Not sure I can add much but I stumbled across this thread whilst looking for something else!

I present a country music show and often include western songs, so am familiar with this song and the related "Carry Me Back To The Lone Prairie". I recalled having a discussion with long-time friend, western music authority, writer and broadcaster O J Sikes, so I emailed him. Here is his reply, I hope it is of interest:

"According to the late historian Jim Bob Tinsley, it began in 1839 as a poem by Edwin H. Chapin, about a sailor who didn't want to be buried at sea. The story is more complicated, though, as the song/poem ("The Ocean Burial") went through various modifications (there may have been several songs with the same theme), but the direct link to Carson J Robison's classic, was a song about not wanting to be buried at sea that was carried West by some young fellows from Canada &/or the Eastern US who wanted to become cowboys, sometime after 1860. But the sheet music wasn't published until 1907.
    In 1934, Carson J Robison wrote "Carry Me Back to the Lone Prairie", based on the older song, because he didn't feel that it was logical for a cowboy not to want to be buried on the prairie that he loved!