I always considered it to be traditional, but ...
Google came up with one John Jacob Niles, (1892 - 1980.)
Here he is:
I pursued this link http://www.john-jacob-niles.com/music.htm and discovered that Mr. Niles claims to have collected a snippet of the song in 1933 from an impoverished 'unwashed blond' girl, whom he reports to have been 'very lovely'.
Her name was Annie Morgan.
Perhaps she appeared thus:
JJN was clearly enchanted.
What man wouldn't be if she looked like that?
He claims to have added additional verses.
If you click on the above link, hit the 'play' option, and fast-forward to about 2min. 37secs, you will hear him sing and play it.
I was not engaged by the peculiar voice, and I continue to question the origin.
I have a book that simply entitles the piece 'Appalachian Carol', credited 'trad.', with no mention of JJN.
I continued in my search and came across a youtube post of another of JJN's recordings:
http://youtu.be/fMO-b8FM2OE
(The embed code seems to be corrupt.)
This is truly delightful.
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