From Scarborough's comment (On the Trail, 1925; reprint 1963, pp. 50-52):

"Another delightful old song, of ancient tradition, Old Bangum, was given me by Mrs. Landon Randolph Dashiell, of Richmond, Virginia, who sends it "as learned from years of memory and iteration." The music was written from Mrs Dashiell's singign by Shepard Webb, also of Richmond. Mrs. Dashiell says that her Negro mammy used to sing it to her, and that the song was so indissolubly associated with the sleepy time that she doubted if she could sing it for me unless she took me in her lap and rocked me to sleep by it.

"Professor Kittredge speaks of this song in a discussion in the Journal of American Folklore. Mrs. Case says: "Both General James Taylor and President Madison were great-great-grandchildren of James Taylor, who came from Carlisle, England, to Orange County, Virginia, in 1638, and both were hushed to sleep by their Negro mammies with the strains of Bangum and the Boar." The version he gives is different in some respects from that given by Mrs. Dashiell."

~Masato