"Old Joe Clark" is supposed to be in Halliwell's "Nursery Rhymes, 1842, p. 135, but it is not in the 1846 edition that is on line. If Joe is in the 1842 edition, he is probably English.

A couple of versions of "Old Joe Clark" in Owens and Owens, 1976, "Texas Folk Songs," but no mention of Old Joe Clark parties.

Randolph, 1980 ed., "Ozark Folk-Songs," Vol. 3 no. 533, p. 324, speaks of the party game: The game as I have seen it played is a wild medley of figures from other games, and the fact that the same tune is played by fiddlers at the square dances still further complicates matters. Occasionally some gifted player, with a shrill whoop to attract attention to himself, executes a sort of jig or breakdown, while the chorus is sung loudly by the other dancers who gather about him. And I have attended two parties in which all figures were dispensed with and the players simply paired off and danced about in couples- a crude imitation of the round dances introduced by the tourists, except that there was no music save the singing of the players."