The post referencing Bill Browning is wrong; he may have wrote that version, but he didn't write the song (that's like people thinking Merle wrote "Nine Pound Hammer" when he wrote that version, but he didn't write the song). It relies quite a bit on traditional, passed down stuff. Further proof is...


Clarence Ashley's version of "Dark Holler" that came out in Archive of American Folk Music, from late 1920s has these lyrics:

I was born in old Virginia
South Carolina I did go
There I caught a pretty little woman
but her age I did not know

Well her hair was brown and curly
Oh her cheeks were rosy red
On her breast she wore white lillies
Oh the tears that I have shed

When I'm asleep I'm dreaming about you
When I wake I have no rest
Every moment seems like an hour
Oh the pains roll through my breast

I'd rather be in some dark holler
Where the sun don't ever shine
For you to be some other man's darling
When you ain't no longer mine

Papa says I must not marry
Mama says it'll never do
But little girl if you are willing
I will run away with you

For I'd rather be in some dark holler
Where the sun don't ever shine
For you to be some other ma's darling
When you ain't no longer mine

When I'm asleep I'm dreaming about you
When I wake I have no rest
Every moment seems like an hour
Oh the pains roll through my breast