Stewie, thanks a lot for your wealth of references and the correct spelling of "Scanlon". I guess the Composers-Lyricists Database got it wrong and the mistake was perpetuated by Walsh and Gracyk, although in the part I quoted above, both spellings were used, ie "Bill Scanlon" and "William J Scanlan." In fact, I suspected that the article turned up because I typed "Bill Scanlon" after many frustrating attempts at finding "William Scanlon".

Alas, I'm not in a country where the journals and books you mentioned are available. I'm just a Don McLean fan from Malaysia, and I don't think our libraries stock material on American traditional music. However, I'll copy the references you've provided and will try to look some things up on my next visit West.

Thank you also for showing the similarities of "Over the Mountain" with 'The Grave of Little Mary Fagan'. I wonder how often such 'borrowings' occur in folk music?