John in Kansas, the reason I quoted Randolph was his statement about the song appearing in "Holy Roller" song books. As I remember the Kansas-Oklahoma-Arkansas area, "holy roller" meetings were (are?) not uncommon. Randolph collected the song from one of the members. These meetings attracted bottom feeders as well as the religious. In other words, the song would have been known to a rather large number of people, many of them poorly educated and bigoted in outlook.

Anyone have the old recordings by Patton and Lee, or by The Monroe Boys? I wonder how close the words are to the verses quoted above.