Thank you for your work on this, Sandy. I'm really looking forward to an opportunity to do something as nice for you. I've wondered about this song for many years. Now I can even pass the information on to Jessica, who taught me the song over twenty years ago.
And just after writing the above paragraph, I was searching the net for albums by Jessica and her husband Martin, and I found that they also recorded "Way Down Shawneetown" on an 1994 Shanachie album called "Martin Simpson: Collection." !! I haven't heard the album, but CDNow had a short clip of the song, and it is the same song. Give it a listen. (I also found it on Tunes.com, but for some reason their cut-order is all mixed up and if you click on one song you get a different one, so the CDnow works better, at least for Shawneetown.)

Mark