To add more to Pamela's post, The Lakes of Ponchartrain was also common in the south, and has been collected in Missouri, Kentucky, and Florida. It appears in Laws's Native American Balladry as number H-9.

As Pamela said, it became popular among loggers, and in fact the person who brought it to Ireland first had gone to America to be a logger. It was in Ireland by about 1905, when said ex-logger, Frank McAllister, taught it to Paddy McCloskey, who gave it to Sam Henry.