That song appears in Ruth Crawford Seeger's "American Folk Songs for Children" (Doubleday 1948) and she cites as her source "Saint Helena Island Spirituals" by N.G.J. Ballanta (Schirmer 1925) and the Penn Normal Industrial and Agricultural School of St. Helena Island, North Carolina. (However, on the song's page it says it's from South Carolina.) Peggy Seeger sings it on the 2 cd set of the American Folk Songs for Children done with Mike Seeger.

~ Becky in Tucson