H.J. Montague was a noted English stage actor who extensively toured the United States. While touring the United States in 1878, he became grievously ill and died of a pulmonary hemorrhage at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. His last words were, "It's no use; I am going, boys. God bless you all." These lines were memorialized in song, and the sheet music was published with different albumen portraits of Montague taken by the S.F. photographer Thomas Houseworth.