Surely the song is older than the date shown for gathering it? The only silver bill I can think of or find would be the The Sherman Silver Act which was late 1800's.

At the same time, women's suffrage began in 1848, so it seems this would argue for an earlier date for the song, too. One can imagine women being "het up" over their rights while their husbands fretted over whether they were about to lose their shirts over what were about to be worthless silver mines as in the case of Horace Tabor in Colorado.

Hope this helps,

kat