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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"When You and I Were Young,
Maggie" is a famous folk song, popular song
and standard. Though Springtown, Tennessee, has a small monument
outside an old mill claiming the song was written
by a local George Johnson, in 1864, for his Maggie,
the truth is that its lyrics were written as
a poem by the Canadian school teacher George Washington Johnson
from Hamilton, Ontario. Margaret "Maggie"
Clark was his pupil. They fell in love and during a period of illness,
George walked to the edge of the Niagara escarpment,
overlooking what is now downtown Hamilton, and
composed the poem. The general tone is perhaps
one of melancholy and consolation over lost youth rather
than mere sentimentality or a fear of aging.
It was published in 1864 in a collection of
his poems entitled Maple Leaves. They were married in 1864
but Maggie's health deteriorated and she died on May 12, 1865.
James Austin Butterfield set the poem to music
and it became popular all over the world.
George Washington Johnson died in 1917. The schoolhouse
where the two lovers met still stands on the
escarpment above Hamilton, and a plaque
bearing the name of the song has been erected
in front of the old building. In 2005,
the song was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
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