Here's the relevant part of Dan Milner's linked article:

Another presumed "folksong" attributed to Harrigan is "Buffalo." Harrigan's theatre company toured tirelessly, and the lyricist may have found the song's seed while barnstorming in upstate New York. For many years, most New York State students were taught a version of this song. One wonders whether it's still in the syllabus?

   From Buffalo I've just come down
   On the good boat Danger;
   A long, long trip on the Erie, boys,
   I feel just like a stranger.
   We'd heavy fogs, [and windy] storms,
   Forget 'em I never shall;
   I'm every inch a sailor boy,
   On the E-ri-a Canal.

   For the Erie is a rising,
   And the gin is getting low;
   I hardly think you'll get a drink,
   Till we get back to Buffalo.

   We were loaded down with barley,
   When we bid good-bye;
   When a pirate bore upon us,
   With an awful wicked eye.
   I saw him through the spy-glass,
   I put up a flag of [truce];
   I found it was the Three Sisters,
   Four days from Syracuse.

   Three days out we struck a rock,
   Of Lackawanna Coal;
   It gave the boat an awful shock,
   And stove in quite a hole.
   I halloed to the driver,
   On the tow-path's treaden dirt;
   He came aboard and stopped the leak,
   With his flannel undershirt.

_____________________

"Buffalo" appears to have been published in 1878, according to the Ballad Index.

The Sandburg version looks like a slightly "folk-revised" fragment of the original.