No one has posted the first printed version, The Creole Girl, in L. Pound, 1922, ABS, 55, pp. 127-128. Nor has the early Lake of Ponchartrain been posted (Gardner/Chickering, see Traditional Ballad Index).
Why speculate about the wording of one late version and try to apply that to the whole spectrum of the song?

The song was first in print in 1922; have earlier versions been found?
Is the song an old one handed down, or the late invention of some unknown writer?

[Idle comments on the version in the Flanders volume (DT)]
Does the singer use 'wood' to mean what is often called 'bush' ?.
Foreign money- what time period is supposed to be represented in the song? Louisiana Terr. used a mixture of money, even into the 19th C., U. S., French, Talers, etc. There is nothing to suggest Civil War times.
All hard currencies accepted, but even U.S. paper suspect? A common attitude at times.   
No clue is offered to the identity of the wanderer except that he might be a wandering artist.