James Hilary Mulligan, the author of _In Kentucky_, was born at
Lexington, Kentucky, November 21, 1844. He was graduated at St. Mary's
College, Montreal, Canada, in 1864; and five years later Kentucky
(Transylvania) University granted him his degree in law. For forty years
Judge Mulligan has been known in Kentucky as a lawyer, orator, and maker
of clever, humorous verse. He was editor of the old Lexington _Morning
Transcript_ for a year; and for six years he was judge of the Recorder's
Court of Lexington, from which work he won his title of "judge." From
1881 to 1888 Judge Mulligan was a member of the Kentucky House of
Representatives; and from 1890 to 1894 he was in the State Senate. In
1894 President Cleveland appointed Judge Mulligan Consul-General at
Samoa, and this post he held for two years. While in Samoa he saw much
of Robert Louis Stevenson, who was working upon _Weir of Hermiston_, and
well upon his way to the undiscovered country when the Kentucky diplomat
met him. When Stevenson died, December 4, 1894, the first authoritative
news of his passing came in a now rare and precious little booklet of
thirty-seven pages which Lloyd Osbourne, Judge Mulligan, Bazett Haggard,
brother of the English novelist, and another writer, sent out to the
world, entitled _A Letter to Mr. Stevenson's Friends_ (Apia, Samoa,
1894). It contained a detailed account of the writer's last days, his
death, and funeral. Mr. Osbourne "ventured also to reprint Mr. Gosse's
beautiful lines, _To Tusitala in Vailima_, which reached Mr. Stevenson
but three days before his death." President Cleveland offered to send
Judge Mulligan to Cape Town, Africa, but he declined the appointment,
and came home. For the past fifteen years he has devoted his attention
to the law and to the writing of verse and prose. His _Samoa, the
Government, Commerce, and People_ (Washington, 1896), is said to be the
most exhaustive account of that island ever published. Judge Mulligan's
little humorous poem, _In Kentucky_, has made him famous. First read at
a banquet in the old Phoenix Hotel, Lexington, in 1902, it has been
declaimed in the halls of Congress and gotten into the _Congressional
Record_. It has been parodied a thousand times, reproduced in almost
every newspaper in English, illustrated, and at least one Kentuckian has
heard it chanted by an Englishman in the shadow of the Pyramids in
Egypt! More than a million souvenir postal cards have been sold with the
verses printed upon them; and had the author had _In Kentucky_
copyrighted, he would have reaped a harvest of golden coins. As poetry
Judge Mulligan's _Over the Hills to Hustonville_, or _The Bells of Old
St. Joseph's_, are superior to _In Kentucky_, but they are both
comparatively unknown to the general public. Judge Mulligan's home,
"Maxwell Place," on the outskirts of Lexington, was the birthplace of
_In Kentucky_.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Lexington Leader_ (April 4, 1909); _Library of
Southern Literature_ (Atlanta, 1910, v. xiv).