I saved many details from an old r.m.f thread on this. I also got hold of the College songs book. Interesting stuff. Some excerpts:

Per _The Josh White Song Book_. With music. Biography & song comment by Robert Shelton. (1963) In the "OMB" entry:

This version was adapted and composed by Hy Zaret and Lou Singer in 1944, and thereafter Josh was the chief popularizer of the song. According to the folklorist Kenneth S. Goldstein, a Latin Professor at Harvard had written a ditty in 1850 called "The Lay of One Fishball." Twelve years later Francis James Child, the great authority on British ballads, composed a burlesque operetta in Italian on the song, called "Il Pesceballo." The "mock operetta" was translated into English by James Russell Lowell, the famous poet, and performed in Cambridge for the benefit of Union soldiers in the Civil War. The song and opera then dropped into obscurity, until 1944.

Lax and Smith, in the _Great Song Thesaurus_ say the "The Lone Fish Ball" is credited to Richard Storrs Willis in 1855, but that it may well have been the work of a Harvard Latin Professor, George Martin Lane. As "One Meat Ball" it was rewritten by Louis Singer and Hy Zaret in 1945. . Botkin, in _A Treasury of New England Folklore_, says it was published first in 1857, although he doesn't know where. (This may have been the Willis version.) It was very popular, and two well known Harvard scholars wrote mock-heroic operas to its theme. Francis James Child did his opera in Italian, and called it "Il Pesceballo" and published in 1872; Botkin quotes the prose introduction, in Italian. James Russell Lowell's opera was in English, and Botkin quotes several sections. Sam Hinton La Jolla, CA

The quoted Spaeth version is true to the original except tha before the penultmate verse, the word "MORAL" is printed. Supposedly based on the true story of a New York Professor who had been in the habit of deeply negotiating the number and price of a partial order of buckwheat cakes & is eventially 86'ed from his favorite eatery.

Waite sent a survey to every US college for text & tunes of the songs sung currently sung by students. After two years of work, in 1868 he printed in 328 of the 1000 returns. These include songs of 21 colleges - all, Waite feels, of the US colleges that have any songs. (I think if today we sent a similar survey to _1000_ colleges, we'd be lucky to average one from each.)

Most of the returns were class songs & most of them were eliminated, although he includes a few that seemed to be sustained in the colleges, a very few of which date as far back as the 1820's. These generally showed "some intrisic merit or cast some light on some peculiar College custom."

For the others took care to "select those most valuable in reference to quality, permanency, and general interest."

As one would expect, most of the songs borrowed existing, well-known tunes. Some commercial, some popular, some traditional, some sacred... anything handy and, supposedly, widely known to students: "Annie Laurie," "Mary Had a Little Lamb," "Villikins and Dinah," Derby Ram," "My Country, Tis of Thee," "Cannibal Islands," "Antioch," etc. One undated song from CCNY uses "The Lone Fish-Ball"!! The tune must have made the rounds quickly - it was collected in NY 10 years after arising in Boston.

Some songs with fairly standard texts I recognize are: "I've a Jolly Sixpence," "The Mermaid," "King of the Cannibal Islands," (a "polite one, of course, Ed) "Goodnight Ladies," "Peter Grey," "Bingo," "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes," "Lowlands" ("Sweet Trinity") "Landlord Fill Your Flowing Bowl" "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark." (An early parody, not the "Oor Hamlet" r.m.f's been threading) and a nice version of "Three Crows" intended to be lined out. It's clearly American, but not as crude as "Billy McGee McGaw." Three or four Childs.

"The Lone Fish-Ball" Founded On A Boston Fact: (In the chorus of which all assembled companies are expected to unite.)

by C:R. Storrs Willis As printed in _Carmina Collegensia - A Complete Collection of the songs of the American Colleges_, 1868, Oliver Ditson & Co., Boston