Peter Crawley suggests the author of The Upper California as John Taylor:

“This broadside contains the text of a song in six verses, which, according to William Clayton’s journal, John Taylor composed and revised at a meeting of the Council of Fifty in April 1845. To a note in the Nauvoo Neighbor of May 7, 1845, that John C. Fremont was organizing an expedition to California, Taylor added eight lines of verse that are either an early version of his song or someone else’s upon which his was modeled: “The upper California, / O that’s the place to be; / It lies between the mountains, / And great Pacific sea. / With a climate pure as Naples, / And budding liberty, / O clear away the rubbish, / And let us there be free.” The first verse of the broadside version differs mainly in the last two lines: “The Upper California, O that’s the land for me, / It lies between the mountains, and great Pacific Sea, / The saints can be supported there, and taste the sweets of liberty / With flocks and herds abounding, O that’s the land for me, O that’s, &c.” The song is clearly patterned after “The Rose That All Are Praising” (see item [27]). When or where this broadside was published is not known. The song appears in the LDS hymnal from 1851 to 1890, with a series of textual changes. The broadside version seems to antedate those in the hymnal. In August 1857, when the Tenth Infantry was then marching to Utah, Taylor quoted the third verse, “We’ll burst off all our fetters and break the Gentile yoke . . . ,” and urged the Saints to sing his song as a kind of Mormon “Yankee Doodle.” (Crawley 1997, 335).

And why haven’t I run into your blog before?? I liked it so well poking around for a few minutes that I’ve already added it to my blog roll — “Hic et Nunc,” with some wonderful resources for Gospel Doctrine teachers and class members.

I hope you’ll like Keepa well enough to come back.

I haven’t tried plunking this out on the piano, but all that repetition reminds me of the University of Utah fight song: Utah Man. Maybe we’d find a correlation between liking that song and this one. (Would it be better with brass and drums?)

Yes, this is the same tune we found and sang for JWHA. While only somewhat musically inclined, I didn’t mind the tune. Although I was likely caught up in the historical nerdyness of the moment so that I didn’t worry about the aesthetics.