Here's more info on 'Old Dad' and related tunes:

Old Dad first appeared in printed form in an 1844 collection by Dan Emmett called, Old Dan Emmett's Original Banjo Melodies, Second Series. Emmett used the tune, put his own words to it, and called it Old Dad, which is how it is known today in southwest Virginia.

Emmett did not claim the song as his own composition and, though the words may well be his, it is likely that the tune was already well-known, and may in fact be of British origin. Krassen (1983) says the title "Old Dad" appears to be local to Grayson County, (Southwestern) Va. Interestingly, the famous Norwegian classical violinist Ole Bull, who concertized during several tours to the United States in the mid-19th century, lent his name to the Ole Bull Violin Instruction Book; A Complete School for the Violin....., published in 1845, which contains (among the "Ethiopian Melodies") a tune called "Old Dad." Bull was known to play fiddle tunes as encores to his performances, and often featured regional pieces from his concert venues, though it is not known whether he played "Old Dad" or not.

Other names for the tune include "Stony Point," "Wild Horse," "Wild Horses at Stony Point," "Buck Creek Girls," "Booker's Bluff," and the most common title among northern fiddlers: "The Pigtown Fling."

Stony Point may refer to a battle of the same name fought during the American Revolution on July 15, 1779. The earliest link of that title with this particular tune is a Civil War era publication called Winner's Music of the Dance (1866), where the tune is called Stony Point Reel. Given the connection with Dan Emmett and the minstrel stage, Stony Point (or, Old Dad) must have been quite popular with Civil War fiddlers.

Buck Creek Gals is a southwest Virginia, eastern Kentucky, Arkansas tune in the repertoire of Fiddlin' Cowan Powers 1877-1952 (Russell County, southwestern Va.) and recorded by him in 1924 for Victor, though not issued. The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. To Randolph, who says Ozark fiddlers consider the tune "ancient and difficult to play," the tune "sounds like common old 'Stoney Point.'" Wolfe (1982) identifies a tune by this title as a driving banjo tune recorded in the 1920's by eastern Kentucky musicians.

Pigtown Fling is the common New England title for this widely known tune, although it was collected by Shaw in Colorado as "Pigtown Hoe Down." It is called "Pigtown" in County Donegal, Ireland, where it is played as a highland, although Perlman (1979) says it was originally a Co. Kerry polka, also called "Pigtown." Linscott (1939) identifies this tune as "an Irish reel sometimes known as 'Keltons.'" Chet Parker, a hammered dulcimer player from western New York, called it "Buffalo Breakdown."

"Wild Horse" was another NC, Va, name to the tune. Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers recorded "Wild Horse" on Columbia 15279-D in1926, released later on County 509, "Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, Vol. 2"

Does anyone have Emmett's original lyrics to "Old Dad" ?

-Richie