Local History:
George Washington Johnson
George Washington Johnson (1839 - 1917) & Maggie Clark (1842 - 1865)
George Washington Johnson earned his first class teaching certificate at the Central School in Hamilton. In 1859 he began teaching at SS No. 5, Glanford Township where one of his students was Maggie Clark.
In 1864 he published a volume of verse, Maple Leaves, which included the lyric "When You and I Were Young, Maggie".
In that same year George and Maggie were married and George took a job as a newspaperman in Buffalo and then Cleveland.
After only seven months of marriage, Maggie died, on May 12, 1865 and is buried in the White Church graveyard in Glanford.
In 1866 J.A. Butterfield set the poem to music and it went on to become one of the most popular tunes around the world.
George married twice more and died on January 2, 1917 at Pasadena, California. He is buried in the Hamilton Cemetery.
In February of 2005 George Washington Johnson was inducted into the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame.
