What an amazing thread! Not many folk songs have as complete a picture as this of their origin and evolution.

Guy Logsdon gives a 12 stanza version with tune from Arizona in his 'The Whorhouse Bells were Ringing'. It seems to have circulated much among cowboys and that might be why it is so widespread. He states 'The belief was that the story of Indians murdering a mother and her children came from Minnesota, where in 1862, Little Crow, a Sioux chieftain, murdered a German family in revenge for Indians' mistreatment.' He then goes on to state it could have originated anywhere. There are lots of haunted woods. He quotes J. Frank Dobie 'sensed a definite literary flavour' in it.