ORIGINS:

Since Kansas is celebrating its 150th year of statehood in 2011, local newspapers have begun printing the inevitable strings of Historical articles.

The 16 January Sunday edition of the Wichita Eagle reports that the Cabin built by Brewster Higley after he migrated from Ohio to Kansas in 1871 still stands in Smith County, Kansas. The cabin is "reasonably well preserved," after being used as a chicken coop until 1947, and has been supplied with "era articles" but little of Brewsters possessions remain. Construction was (is) native limestone on three sides, with logs at the front, and dirt floor in the sytle of the day. No dimensions given but a picture suggests it was about 9 ft by 6 or 8 ft. (?)

This report states that Higley wrote his poem in six verses in 1872. The cabin was not built until he'd settled in a bit, in 1873.

Brewster Higley was a doctor, and the report is that he was treating a gunshot wound while another man waited. The other man (Trube Reese) found the poem in one of Brewster's books and suggested it should be published. It is reported that it was printed in 1873 in the "Smith County Pioneer." The article doesn't report whether copies of the original publication survive, but such material is fairly commonly traceable through "historical associations" in the area.

Following the 1873 publication of the poem, Brewster is said to have "presented the poem to Dan Kelly of nearby Gaylord who'd been a bugler during the Civil War and had enough background in music to give it a distinctive melody." (Higley is reported as amusing himself by playing the fiddle, but apparently wasn't inclined to music composition?)

"Kelley then gave the song to Judge John Harlan and his family, who first played and sang it publicly.

The Harlans added a chorus to the song:

A Home ---- A Home ---
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the sky is not cloudy all day.

"None of the men attempted to copyright the song."

The article reports that the song (excluding the earlier publishing as a poem) was first published in 1920 by John Lomax in his (Cowboy Songs and Country Ballads)

In 1934 William and Mary Goodwin of Arizona claimed they wrote the song, "An Arizona Home," and filed a lawsuit against NBC (radio) and various publishing houses demandng damages and prohibiting the song from being played in public.

They lost, after an NBC lawyer traced the song back to the Smith County Publication in 1873. The report is that the lawyer found the elderly Trube Reese, who told him about the Harlan family, and that Clarence Harlan (then 86) sang Higley's original words for him.

Fragments of what appear to be "original words" are scattered throughout the article, but I haven't been able to put the pieces together to see if they constitute a "full six verses" as the poem reportedly was written. Scattered bits of what may be the original are also interspersed with "later versions" by others.

John