The Historical Background of “Home on the Range”

Russell K. Hickman
Donated to LaPorte Co., Indiana Genweb by:
Bev Brophy


It has been said that the course of American history can be charted by the songs that have been written to portray the thoughts and feelings of the people. The great events and movements of the past have furnished the inspiration for some of the best American songs, which have expressed in eloquent fashion the temper of the public mind. Thus out of the War of 1818 came the national anthem, the “Star Spangled Banner;” the Civil War produced “Georgia;” and the first World War popularized “Over There,” and “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” 1 Of the many folk songs, some like “Barbara Allen” have been handed down from generation to generation, and others written by nameless authors on the spot; many of these were later reworded and adapted to new surroundings. Thus the California gold rush of 1849 popularized in a new locale the rollicking ballad “Oh Susannah,” and gave wide currency to that song of the California trail, “Sweet Betsy from Pike.” In entire truth it can be concluded that “the land sings its history,” 2 thereby expressing the joys and sorrows of the people, and their hopes of a better future.

Of the songs that arose, a large group may be termed “work songs,” since they depict the thoughts and feelings of the common people in their various callings in different parts of the country. Among these may be mentioned “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” and “Paddy Works on the Erie,” “The Coasts of High Barbary,” and a large group of cowboy songs. 3The American musical heritage owes a deep debt of gratitude to the cowboy, who lived a free life in the vast spaces of the West, and whose songs were noted for their simplicity and directness. After the spring roundup in Texas, cattle were driven north to shipping points such as Dodge City and Abilene, Kansas, or to summer pastures in the Dakotas or Montana. When “going up the trail” the cowboy sang to banish loneliness and entertain himself and companions, or even more, to keep cattle moving, or to quiet them during the long night watches. 4Such refrains as “The Old Chisholm Trail,” “Red River Valley,” “The Night Herding Song,” and “Home on the Range” illustrate this group; of these it has been said that “Home on the Range” was sung by more people than any other western song ever written. 5Although less popular among the cowboys than “The Old Chisholm Trail” and “The Street of Laredo,” the wide distribution and later fame of this song is more indebted to these roving singers than to any other group of people. In an outstanding way it gave voice to the spirit of the West, in particular the plains and prairies which were still the home of the buffalo, and were to become better known as the cattle kingdom. Its description of a home in the West has given it an enduring quality possessed by few if any western songs. While the origin of most folk songs has been lost in the mists of antiquity, the authorship and later history of “Home on the Range” has been quite well traced6, but its Indiana background has never been adequately described. How did this song come to be?


Early Life of Brewster Higley


In order to understand the background of the song “Home on the Range,” one must examine the career of its author, Brewster Higley, who lived for many years in Indiana before he left for the West. The details of his life in Ohio and Indiana are summarized in the genealogical work entitled The Higleys and Their Ancestry, from which the following paragraphs are quoted:


Brewster Higley, 6th, M.D., the third child of Brewster Higley, 5th, and Achsah Everts, was born at Rutland, O., November 30, 1823, three months after the decease of his father. On the decease of his mother he resided with his grandfather, Judge Brewster Higley, 4th, and afterward with his sister.


At the age of eighteen he began the study of medicine in the village of New Plymouth, O. His first medical practice was in Pomeroy, O. In the spring of 1848 he removed to La Porte, Ind., and formed a partnership with his uncle, Dr. Everts. From the medical college located at La Porte, he took his medical degree February 22, 1849. He also became a member of the Northwestern Academy of Natural and Medical Science. He practiced in La Porte twenty-six years.7


The ancestral homestead of the Higley family is located near Rutland, Ohio, and includes a family cemetery on the farm. A relative of Higley informed the writer that his grandmother, Zeruah Higley and her brother, Brewster, were reared by their grandparents on this farm in Ohio.8 Concerning Higley’s early years in Ohio, not very much can be added to the words of the biographical sketch. The writer could find no mention of Higley’s arrival in La Porte county, or of his association with his uncle, Dr. Everts, who may have been influential in inducing him to remove to the Hoosier state. Dr. Everts was probably the Sylvanus Everts who came to La Porte county in 1834, located in what later became Noble township, and came to have a very wide professional practice, while at the same time he was closely connected with the early history of Union Mills, which was named after the grist mill which he established.9


The Indiana Medical College, La Porte


In the fall of 1848 Brewster Higley entered the Indiana Medical College at La Porte, where he remained until February, 1849, when he completed his course of study. This was in accord with the preceptor system then prevailing in medical education, under which a would-be doctor first studied under an older physician, and completed his preparation with a brief course of academic study. When eighteen years of age Higley had begun the study of medicine at New Plymouth, Ohio, no doubt under a practicing physician; thereafter he had first practiced his profession at Pomeroy, Ohio, and now the successful completion of the course at La Porte would earn for him the coveted degree of doctor of medicine.10

During the brief period of its existence at La Porte, the Indiana Medical College achieved widespread fame. It has been said that “no medical school existed within the boundary lines of the State of Indiana prior to the formation of the Indiana Medical College at Laporte in 1842.” 11 La Porte University was chartered by the legislature of 1840-41, with literary, medical and law departments, its leading founders being John B. Niles and William Andrew, both pioneer settlers at La Porte. 12 A meeting of the organizers of the medical department was held in 1841, among whom Niles and Dr. Daniel Meeker appear to have been the leading figures. The absence of authentic records for the early years makes it impossible to evaluate the respective roles of these two men, but some time thereafter Dr. Tompkins Higday, a member of the faculty in the later years, referred to Daniel Meeker as “the originator of the College.”13 Dr. Meeker located in La Porte in 1835, and with Dr. Jacob P. Andrew gave the initial course of medical lectures in the spring of 1842 to a class of nine students. In the first regular session of sixteen weeks, which was held during the fall and winter of 1842-43, there were thirty students and one graduate, with a faculty of five men. This grew to 43 students and four graduates in 1843-44, and to 63 matriculates and ten graduates in 1844-45, when the faculty had been expanded to seven men. By the session of 1847-48 the enrollment reached its greatest size, with a total of 101 students and 21 graduates.14 To provide for this growing enrollment, in 1847 an entire city block was purchased (the present site of the Junior High School), and a structure erected to accommodate several hundred students; it was said to have been one of the best arranged college buildings in the West, and was first used in November, 1847. 15 In 1848 the charter was amended, officially changing the name from “The Medical Department of Laporte University” to that of “The Indiana Medical College.” 16

The Indiana Medical College came to be particularly well known for its achievements in surgery, in which some of the most successful operations were performed with the use of chloroform, then just coming into use. These operations were often executed in clinics, and subsequently publicized in the local press. The operations of Dr. Meeker and Dr. Shipman in particular were performed “with rare skill and success;” 17 some of the patients were brought to the College from distances of over one hundred miles. Before he came to La Porte Azariah B. Shipman was a distinguished surgeon of central New York state; Dr. Daniel Meeker, a native of the same state, was termed “a thorough anatomist, a bold, successful operator in surgery; a man of iron will, great physical endurance, and withal a firm believer in the resurrection of the dead; just the man to start successfully a Medical College in a small town. ‘Old Death,’ as the students familiarly called him, never failed to keep the dissecting room abundantly supplied with fresh subjects.” 18

Brewster Higley attended the Indiana Medical College during the session of 1848-49, when there were said to have been 93 matriculates. 19 There are [no?] records concerning his work in this institution, but we do possess the account of a classmate, William Henry Wishard, as told by his daughter. 20 The graduating class of that year included thirty members, with a total of 93 students in the College, and eleven more that enrolled for a short period. Not a few of the graduates became prominent in the medical profession in Indiana; of these Wishard recalled Dr. Lomax of Marion, Dr. Baker of Stockwell, and Dr. Everts who for some time was the head of the Central Hospital for the Insane. 21 The student body was recruited from a wide area, indicating the high repute enjoyed by the College in the field of medical education. 22 On Christmas day, 1848, Wishard wrote that he was busy “transcribing my paper with such corrections as I hope will make me pass. All the candidates for the degree of M. D. must report tomorrow . . . .” 23 Wishard enjoyed the frequent visits of Dr. Deming, of the faculty, who was “idolized by his class.” On January 4 he wrote: “My thesis must be ready in a few days.” 24 The formal exercises of graduation were held on February 22, 1849. S. S. Todd of Madison, and Stephen S. Austin of La Porte, both members of the graduating class, each read a thesis which “furnished ample evidence of the research and assiduity of the writers.” 25 The published account of these exercises listed a total of twenty-one graduates, from the states of Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, New York and Illinois. Among those listed was “Brewster Higley, Kingsbury, Laporte co., Ia. (Ind.)” 26


Union Mills, Indiana

With a diploma from a medical college of such renown, it is probable that Brewster Higley had high hopes of a most successful career in his profession. Concerning the years that followed the records are brief, but sufficient to justify some general conclusions. After Higley’s graduation no notice appeared in the La Porte County Whig, announcing that he had begun the practice of medicine in La Porte, and it is safe to conclude that he did not do so. 27 During the years 1850, 1851, and probably a part of 1852 he continued to reside in Kingsbury, since he is listed in the tax returns for these years from Union township, which then included Kingsbury, and it is probable that he carried on his professional practice in this small town south of La Porte. In his History of La Porte County, Indiana, in his discussion of Union Mills, Jasper Packard states: “In 1852, Dr. Higley commenced the practice of medicine.” 28In 1853 Higley’s name was omitted from the tax returns, but in 1854 it appeared in the returns of Noble township, which included Union Mills, and regularly thereafter until as late as 1871. 29


In The Higleys and Their Ancestry, M. Coffin Johnson states:


Dr. Brewster Higley married, October, 1850, Maria B. Winchell, who bore one child, born September, 1851, a son, who died a few days old. His wife fell victim to a prevailing epidemic in May, 1852. August, 1853, Dr. Higley married Eleanor Page, who bore one son, Brewster Higley, 7th. His second wife died soon after the birth of this child. His third marriage was in 1857 to Catherine Livingston. From this marriage there were born two children – Estelle, born April 4, 1859, and Arthur Herman, born September 3, 1861, both living; but his wife met with an injury, of which she died, June 3, 1864. 30


A comparison of these statements with the marriage records existing at LaPorte reveals that Higley’s marriage to Maria Winchell took place in 1849, and not 1850, and his marriage to Catherine Livingston in 1858, and not 1857. 31 Two facts are notable in the above sketch – first, the frequency of death in Higley’s family, which is specifically mentioned four times, making it abundantly clear that his Indiana career was marked by personal tragedy. The second point of importance was the tendency for Higley quickly to remarry, after the death of his wife. As a matter of fact, his biographical sketch, probably inspired by himself, understated the case in this regard, since it failed to mention his fourth marriage to Mrs. Mercy Ann McPherson, a widow, which took place in February, 1866. 32

What can be said concerning Higley’s life at Union Mills, which lasted from 1852 until 1871, when he left for Kansas? Because of the absence of newspaper coverage, the La Porte papers of these early years containing very little local news of outlying communities, we are restricted to other very limited sources. The chief sources of information concerning Dr. Brewster Higley’s Indiana career are the statements of two people, both still living in 1951 – Mrs. Ralph H. Smith of route 2, La Porte, and Mrs. Margaret Carpenter of the Ruth C. Sabin Home, La Porte. Mrs. Smith is the daughter of the brother of Higley’s third wife, Catherine Livingston; she never saw the doctor, but remembers what her father told her. A copy of her signed statement follows:


[The copy I rec’d was missing the left side of page 11. BB]

Statement of Mrs. Ralph H. Smith, Route 2, La Porte,

Indiana, February 16, 1950.

"I was born in 1874, the daughter of James and Rosabelle English Livingston, and lived in New Durham township during the early years of my life, my maiden name being Viola Belle Livingston. I never saw Dr. Brewster Higley, but my father was the brother of his third wife, Catherine Livingston, and I can remember what he told me.


Aunt Kate might have recovered from her fatal illness, if she had ...ived the proper care. She was buried at Door Village beside her mother, ...er paying the expenses of her burial.


When Dr. Higley left La Porte county, I believe in 1872, his daughter ...la went to live with her mother's mother in Rockford, Illinois. She ...r married, and I lost track of her, although I still have her picture, ... girl. Higley's son Arthur stayed with father for a while, but he was ...ard, and never did get along well with Stella. He took a revolver from ...er, and said he was going to Rockford. However, he had wanted to go ... Kansas, and may have gone there.


Dr. Higley was considered a very fine doctor, and was a brilliant man, ... he let liquor get the better of him. He doctored mother's folks (Mrs. ... English), when they lived a few miles southwest of Union Mills, often ...ng horseback on his calls, and at times accepting vegetables in part ...ent. I can remember father saying that he did not know where Higley ... gone, after he left this vicinity. Although no one knew his whereabouts, Higley had often said he wanted to go to Kansas, then a new country, ... grow up with it. (Signed) Mrs. Ralph H. Smith


Mrs. Margaret (Maggie) Carpenter is of more advanced years than Mrs. …, but has enjoyed a remarkable memory of events connected with her … life, and so far as the present writer knows, is the only person …ng in 1951 who could remember Dr. Higley as a doctor of Union Mills. … signed statement follows, the original of which is also in the possession … he writer:


Statement of Mrs. Margaret Carpenter of the Ruth C. Sabin

Home, La Porte, Indiana, February 12, 1949


I was born in 1859, the daughter of Gideon and Clarisa Pratt Canfield, …nna Township, La Porte County, Indiana. I attended the Indian Point …ol in Noble Township with the children of Dr. Brewster Higley, named …r and Stella. The children of the neighborhood called Dr. Higley by … nickname of “Rooster.” I can not describe him in detail, but believe …s about 5 Ft. 7 in. tall. He was at times our family doctor, and people …ded him capable in his profession, although he was addicted to the use … liquor. While residing in Union Mills he lived in a small house with one … room and a very small bedroom, access to the latter being gained by … ing through a window. Later this building was occupied by Dr. Daniel …acker, and subsequently by my husband Leonard Carpenter and myself - … still standing in Union Mills, with several additions to the original …ture. 33


While still living in Union Mills, Dr. Higley’s wife Catherine Living… died, and he later married Mercy Ann McPherson. Her maiden name had … Goldsmith, and she had married Sam McPherson, who died, leaving a son …es. In later years Dr. Higley resided in a log house at Indian Point, now known as the Seller’s Four Corners. At the time of his marriage to Mrs. McPherson he was still practicing medicine in Union Mills, but after his removal to Indian Point his practice seems to have dwindled. In fact, I do not remember that I ever saw him driving a horse and buggy. Dr. Higley apparently did not get along well with his wife, and finally he sent his two children to relatives in Rockford, Ill., and he then left Indian Point for an unannounced destination. His wife died after residing many years in Union Mills, where she was known as Mrs. Higley. When I knew his family Dr. Higley was a very poor man – one winter they lived chiefly on corn meal. Until very recently I did not know that he went to Kansas and became the author of the song “Home on the Range.”34

 (Signed) Maggie Carpenter

Witness – Russell Hickman


The general similarity of these two statements is quite apparent. As is to be expected, Mrs. Smith can remember several details of a family nature not recalled by Mrs. Carpenter; her remark that her Aunt Kate might have recovered from her fatal illness, with the proper care, reflects upon Dr. Higley. Although a mere child when Higley lived at Union Mills, Mrs. Carpenter saw much of his daughter Stella, who was of the same age when the two attended school at Indian Point; subsequently she lived in the same house in Union Mills in which the doctor had resided. When Higley lived there, it was extremely inconvenient as a place of residence. Both testimonials point to the good reputation which Higley enjoyed, as a doctor. The fact that he eventually removed from Union Mills to the more remote location at Indian Point seems to indicate a dwindling of his professional practice (a deduction of the writer, from the statement of Mrs. Carpenter), since it appears very unlikely that he could have carried on an extensive practice at the latter place. Both statements indicate the poverty of the Higley family – in fact, this is the outstanding point in the memory of Mrs. Carpenter, who recalled that they were “as poor as Job’s turkey,” and existed one winter chiefly on corn meal. Both statements also point out that Higley was addicted to the use of liquor, and Mrs. Smith added that “he let liquor get the better of him.” Both are also in entire agreement that when Higley left Union Mills, no one in that locality seemed to know his whereabouts, although Mrs. Smith added that he had always wanted to go to Kansas. 35

In all probability Higley’s life at Union Mills was much influenced by local conditions. Noble township of La Porte county was first settled in the early eighteen thirties; in 1837 Dr. Sylvanus Everts began the construction of a grist mill, from which dates the town of Union Mills. This settlement prospered during the decade of the forties, and even more during the fifties of the last century, when many places of business opened their doors.36 In 1858, six years after Dr. Higley located there, Dr. Daniel Crumpacker began the practice of medicine at Union Mills. Although Crumpacker did not have a very good medical education, he worked up a large professional practice, which more likely than not competed with that of his predecessor, Brewster Higley. 37 In 1860 a third physician, Dr. Egbert, began the practice of medicine at Union Mills, and during the seventies, after Higley’s departure, three additional members of the medical profession located there. 38

Although severe competition probably contributed to Dr. Higley’s lack of financial success, it seems likely that adverse circumstances in his own family were of even more importance. Death struck with great frequency – the death of his wife Catherine Livingston in 1864 left Higley with two small children, Estelle and Arthur. 39 In February, 1866 Higley married Mercy Ann Goldsmith McPherson, a widow with one son. Although uncertainty remains regarding this marriage, it seems very probable that this was not a happy union. He was then still living in Union Mills, but not long thereafter Higley removed to a log house at nearby Indian Point, and passed through a period of poverty and privation. It seems probable that Higley and his fourth wife were incompatible, toward which his addiction to liquor may have been a large contributor. Poverty and misfortune may have induced him to leave for “parts unknown.” This is borne out by the statement of Mrs. Ralph Smith, which is based upon family traditions; as she suggests, Higley may have acted on a resolve of long standing, to leave for the West, but if so he was extremely careful when he left and long thereafter to keep his whereabouts entirely secret. Perhaps he wished to terminate all financial support to his estranged wife in Indiana. 40 In February, 1875 the La Porte Circuit Court granted Mrs. Mercy A. Higley a divorce by default from Dr. Brewster Higley, after three notices by publication in the Michigan City Enterprise. 41 This legal action apparently terminated Brewster Higley’s last connection with his earlier career in Indiana – only a few weeks thereafter, in Smith county, Kansas, he was married a fifth time.


Smith County, Kansas


Very little is known with certainty concerning Higley’s departure for the West, but it is highly probable that this took place in the spring of 1871. This is substantiated by the tax returns at La Porte, which as late as 1871 list Higley, but not thereafter. It also seems to agree with the local traditions of Smith county, Kansas, as reported by Margaret A. Nelson in her book Home on the Range. 42 In an entry dated July 3, 1871, at Gaylord in Smith county, the author introduces her readers to Dr. Higley as a man with a “polished voice and accent” who had staked a claim on West Beaver creek, and soon became popular with the settlers. According to this source Higley spent the winter of 1871-72 with Matt Gilman, who ran a lunch stand and kept lodgers at Gaylord. Higley was “quiet, retiring and often drank to excess” when he became “broody and melancholy,” but despite this “he was always a gentleman.” 43 For data on the later career of Higley, it is profitable to again turn to The Higley’s and Their Ancestry:


In the spring of 1871 Dr. Higley removed to Smith County, Kans., where he married, March 8, 1875, Sarah E. Clemans. To them four children were ….


[Missing page 16]


For some time Higley lived in a dugout of one room on his claim, and still resided there in 1873 when he wrote the song which later became famous. In 1875 when he married Sarah E. Clemans, he removed to a log cabin on the banks of the Beaver, which still stands, and often is incorrectly termed the original “Home on the Range.” 48 Before his last marriage he seems to have lived a lonely life, but thereafter he appears to have achieved greater happiness. 49 In 1886 he removed to Arkansas, and in 1892 to Oklahoma. In 1911 Higley died at Shawnee, Oklahoma, at a ripe old age. 50


The Song “Home on the Range”


The favorite hobby of Dr. Brewster Higley apparently was the writing of poems and songs, from which he entertained no hope of private gain, beyond that of personal enjoyment. In his Corn Country Homer Croy states that Higley wrote a poem of some length which he dedicated to Dryden, the English poet, and at least three songs, exclusive of “Home on the Range.” These were entitled “Katydid’s Secret,” “Army Blue,” and “A Dream in Which I Saw My Mother.” The second of these, “Army Blue,” he is said to have written at the close of the Civil War; it was reputed to have been sung frequently at political rallies, and Higley believed it his finest song. 51 If this is correct, the song was written while the doctor resided at Union Mills, Indiana, but the present writer could find no reference to it in the records at La Porte. 52 He did find, however, that a song entitled “Army Blue” was a refrain of the graduates at West Point, who in 1865 sang “in a new form, a song that was already old at West Point . . .” 53 - this casts doubt on the claim that Brewster Higley could have been its author.

In 1873, after Higley had resided some two years in Kansas, he wrote the song “Home on the Range.” Perhaps no more concise statement of its authorship has been made than that by Samuel Moanfeldt, the New York lawyer who in 1935 made a most careful study of the origin of the song, in the interest of the National Broadcasting Company and other individuals and corporations, the defendants in a suit for damages of half a million dollars for alleged infringement of copyright. 54 The investigation of Moanfeldt took him all over the country, and finally to Smith Center, Kansas, where he interviewed many of the pioneers and early settlers, and among them a Mr. Reese:


A Mr. Reese who now resides at Smith Center and who is one f the oldest pioneers in the section stated that he came to Smith Center in 1872, about one month before the town of Smith Center was established, that he came in contact with Dr. Bruce Higley, who had a homestead about twenty miles away on the banks of the Beaver, near the Solomon River, in June 1872, and that the occasion of their meeting was an indignation meeting against the Indians, and that he met the Doctor frequently between 1872 and 1873. That some time in 1873, his friend, John Champlin was accidentally shot in the foot and that he called on Dr. Higley, who treated him and that thereafter Dr. Higley called several times a week at their Doby or Dugout to treat the patient, and that he remembers distinctly on one of these occasions Dr. Higley, while treating the patient asked him to read a poem he had written. It was on a foolscap sheet of paper and the Doctor stated that he had written it to while away his lonesome hours spent in his log cabin. That this was “Home on the Range” as it is now known, and that they all insisted that the Doctor get somebody to write the tune. That thereafter Dan Kelley supplied the tune and the Harlan Bros. Orchestra played it on every occasion, settlers meetings, weddings, and all other celebrations and that he has heard it played and sung ever since. That he recognized the tune immediately, when it started to become popular on the radio. 55



[Missing page 19]

Western Home

-----

By Dr. Higley

-----


Oh! Give me a home where the Buffalo roam,

Where the Deer and the Antelope play;

Where never is heard a discouraging word,

And the sky is not clouded all day.

(Chorus) A home! A home!

Where the Deer and the Antelope play,

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

And the sky is not clouded all day.


Oh! Give me land where the bright diamond sand,

Throws its light from the glittering streams,

Where glideth along the graceful white swan,

Like the maid in her heavenly dreams.

(Chorus) A home! A home!


Oh! Give me a gale of the Solomon vale,

Where the life streams with buoyancy flow;

Or the banks of the Beaver, where seldom if ever,

Any poisonous herbage doth grow.

(Chorus) A home! A home!


How often at night, when the heavens were bright,

With the light of the twinkling stars,

Have I stood here amazed, and asked as I gazed,

If their glory exceed that of ours.

(Chorus) A home! A home!


I love the wild flowers in the bright land of ours,

I love the wild curlew’s shrill scream;

The bluffs and white rocks, and antelope flocks,

That graze on the mountains so green.

(Chorus) A home! A home!


The air is so pure and the breezes so free,

The zephyrs so balmy and light,

That I would not exchange my home here to range,

Forever in azures so bright.

(Chorus) A home! A home! 59


The song seems to reflect the attitude of hope which characterized the life of its author, as contrasted to the darker circumstances of his earlier career in Indiana – in fact, the present writer does not believe the song would ever have been written, if Higley’s life had not been one of sharp contrasts. 60 On occasions without number in American history, men who had experienced misfortune and frustration looked to the West as a land of hope, which gave a promise of better days. In 1873 when Higley wrote this song, he was living in a dugout – certainly more indicative of poverty than earthly riches, but like other pioneers, he had plans for a more comfortable home and a better life, which did come later. He was then still united in marriage to a woman in Indiana whom he seems to have wanted to forget. In his far away dugout in Kansas, he may have regarded himself free of all the undesirable obligations of his previous life in Indiana, and hence, even more than most pioneers, he could sing of the glories of a western home. The words of the chorus “Where seldom is heard a discouraging word” – (in some versions “Where never is heard a discouraging word”) may have been inspired by Higley’s freedom from domestic discord, which possibly he achieved by his removal from Indiana to Kansas. The line “And the sky is not clouded all day” very probably referred to the sunshine of Kansas, which was a welcome contrast to the clouds of Indiana, and a most fitting accompaniment to his new life in the West. 61

As is to be expected most of the song was written to describe the glories of a home in the West, and was composed with considerable skill. In thus narrating the joys of life in a new land, Higley expressed in eloquent terms the spirit of the frontier, where men endured suffering and privation in the hope of a better future. Like most things on the border, the song should be interpreted, not as a description of material riches already amassed, but as an exultation of spirit, an expression of hope for better days ahead. Despite all the rawness, crudity, and immaturity of life in the West, a faith that they were founding a better world was common among the pioneers on the border. This is at the heart of “Home on the Range,” a song which one writer asserts “had the spirit of the early settlers better than any other song I had ever heard.” 62 This same feeling was well expressed in the lay of the western emigrants which the Kansas editor published along with “Home on the Range,” with the slogan for that issue of his paper of “Westward the March of Empire Takes its Way:”


I hear the tread of pioneers

Of nations yet to be,

The first low wash of waves where soon

Shall roll a human sea.


Behind the scared squaw’s birch canoe,

The steamer smokes and raves;

And city lots are staked for sale

Above old Indian graves.


The rudiments of Empire here,

Are plastic yet and warm;

The chaos of a might world

Is rounding into form. 63

. . . .


The complete story of “Home on the Range” is beyond the scope of this article. During the 80’s and 90’s this refrain, as a folksong with various titles, was quite well known throughout the Southwest, this wide distribution being due in part to the popularity of the ballad with the roving cowboy. 64 It has been pointed out that at some time a most important minor change was made by someone in the wording of the refrain, which altered it from a local song to one applicable to the entire range country of the West, gave it the present title, and no doubt had much to do with its widespread popularity. 65 This change involved the final lines of the concluding stanza, which originally read as follows:

That I would not exchange my home here to range

Forever in azures so bright.


In the Lomax version this became:


That I would not exchange my home on the range

For all of the cities so bright. 66


The song was published in newspapers and cheap songbooks, one version of which was copyrighted as early as 1905. 67 In 1907 it appeared in John R. Cook’s The Border and the Buffalo, and in 1909 it was published in the Journal of American Folklore. 68 Probably the most important early publication of the song, however, was by John A. Lomax in his Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, the first edition of which appeared in 1910. It was this version which was later adopted by many publications, and was the one sung during the period of its greatest popularity – the “era” of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 69The refrain which had “helped to dispel the gloom of the ‘Grasshopper Days’ ” in Kansas, and had brought renewed hope to the hard pressed pioneer throughout the West, was a most appropriate song for the Great Depression and the era of the New Deal.


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  1. The most popular song of the service men in this war, however, was entitled “Madamoiselle from Armentieres.” In the excellent work Folk Songs U.S.A. by John A. and Alan Lomax (New York, 1947), the authors point out that World War II had no outstanding melody similar to the above, although the one most popular among service men was “Gee, But I Want to Go Home.”

  2. Carl L. Biemiller, “The Land Sings its History,” The Country Gentleman, July, 1948 – an interesting review of a manuscript by Duncan Emrich, to be published with the title of The American Ballad Book. Emrich is the curator of the Archive of American Folk Song Library of Congress, which then included some 9,000 records and 40,000 songs, and is the “richest single source of the oral culture of the United States.”

  3. Margaret B. Boni (Editor) Fireside Book of Folksongs (New York, 1947), p. 131.

  4. John A. Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (New York, 1936) – a reprint of the original published in 1910. A lover a [of?] freedom, the cowboy was a pioneer by instinct, and his songs breathe the free life of the West, with its closeness to nature.

  5. Opal Wheeler, Sing for America (New York, 1944), p. 103. See also chapter 20 of Homer Croy’s Corn Country (New York, 1947), entitled “The Amazing Story of ‘Home on the Range,’ “ which includes a fine discussion of the origin of the song, based on careful research.

  6. Kirke Mechem, “Home on the Range,” The Kansas Historical Quarterly, November, 1949, pp. 313 – 339. At the request of Mechem the present writer gathered the material concerning Higley’s early career in Indiana, which he used in his article. Mechem later permitted the writer to use this data in the present article, which is indebted to the original study.

  7. M. Coffin Johnson, The Higleys and Their Ancestry (New York, 1908), pp. 269, 270. As will be explained below, Higley did not practice his profession in La Porte, but in the nearby towns of Kingsbury and Union Mills, particularly the latter.

  8. The late James E. Sanderson to the writer, dated Union Mills, Ind., April 11, 1949, and March 31, 1950. A notable monument in the family cemetery is made of a mulberry tree, with a marble plaque stating that in pioneer days Naomi Higley brought a lunch for her husband and sons, and hitched her horse to this tree.

  9. [Mrs. Rumsley] “La Porte Indiana – History of First Hundred Years,” A typed manuscript in the La Porte Public Library, Part III, pp. 1064, 1065; Jasper Packard, History of La Porte County, Indiana (La Porte, 1876), pp. 148, 149. While in the state legislature Sylvanus Everts is said to have had an important part in drafting the first law for a system of common schools in Indiana. During the season of “chills and fever” he was often forced to ride night and day on professional calls, and sleep in his buggy as he rode. He died in Valpraiso in 1878.

  10. In the Monthly Bulletin of the Indiana State Board of Health for October, 1950, in chapter XXII of his series entitled “One Hundred Years of Medicine: Indianapolis, 1820 – 1920,” Dr. Thurman B. Rice reviewed medical education in early Indianapolis, and included a discussion of the Indiana Medical College at La Porte, with photos of the medical building and faculty (pp. 240 – 242). He pointed out that the requirements for graduation were as follows:

  1. The candidate must be twenty-one years of age.

  2. He must be of good moral character.

  3. He must spend three years in the study of medicine, and must have attended two full courses of lectures, the last of which must have been given at the La Porte University School of Medicine.

  4. He was required to write a dissertation on some topic connected with medicine.

  1. Dr. Murray N. Hadley, “Medical Educational Institutions in Indiana,” Indiana Magazine of History, December, 1931, p. 308; L. G. Zerfas, ……, “Medical Education in Indiana as Influenced by Early Graduates in Medicine from Transylvania University,” ibid., June, 1934, p. 139.

  2. Rev. E. D. Daniels, A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of La Porte County, Indiana (Chicago, New York, 1904), pp. 330 – 332. H. H. Martin, M.D., “Early American Medical Schools – The La Porte University School of Medicine and the Indiana Medical College,” Surgery, Gynocology and Obstetrics, November, 1932, pp. 673-675 (henceforth cited “Early American Medical Schools”).

  3. T. Higday, M.D., La Porte, Ind., “The Indiana Medical College, La Porte, From 1842 to 1850, “Transactions of Indiana Medical Society” 1874, pp. 24 – 26. However, Dr. Martin stated in his article, cited above (p. 673): “To Mr. Niles must be given credit for having had the inspiration, the foresight, education, and determination to found this institution. During the years of its existence it is known he gave more than one-third of his time to its welfare.”

  4. These enrollment figures are quoted from the article by Dr. Higday in the Transactions of the Indiana State Medical Society, 1874 (pp. 24, 25) and do not entirely agree with those given by Dr. Martin in “Early American Medical Schools.” This disparity may be due to a failure to properly distinguish between temporary and permanent enrollments. Early day populations were noted for their “footloose” nature, and pioneer students seem to have been of like habits.

  5. Martin, op. cit., p. 674. The building contained two large lecture rooms in ampitheatre form, a dissecting room in circular form, two large rooms for museums, and private rooms for the professors. In January, 1856, some five years after the College had ceased to actively function, the structure was destroyed by fire, with all of the records of the institution. On September 24, 1937 the La Porte Daily Herald Argus published an interesting article on the College by the late Edith J. Backus of the La Porte County Historical Society.

  6. Higday, op. cit., p. 26.

  7. La Porte County Whig, February 9, 1850, entitled “Cliniques of the Indiana Medical College.” The most important operation of that season was the removal of a portion of the lower jaw of a man about forty years of age with the use of chloroform, by Prof. Shipman, assisted by Professors Meeker, Allen, and Higday. For other notable cases of surgery, see Dr. Martin’s article, p. 675.

  8. Higday, op.cit., p. 26 It has been charged that bodies were “snatched” for purposes of dissection. In 1849 Franklin Medical College at St. Charles, Ill. Was forced to close its doors because of a dispute over a grave robbing incident, which led to the injury of one of the professors by an armed mob, and the fatal wounding of a student.

Several members of the faculty at La Porte later had notable careers in medical education. For biographical sketches, along with a very good account of the Indiana Medical College, see George H. Weaver, Beginnings of Medical Education in and Near Chicago, pp. 9 – 12, a reprint from The Proceedings of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago, 1925, volume 5.

  1. Higday, op. cit., p. 25. A final session was held in 1849-50, with 65 matriculates and 24 graduates, the decreased enrollment reflecting the growing popularity of such institutions as Rush Memorial College in Chicago and the University of Michigan. A spring course was also held that year at La Fayette, concerning which Higday remarked (p. 26): “The spring course was given at La Fayette, at the instance of Dr. Deming, whose object was to arouse sufficient interest there to enable him to erect a suitable building, and then have the college transferred from Laporte to Lafayette. Failing in this, he gave two courses in the Medical College at Indianapolis.” The La Porte County Whig of May 21, 1851 quoted the Indianapolis Journal as follows: “The Indiana Central Medical College in this city, have been consolidated, and when acting in conjunction will form one of the best medical institutions in the country.” The Indiana Central Medical College at Indianapolis was a branch of the Indiana Asbury University of Greencastle, now Depauw University. Dr. Martin concluded (op. cit., p. 674) that the discontinuance of the La Porte college “was due to discord and the development of factions among the faculty.”

  2. Elizabeth M. Wishard, William Henry Wishard, A Doctor of the Old School (Indianapolis, 1920), pp. 63, 64. Wishard became prominent in the Indianapolis area, and was elected president of the Indiana Medical Society.

  3. With the exception of Moses Baker, those listed above did not graduate with Wishard and Brewster Higley. Among the graduates a year later (February 14, 1850) was William W. Mayo, the father of the famed Mayo brothers of Rochester, Minnesota.

  4. Ibid., pp. 63, 64.

  5. Ibid., p. 67

  6. Ibid., p. 69

  7. La Porte County Whig, February 24, 1849. The same issue of this paper has an account of an “Excision of the Lower Jaw” at the College, and of the lecture that followed.

The Museum of the La Porte County Historical Society has a photographic copy of Wishard’s diploma, entirely in Latin, signed by the College faculty as follows:

Solon W. Manney, A.M., President (rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, La Porte).

Elizur Deming, M.D., Professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine.

Daniel Meeker, M.D., Professor of General, Special and Surgical Anatomy

John B. Niles, A.M., Professor of Chemistry

Azariah B. Shipman, M.D., Professor of the Principles and Practice of Surgery.

Nicholas Hard, M.D., Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children.

J. Adams Allen, A.M., M.D., Professor of Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Medical Jurisprudence.

T. Higday, M.D., Professor of Physiology and General Pathology.

26. Ibid. The valedictory address for the session was delivered by Prof. Meeker, and “was full of valuable instruction and advice . . . “ The school was “in a prosperous condition,” and in “better repute” than ever before.

27. In The Higleys and Their Ancestry, M. Coffin Johnson states (p. 269): “He practiced his profession in La Porte twenty-six years.”

28. Packard, History of La Porte County, Indiana, p. 151.

29. This method of tracing the whereabouts of a person, when other records seem to be absent, the writer found most useful, given certain probabilities with which to start. He is much indebted to Mrs. Maude B. Loetz, Curator of the Museum of the La Porte County Historical Society.

30. The Higleys and Their Ancestry, p. 269.

31. Marriage Records of La Porte County, Indiana, “Book B,” p. 179, and “Book D,” p. 306. Since there is no similar entry or Higley’s marriage to Eleanor Page, this probably took place elsewhere.

32. Marriage Records, “Book F,” p. 62. In 1875, after Higley had gone to Kansas, he married a fifth time.

33. The house in Union Mills in which Higley lived, with later additions, …..w the residence of William Henderson.

34. The statements of Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Carpenter are the fruit of personal interviews and telephone conversations by the writer, which built up a fund of information. As far as possible they represent a synthesis of the data thus acquired, preserving the ideas and even the words of the witnesses. A few conclusions had to be deduced by the writer, particularly in the statement of Mrs. Carpenter, which is based on the recollections of her childhood years.

Mrs. Margaret Carpenter married Leonard Carpenter, a veteran of the Civil War who died in Union Mills in 1924. A devout Christian, she is an active member of the First Baptist Church of La Porte; she has also been a very active member of the Woman’s Relief Corps, and each Thursday ….. cuts and sews carpet rags for the corps at the court house in La Porte. On the occasion of her ninetieth birthday anniversary (June 2, 1949), the La Porte Herald Argus published a photograph and biographical sketch.

  1. Mrs. Carpenter remembered talking to other residents of Union Mills, who also had no idea as to the doctor’s whereabouts, after he left. As a child, she remembered seeing Higley give first aid to another child. The clarity of her memory was revealed by the fact that she recalled the campaign of the “railsplitter” Abraham Lincoln in 1864, when she was only five years old. For being directed to Mrs. Carpenter, the writer is indebted to Mrs. Maude B. Loetz, Curator of the La Porte County Museum.

  2. Packard, History of La Porte County, Indiana, p. 146 et seq. The coming of the railroads during the seventies brought a pronounced boom to Union Mills and its near neighbor, Wellsboro, but the census of 1880 placed the population of the former at only 238.

  3. Chas. C. Chapman & Co., author and publisher, History of La Porte County, Indiana (Chicago, 1880), pp. 814, 815. “His educational advantages were ordinary; he attended medical college at La Porte, but never graduated on account of a little difficulty with a professor. He was afterwards graduated by the U. S. service, in which he was a 1st Sergeant, in the army . . .” He lived for a time in the house formerly occupied by Dr. Higley.

  4. Packard, op. cit., p. 151. In 1876 there seem to have been five physicians in this town of some two hundred population.

  5. The Higley’s and Their Ancestry, p. 269. Concerning this and succeeding statements, see also the statement of Mrs. Carpenter.

  6. James E. Sanderson of Union Mills, a grandson of Brewster Higley’s sister Zeruah Higley, wrote April 11, 1949: “As a child I remember Mercy Ann (a fine old lady). Why they parted I do not know or why he left and went to Kansas.” In his Corn Country Homer Croy did a careful work of research, and interviewed Higley’s grandson, who followed the trade of plastering at Shawnee, Oklahoma. “The biggest surprise of all was when I found he had come to Kansas and had homesteaded a claim . . . to escape a wife back in Indiana.”

  7. “Civil Order Book” of La Porte Circuit Court, v. “S”, pp. 343, 402 –“Mercy A. Higley vs. Brewster Higley.” The defendant was “three times called and comes not but herein makes default.” In consequence “the Court finds for the Plaintiff, that all of the material allegations in her said complaint are true as therein set forth and that a decree of Divorce ought to be granted to her.” The divorce became effective February 9, 1875. Mrs. Higley continued to live in Union Mills, and according to the records of Bethel Presbyterian Church of that place, of which she became a member, she died November 27, 1897. The present writer failed to unearth any evidence pointing to the conclusion that she was of a termagant disposition.

  8. Margaret A. Nelson, Home on the Range (Boston, 1947), p. 46. This ….. is written in the style of fiction, and contains undoubted errors, but seems to have a basis of fact concerning Higley’s life in the Solomon valley of Kansas. The author knew very little about Higley’s earlier career in Indiana.

  9. Ibid., p. 60. Mrs. Nelson states that Higley and his friend Dan Kelly spent many evenings together playing their violins.

  10. [Missing page 16]

45.

46.

47.

48. Kirke Mechem, “Home on the Range,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, November, 1949, p. 324.

49. Ibid., pp. 321, 324. He subsequently sent for his two children by his third wife, Estelle and Arthur, and moved to a house north of Smith Center. In her book Mrs. Nelson states that Stella taught school several winters.

50. Croy, op. cit., p. 175. Mechem points out that the death certificate of Higley included a statement by the attending physician that the contributing cause was “grief over the death of his wife,” so it seems probable to assume that his last marriage was a happy one.

51. Corn Country, pp. 174, 175.

52. On October 10, 1868 the Union and Herald of La Porte described a parade for Grant and Colfax which was three miles in length. The second largest delegation was that of Noble township (Union Mills), headed by the La Porte band. The Tanners were singers on this occasion, but nothing is …… as to what they sang.

53. Frank Luther, Americans and Their Songs (N.Y., London, 1942), p. 190.

54. For details of this suit the reader is referred to the article by Kirke Mechem in the Kansas Historical Quarterly (p. 314 et seq.), which includes at its close the entire report of Moanfeldt (pp. 332 – 339), concerning his extensive researches.

55. Ibid., pp. 336, 337. On December 17, 1949 James E. Sanderson of Union Mills informed the present writer that in the preceding September he visited Mr. Reese at Smith Center, Kansas. “He is now 99 years of age, blind and was bedfast account of a broken hip but his mind was clear and memory OK. He told me Dr. Higley was a wonderful man and everyone was his (Dr. Higley’s) friend.”

[Page 19 missing]

56.

57.

58.

59. First page of the Kirwin Chief of Kirwin, Kansas, February 26, 1876, a photostatic copy of which is reproduced in the Kansas Historical Quarterly of November, 1949, following p. 328, with a more detailed study of the song than can be entered into here.

In 1873 when Higley wrote the song, Kansas was still the home of the buffalo. The Wichita Eagle of August 7, 1873 contained an article from the Hutchinson News which described a buffalo stampede in the southwestern part of the state.

  1. Some might argue that the failure and insecurity of his life in Indiana led to a form of “creative instability,” which under different circumstances in Kansas, induced the author to write his song.

  2. This observation is very common among people who remove from the moist and cloudy climate of states farther east to the more dry and settled weather of Kansas or the West. The present writer is very familiar with the literature of early Kansas, and knows that this was a frequent observation; having lived for some years in Kansas, and more in Indiana, he also recognizes its validity as a matter of personal experience.

  3. Croy, Corn Country, p. 164. In his Americans and Their Songs, Frank Luther says of “Home on the Range” (p. 211): “But of all the songs of the West, the one with the most enduring popularity was a simple, sweet little ballad of home.”

  4. Kirwin Chief, Feb. 26, 1876, a special issue advertising Phillips county, Kansas.

  5. Vance Randolph (Ed.), Ozark Folksongs, v. 2, p. 210 et seq. This is a very good review of the history of the song, along with several versions of the text.

  6. Mechem, op. cit., p. 329

  7. John A. Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, pp. 39 – 43. The reader should not fail to consult the very interesting work by John A. and Alan Lomax, entitled Folk Song: U.S.A. This book by the “whole Lomax family” includes historical accounts as well as the words and music of the “111 Best American Ballads”. The song “Home on the Range” is here reviewed (pp. 196-198, pp. 212-213), with the account of the elder Lomax (John A.) of how he first heard the song, as sung by a negro singer of San Antonio, Texas. Lomax concluded: “Time has dealt kindly with this crude poem. The folk have rubbed off its rough edges and improved the poesy.”

  8. Ozark Folksongs, v. 2, p. 212. This copyright for “Arizona Home,” issued to William and Mary Goodwin of Tempe, Arizona, in 1934 led to the suit for damages which brought about the Moanfeldt investigation.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Dr. Brewster Higley died in 1911, before his song reached its greatest fame, but it is doubtful that he knew of or concerned himself with its later publications. In 1933 the song, a favorite of F. D. Roosevelt, became extremely popular on the radio, one of its leading singers then being Gene Autry. In 1947 the Kansas legislature adopted the refrain as the official song of that state, but even there some people seemed to prefer Frank Sinatra’s “I was born in Kansas.” By the late nineteen forties the popularity of “Home on the Range” had sharply declined, although its fame as a great American folksong had been firmly established.