From the recording Back to Laurel Hill: Pennsylvania and West Virginia Folk Songs from the Bayard Collection, Vol. I
Home Dearest Home/Colonel Montgomery /Staten Island, song as sung by Charles Scott Brink, 1861-1950, near Smicksburg, Indiana County, Pennsylvania, August 12, 1948. Staten Island from Hiram Clinton Horner, born 1880, master fifer, Monessen, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 1960. Although Staten Island is a hornpipe, in the United States hornpipes frequently are played with a straight rhythm like reels. Colonel Montgomery is a traditional Scottish strathspey. Perhaps our sailor traveled to America from Scotland, where he might have sung “Hame Dearie Hame.”