Mount Vernon: Where Dixie Was Written

Mount Vernon, Ohio, was laid out in eighteen oh five and named for George Washington's Virginia estate. It grew into a prosperous small city in Knox County, close enough to Kenyon College to share in that institution's educational culture. Its most complicated contribution to American history arrived in the form of Daniel Decatur Emmett, born here on October twenty-ninth, eighteen fifteen.

Emmett wrote the minstrel song Dixie in eighteen fifty-nine, first performing it in New York. The Confederacy took it up as an unofficial anthem during the Civil War. Emmett, a Northerner and Union supporter, reportedly regretted writing it for the rest of his life.

A marker in Mount Vernon notes his birthplace. The city also sits in the heart of Knox County apple country.