It occurred on 4 July 1843 at the Beacon Course racetrack in Hoboken, New Jersey, when she was more than ten years old.
[2][3][4] One author attributed the song to Stephen Foster, although the composer is usually listed as unknown.
[2] The archival evidence, however, is that the song originated a few decades later in the nineteenth century as a campaign ditty, composed as an epithet of seven-term Baltimore mayor Ferdinand Latrobe by Democratic political operative and appointee Thomas Francis McNulty.
[5] Popular early recordings were by Prince's Orchestra (1917) and by Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan (1918).
[6] Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album On the Sentimental Side (1962).