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 performance in 1894. Dvořák's student Rubin Goldmark followed with a "Hiawatha Overture" in 1896 and in 1901 there were performances of Hugo Kaun's symphonic poems "Minnehaha" and "Hiawatha". There were also additional settings of Longfellow's words. Arthur Foote's "The Farewell of Hiawatha" (Op.11, 1886) was dedicated to the Apollo Club of Boston, the male voice group that gave its first performance. In 1897 Frederick Russell Burton (1861 — 1909) completed his dramatic cantata "Hiawatha". At the same time he wrote "Hiawatha's Death Song", subtitled 'Song of the Ojibways', which set native words followed by an English translation by another writer.