Firth, Pond & Co. deposited Stephen C. Foster’s “For Thee, Love, For Thee” for copyright on June 10, 1859. The lyrics were written by William Henry McCarthy, a friend of the composer from Pittsburgh.

In The Chronicles of Stephen Foster’s Family, Evelyn Foster Morneweck relays a story about a riverboat trip Stephen took with his friend Billy Hamilton:

According to Billy Hamilton, Stephen, on his way down the river, finished a song he had been working on called “Parthenia to Ingomar.” Only the music is his; the romantic verses were written by William Henry McCarthy, a young actor friend of Stephen’s, who was one of the congenial group that used to meet at the Hazelwood home of Harry and Rachel Keller Woods for evenings of sociability and music. Mr. McCarthy’s poem, “Parthenia to Ingomar,” evidently is based on a popular contemporary drama entitled Ingomar, The Barbarian which was adapted from the German by Maria Lovell, and, according to some remarks published on an early copy of the play now in the Foster Hall Collection, was “produced simultaneously in New-York, on the evening of the 1st of December, 1851, at the Bowery and the Broadway Theatres, and was triumphantly successful at both.” Stephen collaborated with William H. McCarthy on two other songs, “For Thee, Love, for Thee” and “Linda Has Departed.” All three of these songs were published the following year, 1859.