ADAIR COUNTY NEWS

The following poem first appeared in the New York Sun and was written in response to the author receiving an invitation to the Great Kentucky Homecoming of 1906. The obituary of the author, Will J. Lampton, noted that he was a native of Ohio but that his parents were Kentuckians born and bred. The obituary farther stated, "It was said that Colonel Lampton was a cousin of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) on his mothers side, it being understood that Clemen's mother and Colonel Lampton's grandmother were first or second cousins." Were this the case, "Colonel" Lampton (Gov. Willson of Kentucky had bestowed upon Lampton the honorary titles of Colonel and aide de camp) had Adair County connections, since Twain's mother, Jane Lampton Clemens, was an Adair County native. Adair County News, May 9, 1909 We Are Coming, Old Kentucky News Note--There are 600,000 Kentuckians living all over that part of the world outside the State, and they are to have a Home-coming week at Louisville in June, to which all are invited. They are singing this song: We are coming, Old Kentucky,     Six hundred thousand more, From Mississippi's winding stream     And far new England's shore; We leave our farms and offices     The outside things we like, With hearts too full for utterance,     And homeward all we hike. We don't leave much behind us     Compared to what's before-- We are coming, Old Kentucky,     Six hundred thousand more. If you look across the hilltops     That meet the distant sky, Long moving lines of rising dust     You'll pretty soon descry: And now the wind, an instant,     Tears the cloudy veil aside, And you see your children coming,     Them a-walking as can't ride. We yearn to roll in bluegrass,     The golden corn juice pour-- We're coming, old Kentucky,     Six hundred thousand more. You have asked us, and we're coming,     All the young ones and the old, All the men and all the women,     Who are now outside the fold; We are hungry for the welcome     That we know is waiting there; We are thirsting for the "How d'you"     That we know will fill the air. We have waited long, and waiting      Makes us hone to see you, "shore"-- We are coming, Old Kentucky,       Six hundred thousand more. -- W.J. Lampton