A visitor to New Orleans claimed to have heard Black men at work singing a "Shinbone Alley" song. It actually corresponds in part to TD Rice's stage minstrel song (c. 1833?), so there may have been some cross-influence—if this was not the source Rice took it from. The author is not clear whether he actually heard it there, or if this is a general "type."

"...those who have never visited the South and South-west, let them journey hitherward, and hear the negroes singing at their work — regaling their humble fancies with some such intellectual bijou as —

'As I was gwyin' down Shinbone alley,
    Long time ago,
There I spied ole Johnny Gladdin',
    Long time ago, oh-e-oh!' "

["Leaves from the South-West and Cuba." _The Knickerbocker_ 8.1 (July 1836). Pg. 51.]