Boston, Mass., "Daily Evening Transcript" (Nov. 12, 1836):

                         NATIONAL THEATRE

First night of the HUNTER OF THE FAR WEST, dramatized from a popular American Tale, by J. S. Jones, expressly to introduce Mr. J. Willis, in the character of "Earthquake, the Kentuckian" ...[o]n MONDAY EVENING, Nov. 14....

Earthquake (the Hunter) Mr J. Willis;
Tecumseh (the Shawnee Chief) Mr W. L. Ayling;
Gay Foreman (the Lily of the West) Mrs Smith
Netuokue (Chief of the Ottawas) Mrs Pelby.


(The show ran in Boston for at least a month.)

Forty years later, in the Chicago Tribune (March 11, 1876):

"You recently copied from the Minneapolis Tribune an article containing a poem about 'The Lily of the West,' which, that paper says, was indited by a love-sick youth of Indiana to a young lady. Now, I think that youth and lady must be well along in years, for the song was in common vogue forty years ago, to my knowledge. I will give it to you as it was sung then. The tune used was subsequently used for the song of 'Jo Bowers,' which everybody knows.
                              
                                     A YOUTH OF FIFTY-THREE SUMMERS"

The "youth's" text begins "When first I came to this country,/ Some comfort for to find." The lily's name is "Flora." (Latin for "flower," of course, and the name of the goddess of Spring.)