Fortunately the recordings aren't so complicated. It was first recorded in 1920 by a guy name Ball (Bentley, not Golden) who was a typewriter salesmen. He learned it from a North Carolina minstrel but he sang it like "La Traviata"

And it was sung by Charlie Poole and named "The Highwayman" and Poole was a North Carolina banjo-pickin' minstrel before he drank too much moonshine:

As I went down to the old depot
To see the trains roll by,
I think I see my dear old girl
Hang her head and cry.

The night was dark and stormy,
It surely looked like rain;
Not a friend in this whole wide world,
No one knew my name.

Nobody knew my name, poor boy,
No one knew my name;
Not a friend in this whole wide world,
And no one knew my name.

"Wait, Mister Judge, oh, wait, Mister Judge,
Wait a little while;
I think I saw my dear old girl,
She's walked for miles and miles."

"Dear girl, have you brought me silver?
Dear girl, have you brought me gold?
Have you walked these long, long miles
To see me hanged upon a hangman's pole?"

"Dear boy, I've brought you silver,
Dear boy, I've brought you gold;
I have not walked these long, long miles
To see you hanged upon a hangman's pole."

She saved me from the scaffold,
She untied my hands;
Tears rolled down that poor girl's cheeks,
"I love that highwayman."

And Asa Mrtin from Kentucky somehow recorded the same song in 1931 but Melinger Henry also collected this and sent to Kittredge (see first post) at Harvard, who wrote profound notes about it but seeing as it really came from Charlie Poole whose buddy fiddle Roy Harvey teamed up from some guys from West Virginia and they sang it to John Hardy Blues:

John Hardy Blues- Roy Harvey, Jess Johnston & the West Virginia Ramblers, Champion 16281, June 3, 1931.

[Intro, fiddle]

1. I've been to the east and I've been to the west
Been all around this wide world.
Been to the river and I've been baptized
And I'm standing on the hanging ground, I do know,
standing on the hanging ground

2 Hangman, hangman, hold your rope,
Just a little while,
I thought I heard my father's voice
He has been traveled ten thousand miles, I do know,
He's traveled ten thousand miles.

[fiddle break]

3. Did you bring any silver or gold,
Or money to pay my fee?
Or did you come for to see me hung upon this hanging tree, I do know,
Upon this hanging tree.

4. No, I didn't bring no silver nor gold
Or money to pay your fee.
But I did come for to see you hung, upon this hanging tree, I do know
Upon this hanging tree.

[fiddle break]

5. Hangman, hangman hold your rope,
Just a little while.
I thought I heard my sweetheart's voice
She had traveled ten thousand long miles, I do know.
She traveled ten thousand long miles.

6. Oh yes I've brought you silver and gold
And money to pay your fee,
But I have come for to take you home, I do know,
And keep you there with me,
And keep you there with me.

But Kittredge never wrote about that!

Richie