Howard Odum also makes reference to the song in a paper for The Journal of American Folklore Vol XXIV July-September, 1911, entitled 'Folk-song and folk-poetry as found in the secular songs of the Southern Negroes'. It is clear in this article that he is looking at already well-established songs and notes:
" . . . it is not possible to learn the exact origin of the folk-songs, or to determine how much is original and how much traditional, it is not possible to classify negro-songs according to the exact locality or localities from which they come." (257)

Clearly then Odum considered this song to be a relatively old song in 1911.

Brian