There is no record of copyright entry or depost for “Our Darling Kate.” The copyright claim on the bottom of the first page is for 1865. The song was published in the March 1865 issue of Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly.

They lyrics and melody of “Our Darling Kate” were written by John Mahon, a friend of Stephen Foster. Foster arranged the piano accompaniment.

“Over the River” was published in The Athenaeum Collection of Hymns and Tunes for Church and Sunday School, which was submitted for copyright deposit on December 9, 1863, by Horace Waters. The author of the lyrics is identified as H. C.

Firth, Pond & Co. deposited Stephen C. Foster’s “Poor Drooping Maiden” for copyright on February 9, 1860. 

According to Evelyn Foster Morneweck’s The Chronicles of Stephen Foster’s Family: “Before leaving for New York, he sent to Firth, Pond in 1860, ‘Poor Drooping Maiden,’ ‘None Shall Weep a Tear for Me,’ ‘The Wife; or He’ll Come Home,’ ‘Under the Willow She’s Sleeping,’ probably ‘Cora Dean,’ and one good song, ‘The Glendy Burk,’ composed in his best old-time manner.”

First published by Firth, Pond & Co., Stephen C. Foster’s “Sadly to Mine Heart Appealing” was deposited for copyright on December 28, 1858. The text of the song is Eliza Sheridan Cary’s “On Hearing an Old Scottish Melody,” which had been published in Littell’s Living Age in October of 1844.

The holograph manuscript of the score is missing piano music at the beginning and end of the song. Foster must have made this score prior to writing to his brother Morrison Foster on October 22, 1858, for he wrote: