The earliest known copy of "The Anacreontic Song" is in a songbook without music of 1778, (The Vocal Magazine) and is reproduced in Oscar Sonneck's monograph 'The Star Spangled Banner', Washington, Government Printing Office, 1914. [An earlier version, 1909, had to be revised after some fantastic claims by Wm. Grattan Flood.]

Sonneck reviewed the whole history of "Star Spangled Banner" and "To Anacreon in Heaven", and the tune and reproduced several copies of both and notes on several other late 18th and early 19th century songs sung to the tune. He also reproduced the original manuscript of Francis Scott Key's "The Star Spangled Banner", and the original broadside of it, as well as the text in 'The Baltimore American, Sept. 21, 1814.

The evidence as to who wrote the song "To Anacreon in Heaven" is pretty strong that it was by Ralph Tomlinson, but exactly when is not certain. An unsubstantiated claim was that it was published in 1771 (not counting Grattan Flood's claim of 1762). The best, but by no means conclusive evidence, is that the tune was by John Stafford Smith, but Smith didn't publish the tune himself until years after it appeared as a single sheet song with music in London (Longman and Broderip issues) and Dublin (Ann Lee and E[liz.]. Rhames issues). [These are reproduced in Sonneck's monograph.]

[For American music history see Sonneck Society on the web. I found the original monograph in my local secondhand book store about 2 years ago. Original and reprint issues can be found under Oscar Sonneck at www.bookfinder.com]