Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 August 1893 — Who Were Darby and Joan? [ARTICLE]

Who Were Darby and Joan?

The names Darby and Joan are now synonymous with man and wife. They originated in a popular ballad called “Darby and Joan,” written by Henry Woodfall in the last century. It is not generally known that the two characters of the ballad were real personages. John Darby and his wife lived at Bartholomew Glose, and died in 1730. In the poem Joan gets dissatisfied with being a household drudge, and declares that b Q r work is harder than her husband's labors in the field. He offers to exchange places with her, and she cpnsents. The result is that both are quite content to go back into their legitimate spheres, . :.**!?”'•