Robert Burns, who collaborated with Johnson on the Scots Musical Museum, is often credited with the lyrics - but his manuscript copy bears the   handwritten note "Mr. Burns' old words."

On May 16, 1846, black abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote to Ruth Cox, who'd escaped from slavery, that he'd bought a fiddle, "brought it to the Hotel, and struck up 'Camels [sic] a-Coming.'"