Dixie(1860) (Not an antedating)

[Sam Clements]

In looking for "Jim Crack Corn" I naturally got sidetracked by "Dixie."  

HDAS has the earliest use of "Dixie Land" in 1859, from two different D.D.Emmett songs. The Feb. use was for "Dixie Land."  The second use was "Dixie's Land."  The next cite was 1861, by H. Hotze, in which the suggestion is made that the term comes from "an abbreviation of Mason and Dixon's Line."

Using The American Memory site for sheet music, there is a cover of an 1860 piece of sheet music titled 

     >>The Original / DIXON'S LINE/ or / DIXEY LAND<<

This would give more credence to the theory that it came from a shortening of Mason and Dixon's Line.

Sam Clements