On the notes for her "Folkways Years" CD, Peggy Seeger says,

Janie Barnard Couch, the Alabama singer from whom this song was collected in the late 1940's, said of it: "I believe this song was composed about 1880, when there was a large migration of people from the county (Marshall County) going to the new lands of Texas. this is about a young man whose wife would not accompany him on the journey."

I couldn't find this song on any of the songbooks indexed at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, but it is listed as "Traditional" on CD's by both Peggy Seeger and Bill Staines. I sent both recordings to you, Barbara - hope you can come up with a tune for us. Can anybody come up with more of a history of the song?
-Joe Offer-