The Kinkaiders
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 04/09/2020

Day 170 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series

Sandburg writes: "These verses, from the Edwin Ford Piper collection of pioneer songs at the University of Iowa go to a melody based on Maryland, My Maryland, which in turn is based on the German song, O Tannenbaum, which in turn derived from an old Italian melody, Vittoria. The phrase "out of sight" in the late 1880's was slang indicating excellence or superfine quality. Homesteaders in the Nebraska sand hills sang this at old settlers’ picnics, at reunions, and political gatherings."

Song collector Louise Pound, American Ballads and Songs (1922) reports, "Moses P. Kinkaid was congressman of the sixth congressional distict [of Nebraska], 1903-1919. He was the introducer of a bill for 640-acre homesteads known as the 'Kinkaid Homestead Law.'" Also known as the "Kinkaid Home Act," and passed in 1904, the Act applied originally only to unsettled areas of Nebraska, and granted the land in return for five years residence and $800 in improvement. It was extended in 1909. Given that the song was collected while Kincaid (the correct spelling, according to Norm Cohen, American Folk Songs: A Regional Encyclopedia) was still in office, one wonders if this might not be a campaign song. (Robert B. Waltz in the Traditional Ballad Index.)