This on May 25 from Andy Wallace

I sauntered down to the LOC with Norman Kennedy yesterday, and ,while there, looked up "seek and you shall find." As I suspected it;'s an old spiritual. First printed version was in Jubilee ande Plantation Songs, as sung by the Hampton Student Chorus, published by Ditson in 1887. ; There was a later "Cabin and Plantation Songs," published in 1901, and also Religeous Folk Songs of the Negro. So ti was obviously in the repertoire of the black college groups that popularized so many of these sorts of songs.