The earliest full text (The Riverside Magazine for Young People, 1868):
You hear of Reuben Ranzo, Ranzo, boys, O Ranzo! You hear of Reuben Ranzo, Ranzo, boys, O Ranzo!
Oh, Reuben was no sailor….
He shipped on board a whaler--…
He could not do his duty:….
They took poor Reuben Ranzo--…
They took him to the gangway--…
They lashed him to the --… [sic; should be "grating"
They gave him five and fifty:…
I pity Reuben Ranzo….
Our Captain bein' a good man,... He took poor Reuben Ranzo;…
He took him in the cabin….
An' give him wine and water….
He kissed the Captain's daughter! Ranzo, boys, O Ranzo! He married the Captain's daughter! Ranzo, boys, O Ranzo!
(But he's still a plain sailor, at least for now. As for "wine and water," some singers - including the original - may have been thinking seltzer, not flat H2O.)
Ranzo is less fortunate in the version collected by Helen Hartness Flanders in 1934 from James Seaborn Adams, who learned it, apparently, around 1900:
O poor old Reuben Ranzo, Ranzo, boys, Ranzo, O poor old Reuben Ranzo, Ranzo, boys, Ranzo.