It certainly does appear to be a fairly obscure song. I have found the song quoted in newspapers as early as 1895 and 1917, but not much else. Alan Lomax (click) and Charles Haywood (click) both said the song was a variant of Barbary Allen. Arthur Smith (as mentioned above) and fiddler Curly Ray Cline (click) both apparently claimed authorship of the song, but in both cases it was obviously done for recording rights-related reasons.

Most modern recordings are based off the 1938 Arthur Smith version (Discogs page; link to recording) to which Charlie provided the lyrics above, though popular female country singer Molly O'Day apparently sang it live on radio but never recorded it (click).

According to the Roud Index (click) the song was also collected by Cecil Sharp in 1918, and Wolfe in 1952.
- Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Tunes p.4560 (1918)
- Arthur Davis, Folk-songs of Virginia pp.85-86 (1931)
- Charles K Wolfe, Folk Songs of Middle Tennessee pp.119-120 (1952)

Unfortunately, I have access to none of those books, so I cannot give more detail to their text