“Willie We Have Missed You” was presented for copyright deposit on March 4, 1854, by Firth, Pond & Co. A guitar arrangement of the song was submitted for copyright deposit on September 20, 1854, also by Firth, Pond & Co.

According to Evelyn Foster Morneweck’s The Chronicles of Stephen Foster’s Family:

“Willie, We Have Missed You,” was published in March, 1854. This song, my father told me, was inspired by the memory of one of Stephen’s own homecomings. Morrison describes this incident in his biography of Stephen C. Foster: He went to housekeeping and liked New York very much. But after a year the old fondness for home and mother began to be too strong for him to overcome. One day, he suddenly proposed to his wife that they return to Pittsburgh. He brought a dealer to the house, sold out everything in the way of furniture, and within twenty-four hours was on the road to the home of his father in Allegheny. He arrived late at night and was not expected. When he rang the bell his mother was awakened and knew his footsteps on the porch. She rose immediately and went down herself to let him in. As she passed through the hall she called out, “Is that my dear son come back again?” Her voice so affected him that when she opened the door she found him sitting on the little porch-bench weeping like a child.