Back in the spring of 1976, the Association of Irish Studies in Canada held its annual weeklong conference in St John's, Newfoundland. At a lively Irish-Newfoundland party one evening during the week, I was called on for a song. Earlier that same day, one of the speakers had read a paper on Sean O'Casey, so I sang Nora, one of the best-known numbers from the playwright's The Plough and the Stars. I hardly gave my choice of song a second thought, though at the back of my mind I was thinking that it might be a suitable way of acknowledging the presence of the guest of honour that week - none other than the great man's widow, Eileen O'Casey.
Everyone, of course, joined in the familiar chorus: "When I first said I loved only you, Nora, And you said you loved only me." At the end, people clapped, and Eileen came across to where I was sitting. With tears in her eyes, she thanked me for singing it. Many of those present didn't realise her connection with the song, and when I explained, there was renewed applause. It is equally certain that hardly any of those present - Canadians included - would have known either that O'Casey had set Nora to the air of a song written by a Canadian in the 1860s which became one of the most popular songs in the English language: it is known simply as Maggie, or When You And I Were Young.
Canadian connection
Indeed, I was to learn of the Canadian connection myself only from the sleeve notes of an LP by the Irish-American tenor Robert White in the early 1980s. The words were written by George Johnson, Maggie's husband, and the music was composed by an American, Austin Butterfield. I hoped one day to learn more about Maggie and then, out of the blue last summer, I got what I was looking for. At another house-party, this time in Ancaster, Ontario, after I had sung the song, a guest casually remarked: "I believe that Maggie came from a place not far from here."
His name was Jack Brennan, and although he could not be certain, he said he thought that Maggie's house was only about an hour's drive away - near Binbrook, he thought. "You're on your holidays," Jack said, "so, do you fancy a drive down that way tomorrow to find out?" We eventually found Maggie's house, located in lush farmland country in Glanbrook township. The present owner, Karen Patterson, told me it was built in 1841 by Maggie's father, Joseph B. Clark, a prominent local farmer. Maggie was born the following year. Karen put me in touch with Jackie French of the Glanbrook Heritage Society, and from her I learned the story of the song, and the surprising fact that the society had photographs of Maggie and George Johnson taken in the early 1860s.
In 1863, when the American Civil War was at its height, 24year-old George Johnson wrote a song for the 21-year-old Maggie Clark. It was full of the sort of nostalgic sentiments people were so fond of at the time, and it was the young man's way of pledging his undying love for his pretty young sweetheart. The following year George had the poem published in his slim volume Maple Leaves. So much for the erroneous notion that the words had been penned by an old man recalling days of "long, long ago".
I wandered today to the hill, Maggie,
To watch the scene below:
The creek and the creaking old mill, Maggie,
Where we sat in the long, long ago.
George Johnson was from Binbrook, not far from the Clark farm, and at the age of 19 he was appointed schoolmaster at the one-room schoolhouse at Glanford. Maggie, who lived a mile away from the schoolhouse, was one of his pupils, and before long the girl with the golden ringlets, "the belle of the community", and the tall, handsome young teacher with a mass of curly black hair were in love. George boarded at the Clark house for some time, so they saw a great deal of each other.
In spring, summer and autumn, Maggie and George strolled the paths and byways of the countryside, usually ending up at an old sawmill beside the Twenty Mile Creek not far from the Clark home. This is the mill immortalised in the song. They married in 1864 and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where George became associate editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. They had lived in there only a few months when Maggie, never robust, became ill.
"The physicians in those days diagnosed her illness as inflammation of the stomach," wrote Mrs Blanche L. Padgham, Maggie's aunt. "She was ill several weeks and her mother was with her when she passed away." A heartbroken George brought his wife's body back to Ontario and she was laid to rest in Whitechurch Cemetery only a few miles from the old mill where she and George had spun their dreams of the future.
Instant hit
Shortly after, George resigned his position with the Cleveland Plain Dealer and returned to his native place to resume teaching. A year later his poem When You And I Were Young was set to music by James Austin Butterfield of Chicago. The song was an instant hit and became one of the earliest North American popular songs to gain lasting fame - along with the songs of the period by Stephen Foster. One might think it should have brought George Johnson a great deal of satisfaction and at least some modest financial reward, but not so.
Some say that Butterfield was George Johnson's friend and that he had set the words to music at George's request. Others say that Butterfield simply came across the words in Maple Leaves and, in those days before copyright protection, went ahead without consulting Johnson. This latter version seems the more likely explanation of what happened, because in later life George said he had never made a dime out of it.