Thanks for adding the write-up from the Ballad Index.

I presume 1872 is the date meant for the reference to the Fisk Jubilee Singers. So far, 1880 (Marsh, "The Story of the Jubilee Singers") is the earliest reference I can find. In that publication, Marsh added 'a large number' of new songs; I don't have the volumes of G. D. Pike, and don't know their content.

The remark in the Index about Tillman's 'bogus claim' is incorrect. Tillman acknowledged his source as the Black camp meeting in SC, and included the song in one of his Songsters (1891). Any publication made to be sold is subject to copyright (just as the volumes of the Journal of the Folk-Lore Society, etc., are copyright).

Tillman biography from the New Georgia Encyclopedia: Tillman

I am making invocations to whatever clones may be to fix my post- I am even considering the supreme offering of a chili dog.