Hiawatha, Kansas Hiawatha, Kansas Hiawatha (Ioway: "Hári Wáta" pronounced ) is the largest city and county seat of Brown County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,172. Hiawatha was founded in 1857, making it one of the oldest towns in the state. John M. Coe, John P. Wheller, and Thomas J. Drummond were instrumental in organizing the city, and the site was staked out February 17, 1857. B.L. Rider reportedly was responsible for naming Hiawatha, taking the young Indian's name from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Song of Hiawatha". Hiawatha became the Brown County Seat in
The Song of Hiawatha (Coleridge-Taylor) Choirs Festival of 1898 after Edward Elgar had recommended him as "far and away the cleverest fellow going amongst the younger men". Having been greatly inspired by his reading of Longfellow's epic poem "The Song of Hiawatha" (even later naming his own son "Hiawatha"), he decided to set the words to music in a choral work called "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast". The score was completed in May 1898 and was published by Novello before the first performance was given. Interest in "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast" was so great from sales of the music that, even before a single note of the work