by many artists including Tommy Jarrell, the Stanley Brothers, Ralph Stanley & Larry Sparks, The Country Gentlemen, John Hartford, The Kingston Trio and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Jimmy Martin 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).