“I Would Not Die in Spring Time” was entered for copyright deposit on October 15, 1850, by F. D. Benteen of Baltimore. It was originally published under the pseudonym Milton Moore, but there is no doubt that the song was composed by Foster. He recorded royalties for the song in his account book, and his brother Morrison notated in the margin of “Old Folks at Home Variations” that Milton Moore was Foster’s nom de plume. Foster later arranged it for vocal quartet, but it was never published and exists only as a manuscript, which was obtained by the collection in 1932 by Margaret Daschbach, whose family had held it for fifty years.

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

On October 15, 1850, F. D. Benteen copyrighted a song of Stephen’s, “I Would Not Die in Spring Time,” under the pen name, Milton Moore, that Stephen occasionally assumed. This gave Stephen an opportunity almost a year later to produce under his real name “An Answer to the New and Beautiful Song, I Would Not Die in Spring Time,” entitled “I Would Not Die in Summer Time.” This was copyrighted by Benteen on July 12, 1851. Another reply to “I Would Not Die in Spring Time” was copyrighted by Lee & Walker, on June 17, 1851, with “Words by Wm. H. Cunnington, Music by J. H. Milton” (which sounds faintly familiar), called “I Would Not Die in Winter.” This comedy of reluctance at passing away ended the following January when John H. Hewitt composed a parody on the trio and called it “I Would Not Die at All”!