What's the Controversy Behind 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'?

No, it's not the lyrics -- the author of this nursery rhyme is what's in question. Learn why -- and how Henry Ford is involved -- in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam. Here. If you visit the
town of Sterling, Massachusetts today, you'll find a small copper
statue of a wooly little creature meant to be a
replica of the original lamb that followed nine year old
Mary Sawyer to school in eighteen fifteen. Below the statue

(00:22):
is a plaque inscribed with the famous opening verse and
an inscription, Mary had a little lamb. Its fleece was
white of snow, and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb
was share to go, John Rawlstone. So who exactly was
Mary Sawyer? And who was this John Rawlstone who allegedly
wrote to the original poem. According to a sixty page
book titled The Story of Mary and her Little Lamb

(00:44):
and published in ninety eight by none other than car
Mogul Henry Ford More on that later, Mary Sawyer was
a typical New England schoolgirl who nursed a starving lamb
back to health, winning a lifelong friend. In this book,
an adult Sawyer recounted, I got the lamb warm by
wrapping it in an old garment and holding it in
my arms beside the fireplace in the morning, much to

(01:05):
my girlish delight, it could stand, and from that time
it improved rapidly. It soon learned to drink milk, and
from the time it would walk about. It would follow
me anywhere if I only called it. The books behind
the Music story of the song explains that before leaving
for school one morning, Sawyer whistled for the lamb and
it came faithfully trotting over, at which point her brother
Nat suggested, let's take the lamb to school with us.

(01:27):
She tried to hide the lamb in a basket under
her chair, but it was discovered when she stood up
to recite a lesson and the fluffy critter started to
bleat her. Teacher, Polly Kimball laughed outright, which caused Sawyer
some embarrassment, so she took the lamb out to a
shed until school was over for the day. John Rawlstone
was a local boy preparing for college who happened to
be visiting the old Red schoolhouse that day and was,

(01:50):
according to Sawyer, very much pleased with the incident of
the lamb. So Ralstone went home, wrote a three stands
a poem, and returned the next day. On horseback to
hand deliver the original of Mary had a little lamb
to sawyer herself, or so the story goes in Sterling, Massachusetts. Meanwhile,
in Newport, New Hampshire, the folks celebrate hometown hero Sarah

(02:11):
Joseph Hale as the author of this beloved nursery Rhyme.
Hale is also famous for her role in creating the
modern American Thanksgiving via a long running letter campaign to
five U S presidents. As a young poet and writer,
Hale moved to Boston in eighty eight to become the
editor of the first women's magazine in the United States,
later known as Goody's Ladies Book. It was in Boston

(02:33):
that Hale met Lowell Mason, a young musician and composer
intent on bringing music education into America's public schools. Mason
and Hale shared the belief that simple children's poems set
to music could be used to teach good Christian morals
to kids that would help them grow into productive and
upright citizens. At Mason's request, Hale wrote a short book
of fifteen poems called Poems for Our Children, which was

(02:56):
published in eighteen thirty. Mason then wrote simple melodies to
accompany each poem, including these six verse poem then known
as Mary's Lamb. Interestingly, the tune Mason wrote for Mary's Lamb,
which was included in his eighteen thirty one book Juvenile Liar,
likely the first public school songbook, sounds nothing like the
melody we know today. That melody was borrowed later from

(03:17):
the course of a popular minstrel show song called good
Night Ladies. So which story is true? Sawyer claimed that
the first three verses of Hale's poem were identical to
the one written by young John Rawlstone, although the piece
of paper gifted to Sawyer had long since disappeared, and
Rawlstone tragically died while a freshman at Harvard, so he
wasn't around to corroborate. When Hale's version was included in

(03:41):
school readers nationwide in the eighteen fifties. Sawyer assumed that
the author had simply expanded on Rawlstone's original three verses,
but Hale denied ever seeing another version of Mary Had
a Little Lamb, and swore she had conjured the story
wholly from her imagination. Both Sawyer and Hale signed letters
and sworn statements in old age. Hale just days before

(04:01):
her death in eighteen eighty nine, professing that they were
telling the truth of the origin of what had already
become a classic nursery rhyme. Enter Henry Ford, after both
of the women were long gone, automobile magnate Henry Ford
stepped into the fray. In ninety seven he took up
the cause of Mary Sawyer, moving the wooden frame of
Mary's original red schoolhouse from Sterling, Massachusetts, to the nearby

(04:25):
town of Sudbury, where Ford owned an inn, and then
in n eight he published the aforementioned book, which gives
ral Stone full credit for the original verses, and asked
why a respected local woman who served as a matron
of the local hospital would make up such a wild
story and repeat it her entire life. Hale's defenders asked
the same question. Sandra Sonicsen volunteer archivist of the Sarah J.

(04:49):
Hale Collection at the Richards Free Library in Newport, New Hampshire,
writing for the library's website, said, the story of Mary
Sawyer implies that somehow Sarah Hale came across the never
published schoolhouse poem and plagiarized it. How could she have
come across it? Henry Ford's book explains the two towns
where Sawyer and Hale lived were close to each other.
They're ninety miles apart over the most direct route that

(05:11):
would have been followed in eighteen fifteen. Henry had not
yet invented the automobile, so the distance was considerable. In
a Baltimore Sun story from about the ongoing feud between Stirling,
Massachusetts and Newport, New Hampshire, a hail supporter and Newport
librarian weighed in, let's face it, Henry Ford made good cars.
I don't think he's a good historian. Today's episode was

(05:37):
written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler. Playing brain
Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
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