The phrase gets over 7,000 hits on a Newspapers.com search of the US. Particularly hot spots for results were in New York (511), Kansas (476), Pennsylvania (437), California (430), Ohio (371), Nebraska (357), Missouri (313), Indiana (307), and Oklahoma (306), with usage not being particularly consistent from year to year; instead, the phrase would lie dormant for decades at a time until reiterated in a widely-syndicated or published poem or article every 50 years or so -- 1887 (227 hits), 1913 (240 hits), 1917 (196 hits), 1922 (210 hits), 1931 (188 hits), 1941 (226 hits), 1950 (222 hits), 1982 (205 hits), 2005/2006 (211/193 hits). Heyday was definitely from about 1920-1970.