“Mine Is the Mourning Heart” was entered for copyright on January 17, 1861, and deposited on February 1, 1861, by Daughaday & Hammond of Philadelphia. 

On February 1, 1861, Daughaday & Hammond deposited a caption title for the song cut from a January 17, 1861, issue of Clark’s School Visitor, however no copy is known to survive. Like other songs that first appeared in Clark’s, “Mine Is the Mourning Heart” was later published in sheet music form, in this case by Root & Cady in May, 1863.

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

The Rev. Alexander Clark, editor of Clark’s School Visitor, lately had secured several songs from Stephen for his monthly magazine. One of these, “Mine is the Mourning Heart,” is an easy and tuneful duet; Stephen taught this song to little ten-year-old Annie Mahon—Annie took the soprano and Stephen the tenor part. She afterward married W. J. Gross, of Langrishe’s [Stock] Company; she died in Mexico in 1875. The words of Stephen’s duet may be of some significance, and then again, they may mean nothing at all as far as the composer was concerned.