Point well taken, Malcolm. I've mostly been running this week, checking in for a minute or two and commenting whenever I can; I should have waited until I could present the question in a more complete and user-friendly way. I do appreciate all of your help.

Susan, the LOC site lists recordings of fiddlers in the archive's collections, but to the best of my knowledge does not contain track lists, etc. They are usually kind enough to mail out the finding aids and other notes for their archived collections, but the notes will likely contain track listings at best, which won't do me any good in this case as I wont be able to hear the tunes they got from van Wagner.

As for your question about the Archive or Traditional Music in Indiana, their website is here (you'll have to cut & paste): http://www.indiana.edu/~libarchm. I don't believe they have any sound files online, but you can order recordings of many of the things in their archive (for your own private use) pretty reasonably.

Greg, thanks. Do you know how long it takes to tune a banjo? Me neither.

So, as for the tune, I like Anglo's idea, since nobody seems to know it by any other name. I posted it on the FiddlerFork website as suggested, and as of an hour ago, there had been 79 listens and only 2 responses, both of which were to the effect that they knew someone else who plays the tune, and they'll try to find out.

I'm wondering if van Wagner doesn't say "Burning Wheat" (rather than "Vernon Wheat" or "Vernon") when asked what the name of the tune is.