[1961:] Pete Seeger says: "[This] I first learned from Larry Ehrlich of Chicago, who learned it from Paul Clayton, who learned it from Arthur Kyle Davis of the Univ. of Va., who got it from a small booklet, published by a now deceased French professor. His original sources, Negro folksingers of Virginia, were not listed.
There may have been other verses, but Paul Clayton did not know them. Larry Ehrlich and others in Chicago there made up a couple more. And the Weavers added a few. The Weavers have just recorded it on a 78 rpm single for Vanguard." (Reprint Sing Out 3, 137)