It was attibuted in many US published books to one ' James A. Kerrigan '
- note the spelling ye Scot folkies - who I guess lived in the southwest , possibly New Mexico/Kansas/Oklahoma - which would explain some of the odd lyrics I've seen ...eg "When you to your home in THE NATIONS". Also associated - in my mind- with the Cado people which live/d along the Red River on the Texas Oklahoma border. IOW I think the song was written by Native American for a Native American and was later adopted by everybody.

KerrigAn btw is a common Oirish name and most likely for the time( famine immigration decades) and location(wild west still being settled), ie Red River country - rustler, lawless and wide open even in the later decades of the 19th century.