By Brian Roulston

In the shadows of Hamilton, a timeless love story emerged in the early 1860s. A deep romance that was meant to stand the test of time was tragically cut short by illness. Yet, from this heartbreak emerged a poem that would captivate the world as a renowned love song. It became one of the most significant music standards of all time. A song for many worldwide who performed it would become a hit.

In 1839, George Washington Johnson was born on a farm near the small village of Binbrook on the outskirts of Hamilton. The son of an Irish nobleman, Sir William Johnson and Molly Brant. George got his first teaching job in Binbrook when he was 16 years-old. With his earnings he put himself through Upper Canada College. George then moved to Mount Hope to teach at S.S. #5, Glanford County, now known as Glanbrook.

George, a youthful twenty-one with dark hair and handsome features, was captivated by the equally young Maggie Clark, daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth Clark. Maggie had two brothers, James Allen and Joseph William, and three sisters, Mary, Mabel and Alice Emma.

Maggie had locks as dark as a moonless night. At just eighteen, three years his junior, their love quickly blossomed as the two of them attended numerous village gatherings. They would serenade each other as they walked hand-in-hand and strolled merrily along the picturesque banks of Twenty Mile Creek off Nebo Road, towards her father’s sawmill. The rusty old sawmill inspired G.W. Johnson’s book, a renowned collection of poems, plays in rhymed couplets, and songs about his beloved Canada, entitled Maple Leaves, which was published in 1864.

Tragically, the couple’s joy was short-lived. Maggie, the picture of health and happiness, was soon struck down by a ruthless adversary-‘The Great White Plague,’ now known as Tuberculosis or TB, highly contagious and notoriously difficult to treat. It would require antibiotics over a long period. Her health would soon cast a shadow over their once bright future. (In Hamilton, Tuberculosis accounted for almost half of all deaths of young adults aged 15 to 29 at the time.)

During one of Maggie’s more severe bouts with TB George made his way to the old sawmill where they had spent many happy times together; this inspired him to write the poem, ‘When You and I Were Young Maggie.’ It was a heartfelt promise that he would remain devoted to Maggie in the years to come. This is the original version of that poem, taken directly from George’s book.

I wander’d to-day to the hill, Maggie,
To watch the scene below,
The creek and the creaking old rusty mill, Maggie,
As we used to long ago.
The green grove is gone from the hill, Maggie,
Where first the daisies sprung;
The creaking old mill is still, Maggie,
Since you and I were young.

A city so silent and lone, Maggie,
Where the young and the gay, and the best,
In polished white mansions of stone, Maggie,
Have each found a palace of rest,
Is built where the birds used to play, Maggie,
And join in the songs that were sung;
For we sang as gay as they, Maggie,
When You and I were young.

They say I am feeble with age, Maggie,
My steps are less sprightly than then,
My face is a full written page, Maggie,
But Time’s alone was the pen.
Our heads they say are as gray, Maggie,
As the spray by the white breakers flung,
But to me you’re as fair as you were, Maggie,
When you and I were young.

Maggie fought and emerged victorious in her initial struggle against the disease. Then came the couple’s first period of separation. Maggie attended the Methodist Wesleyan Female College in Hamilton which became the Anglo-American Hotel, the site of today’s Royal Connaught. Johnson pursued a journalism degree at the Fort Edward Institute on the Hudson in N.Y. State. Their separation only strengthened their affection for one another. Within months, they were married at the Glanford Methodist Church on October 12,1864. George took a job as a journalist at the ‘Courier’ today known as the Buffalo Courier-Express in Buffalo, N.Y., and soon his abilities as a journalist were recognized. He was offered a job at ‘The Plain Dealer’ in Cleveland. Once his position was secured, the couple settled in America. A tragic turn of events occurred when Maggie’s medication stopped working, a fairly common problem with T.B. patients. Sadly, seven months after their marriage, Maggie died on May 12, 1865, just 23 years old. George accompanied Maggie home where she was laid to rest in the family plot in White Church Cemetery, just off Hwy 6 at Mount Hope. Devastated, George resigned from the Plain Dealer and returned to teaching in Binbrook, where he became a principal for many years. He also taught for a couple years in Stoney Creek and Bartonville and came to be remembered by many of his students for his sharp use of an old cane.

In 1868 he was briefly on the staff of the Hamilton Spectator. He became principal of Central School in Hamilton in 1875. George then moved on to the University of Toronto where he became a Professor of Languages. Not too long after George headed south of the border to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York as a Latin professor.

About a year after Maggie’s death, he had visited an old friend in Detroit, James Austin Butterfield, music teacher and minor composer and asked him to put music to his poem ‘When You and I were Young Maggie.’  George travelled extensively, throughout Europe and Palestine, after retiring. Everywhere he went, he heard schoolchildren humming or singing his ballad.

Frank Dumont was the first artist to perform the song as the Duprez & Benedict Minstrels in 1870. First recorded by Corrine Morgan and Frank C. Stanley in 1905 and later by Benny Goodman and his band, ‘When You and I were Young Maggie’ has been performed by some of the biggest names in the music industry throughout the 20th century. It became a hit for Bing Crosby and son Gary Crosby. Others included Dinah Shore, Crooners Perry Cuomo and Gene Autry, Canadians Hank Snow and Celtic tenor John McDermott, The Statler Bros., Louis Armstrong, Irene Dunn, and John McCormack. Considered a standard of Dixieland Music, a  No.1 hit in Ireland recorded as ‘Nora’ by Johnny McEvoy, No. 6 in Ireland and 27 in the U.K. on the singles chart for Foster and Allen. Recordings by De Dannan and The Chieftains Irish people to assume it was an Irish song. The people of Scotland also regarded it as Scottish as it is in the repertoire of many of their country’s singers. Most recently, a version entitled ‘Maggie’ has been on the soundtrack of Adam Sandler’s film ‘Strange Wilderness.’

Springfield, Tennessee claims the poem and song were written there. However, research by the Maggie Johnson Women’s Institute firmly places the ballad here. In 1963, the Ontario government erected a plaque at Maggie Clark’s former home but has since been moved to the Township of Glanbrook Building on Binbrook Road (Road 52) just east of Fletcher Road (Road 614).

George summered in Hamilton and wintered in Pasadena, California, where he passed away in 1917, over 50 years after Maggie’s death. He is buried in Binbrook. G.W. Johnson would lose his third wife, Caroline C. (Nellie) Fox, in 1903; she too is buried in Binbrook beside him.

Finally, The Canadian pop trio Shaye performed “When You and I Were Young, Maggie” at the 2005 Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Gala where George Washington Johnson was posthumously inducted.

Revised and updated from my original story on the Facebook page Historical Hamilton 2015.