May 20, 2020 • 13 mins
Did you know the little nursery rhyme is controversial? It’s true: Two towns in New England can barely stand to see one another on the map (kind of).
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to short stuff. I'm Josh. There's chuck and
this is short stuff when we are talking about a
little nursery rhyme pretty adorable in its nature that you
may have heard of before. It's called Mary had a
little lamb. Wait a minute, was was this lamb's fleece
as white as snow? It was? And there was something
(00:25):
remarkable about it, and that wherever Mary went, the lamb
went as well. It sounds like a stalker to me
a little bit. So this is pretty interesting and that
this is controversial. I mean this cute little nursery rhyme
that every English speaking kid on the planet has heard
at one time or another, especially if you're raised in America.
(00:47):
Um may have had Number one a real life origin
and number two. There are two towns in Massachusetts and
New Hampshire where the local historical societies will fight each
other with bike chains and brass knuckles if they run
into one another in public. Yeah, this is really interesting.
In Sterling, Massachusetts, if you go, you're going to see
(01:09):
a little copper statue of a little lamb and it's
um Mary saw yours little lamb, specifically, which she brought
to school in eighteen fifteen. She was a little girl
who uh, and this I guess we should say allegedly
for all this stuff, because there everyone's saying that each
other is wrong. So allegedly, Mary say this little lamb
(01:32):
nursed it back to health overnight, and over a few
days the lamb got much better. And then she was
going to go to school one day, and her brother
Nat said, won't you bring that lamb to school since
you love it so much? And she did bring the
lamb to school, hiding it in a basket under her chair,
And at one point she stands up to take part
(01:53):
in a recitation lesson and the lamb bleats. The teacher laughs.
She takes a lamb outside and kills it. No, just
takes a lamb outside and stores it in the shed.
But this caught the idea of a guy named or
the eye of a guy named John roll Stone. Yeah,
he was an older boy who I guess was visiting
(02:15):
the schoolhouse where all this took place that day. He
was on his way off to Harvard, and he died
shortly after of tuberculosis. But before that he wrote a
poem through several lines, just basically what everybody knows from
Mary had a little lamb. Um. Supposedly that night he
(02:35):
was so taken by this thing, by this event, came
back the next day on horseback and handed Mary the
little poem he wrote for her. And Mary Sawyer went
on for the rest of her life as Mary the
girl with the little lamb that she'd nurse back to health.
And these the source of the famous nursery rhyme Mary
had a little lamb. Yeah, And it's important to note
(02:56):
that he wrote but three stanzas of that poem. And
I think he was just thought it was cute. I
think it's an adorable story that not only did she
nurse this little lamb and take it to school, but this,
you know, rising freshman at Harvard, was so smitten with
this whole thing on his little visit to the school
that he wrote a poem about it. That's right, it's adorable.
(03:18):
Then he died of tuberculosis later that year. Point that
out again and so he um he So John Rawlstone
and Mary Sawyer are the source of the inspiration and
the basis of that nursery roome. Mary had a little lamb.
As far as Sterling, Massachusetts is concerned. But if you
(03:38):
uh drive a little further north, about ninety miles north
into New Hampshire, southwest New Hampshire, you come across the
town of Newport, UM, you will get a totally different
story that their their position is basically that Mary Sawyer
was a lying old lady who lied her whole life
and made up this fantastic tale, and that it was
really Sarah Joseph Hale, who was a native of Newport,
(04:02):
New Hampshire, UM, who was very famous for setting up
the first Thanksgiving in the United States, UM, like as
a as a national holiday. She's the one that made
that happen. UM. That she's the one who wrote Mary
had a little lamb, Right, And I think we should
take a break. Uh. And before we do that, I
want to point out that Josh did not misspeak. Her
(04:25):
middle name was Josepha and not Joseph or Joseph. Yeah,
it just sounded a little funny and people might think,
why did Josh spice that one up? But a little
mustard on. So we'll come back and explain more about
her story and where Henry Ford figures in right after this.
(05:00):
All right, So, Sarah Josepha Josepha Hale, I like Josepha
but I hadn't considered Josepha. That's a good one too.
That sounds really biblical, Like she she suddenly just grew
a beard without a mustache, right, you know what I mean? Yes, Like,
come to me, Josepha and let me put oils on
(05:22):
your feet. Right, That's exactly what I was thinking. Weird.
Remember what congressman was it that literally anointed? It was Ashcroft?
I think, wasn't it? Was it? Yeah, what a bizarre
time it was. I think it was. It was Ashcroft.
You're totally right. I think he also sang some weird
patriotic song about the eagle flying high around the same
(05:44):
time he got some bad press. Everybody was like, wow,
you're bonkers, buddy, oh man, I missed that guy. He
was fun fund for the news cycle. He really was, alright.
So Sarah Josepha Hale moved to Boston in eight She
was a poet and a writer, and she was actually
the editor of the very first women's magazine in the
(06:04):
US called Gotti's Ladies Book. And it was here in
Boston that she met a man named Lowell Mason, who
was a musician and composer, who said, you know what
if we get some of these poems and set them
to music. They would be called songs, and we can
use these in schools to make a little kid's good
(06:25):
moral kids. When I think of Lowell Um, this kind
of folk musician, children's music study proponent guy. Have you
ever seen that Mr. Show where David Crosses, like the
the guy who sculpted the little the little body that
he moves from Appalachian folk art. That guy, That's who
(06:47):
I think of when I think of this guy, you know,
just kind of weird and hapless and like out of
it and um, like his whole focus is learning to
to to get music into schools for children and just
I don't know why, but it's really stuck in there.
You know. Our buddy Scott Ackerman wrote for Mr. Show.
(07:08):
It was kind of his entree into the entertainment industry.
And he does, yeah, he does a spot on impression
of Bob Odenkirk. Oh yeah, Oh it's great. I gotta
see that. It's very funny. Alright, So Mason and Hale
are writing uh songs together. They put fifteen poems to
music called Poems for Our Children, and uh, we should
(07:30):
point out that the original tune that they wrote for
her version of Mary had a Little Lamb was not
the familiar melody that we know that came on later.
I think, yeah, apparently that comes from a British song
that goes, um, merrily we roll along, roll along, roll
along merrily, we roll along over the dark blue sea.
(07:52):
Hey nice, Oh, thank you, thank you. I've practiced pretty
extensively for it was on key um, I'm a little
tone deaf, was a little pitchy, but it was fine.
I'll go with it was fine, No, it was good.
But yeah, that came on later. The original melody. I
don't even think we know that, do we No? But
(08:15):
if you can get your hands on Juvenile Liar leer
l y r e that that book that it was
originally in, I think the notes are in there. Okay,
it sounds like in a Gotta Da Vida, that's your
go to. So Mary Sawyer going back to her the
(08:36):
little girl who allegedly actually nurse this little lamb who
followed her around and stalked her. She said, you know what,
those first three verses of your poem, miss Hale, is
exactly like the ones that John roll Stone wrote about
my true story. What is up with that? Yeah? I
guess she just thought that somehow, Sarah Josepha Hale Um
(09:02):
had gotten her hands somehow on this this poem that
John Rolstone had had written for and just expanded on
that um. And Sarah Joseph Hale was like, no, that's
not it at all. I made this whole thing up
from scratch, using strictly my imagination. I've never heard of
you or your delightful little story from your childhood about
(09:23):
the lamb h sounds totally made up by the way, right,
And so that this was like, so now you had
two upstanding women, Sarah Joseph Hale, the founder of the
the American holiday Thanksgiving, and Mary Sawyer, who went on
to become the matron of her local hospital. We're basically
(09:45):
saying that one another was lying without saying that one
another was lying, and two towns like reputations were on
the line. Yeah, and they they actually, as older ladies,
signed sworn statements saying that what they were saying was
true and correct. And uh, it kind of went on
like this for a little while. And I promised Henry
(10:05):
Ford and here we're going to deliver, because in automobile
magnate Henry Ford got involved and was firmly in the
Mary Sawyer camp. Um. He was just a fan of hers,
I guess, because he bought the original frame from that
red schoolhouse and moved it to Sudbury, where he owned
(10:28):
an inn. And he wrote a book about this, called
The Story of Mary and her Little Lamb. I find
that him moving the end to Sudbury confuses this story
tremendously because it just takes two small towns and adds
a third one unnecessarily if you ask me, sure you know.
But yeah, Henry Ford wrote a sixty page book just
(10:49):
basically touting Mary Sawyer's story, much to the chagrin of
the town of Newport, New Hampshire and its historical society. UM.
And to this day they will say, like Henry Ford
made a great car. Um. I don't know how he
would be really as in a story, and so you know,
his opinion doesn't count for much. What I want to
know is what was on the other fifty six pages, right?
(11:13):
You know, couldn't have taken more than four to tell
this little story. No, I know, I don't know what
he he talked about. And I think my my joke
bone is broken because I can't come up with anything
stupid to add, well, it depends on There are very
much two camps here and to this day, people that
defend Hale, I mean people that defense Sawyers are like,
(11:34):
you know, this is a sweet, sweet girl who had
the sweet story. Why would she make this up and
tell it her whole life? And Hail defenders were like, well,
why would she just conjure up this poem out of
thin air? Or I mean, why would she copy it
and claim she conjured it from thin air? Because they like,
she wouldn't have even known about this poem? Yeah, she
just from what I can tell, she doesn't seem like
(11:54):
the type who would have committed plagiarism and then stuck
to the lie her entire life. Yeah, so mystery. It's
a mystery, and even Henry Ford couldn't solve it. But
to end this one because we don't really have a
resolution to it. There is um Like the the full
poem by Sarah Joseph Hale. It ends pretty cutely because
(12:15):
she's talking about how um everyone wanted to know why
the lamb loved Mary so much, and in the poem
it says, well, it's because Mary loves the lamb back
and then it ends with and you, each gentle animal,
and confidence may bind and make them follow at your will,
if only you are kind. And then a sweet thing
(12:36):
to teach little kids be kind of animals, and you
can basically be the boss of them. Yes, and you
will never be a serial killer. That's right, because you're
kind to them rather than tortures of them. That's right. Well,
that's it for short stuff. Everybody, we're out. Stuff you
should know is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff
(12:56):
works for more podcasts for my heart Radio because at
the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts are wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. H m hm
Hey, welcome to short stuff. I'm Josh. There's chuck and
this is short stuff when we are talking about a
little nursery rhyme pretty adorable in its nature that you
may have heard of before. It's called Mary had a
little lamb. Wait a minute, was was this lamb's fleece
as white as snow? It was? And there was something
(00:25):
remarkable about it, and that wherever Mary went, the lamb
went as well. It sounds like a stalker to me
a little bit. So this is pretty interesting and that
this is controversial. I mean this cute little nursery rhyme
that every English speaking kid on the planet has heard
at one time or another, especially if you're raised in America.
(00:47):
Um may have had Number one a real life origin
and number two. There are two towns in Massachusetts and
New Hampshire where the local historical societies will fight each
other with bike chains and brass knuckles if they run
into one another in public. Yeah, this is really interesting.
In Sterling, Massachusetts, if you go, you're going to see
(01:09):
a little copper statue of a little lamb and it's
um Mary saw yours little lamb, specifically, which she brought
to school in eighteen fifteen. She was a little girl
who uh, and this I guess we should say allegedly
for all this stuff, because there everyone's saying that each
other is wrong. So allegedly, Mary say this little lamb
(01:32):
nursed it back to health overnight, and over a few
days the lamb got much better. And then she was
going to go to school one day, and her brother
Nat said, won't you bring that lamb to school since
you love it so much? And she did bring the
lamb to school, hiding it in a basket under her chair,
And at one point she stands up to take part
(01:53):
in a recitation lesson and the lamb bleats. The teacher laughs.
She takes a lamb outside and kills it. No, just
takes a lamb outside and stores it in the shed.
But this caught the idea of a guy named or
the eye of a guy named John roll Stone. Yeah,
he was an older boy who I guess was visiting
(02:15):
the schoolhouse where all this took place that day. He
was on his way off to Harvard, and he died
shortly after of tuberculosis. But before that he wrote a
poem through several lines, just basically what everybody knows from
Mary had a little lamb. Um. Supposedly that night he
(02:35):
was so taken by this thing, by this event, came
back the next day on horseback and handed Mary the
little poem he wrote for her. And Mary Sawyer went
on for the rest of her life as Mary the
girl with the little lamb that she'd nurse back to health.
And these the source of the famous nursery rhyme Mary
had a little lamb. Yeah, And it's important to note
(02:56):
that he wrote but three stanzas of that poem. And
I think he was just thought it was cute. I
think it's an adorable story that not only did she
nurse this little lamb and take it to school, but this,
you know, rising freshman at Harvard, was so smitten with
this whole thing on his little visit to the school
that he wrote a poem about it. That's right, it's adorable.
(03:18):
Then he died of tuberculosis later that year. Point that
out again and so he um he So John Rawlstone
and Mary Sawyer are the source of the inspiration and
the basis of that nursery roome. Mary had a little lamb.
As far as Sterling, Massachusetts is concerned. But if you
(03:38):
uh drive a little further north, about ninety miles north
into New Hampshire, southwest New Hampshire, you come across the
town of Newport, UM, you will get a totally different
story that their their position is basically that Mary Sawyer
was a lying old lady who lied her whole life
and made up this fantastic tale, and that it was
really Sarah Joseph Hale, who was a native of Newport,
(04:02):
New Hampshire, UM, who was very famous for setting up
the first Thanksgiving in the United States, UM, like as
a as a national holiday. She's the one that made
that happen. UM. That she's the one who wrote Mary
had a little lamb, Right, And I think we should
take a break. Uh. And before we do that, I
want to point out that Josh did not misspeak. Her
(04:25):
middle name was Josepha and not Joseph or Joseph. Yeah,
it just sounded a little funny and people might think,
why did Josh spice that one up? But a little
mustard on. So we'll come back and explain more about
her story and where Henry Ford figures in right after this.
(05:00):
All right, So, Sarah Josepha Josepha Hale, I like Josepha
but I hadn't considered Josepha. That's a good one too.
That sounds really biblical, Like she she suddenly just grew
a beard without a mustache, right, you know what I mean? Yes, Like,
come to me, Josepha and let me put oils on
(05:22):
your feet. Right, That's exactly what I was thinking. Weird.
Remember what congressman was it that literally anointed? It was Ashcroft?
I think, wasn't it? Was it? Yeah, what a bizarre
time it was. I think it was. It was Ashcroft.
You're totally right. I think he also sang some weird
patriotic song about the eagle flying high around the same
(05:44):
time he got some bad press. Everybody was like, wow,
you're bonkers, buddy, oh man, I missed that guy. He
was fun fund for the news cycle. He really was, alright.
So Sarah Josepha Hale moved to Boston in eight She
was a poet and a writer, and she was actually
the editor of the very first women's magazine in the
(06:04):
US called Gotti's Ladies Book. And it was here in
Boston that she met a man named Lowell Mason, who
was a musician and composer, who said, you know what
if we get some of these poems and set them
to music. They would be called songs, and we can
use these in schools to make a little kid's good
(06:25):
moral kids. When I think of Lowell Um, this kind
of folk musician, children's music study proponent guy. Have you
ever seen that Mr. Show where David Crosses, like the
the guy who sculpted the little the little body that
he moves from Appalachian folk art. That guy, That's who
(06:47):
I think of when I think of this guy, you know,
just kind of weird and hapless and like out of
it and um, like his whole focus is learning to
to to get music into schools for children and just
I don't know why, but it's really stuck in there.
You know. Our buddy Scott Ackerman wrote for Mr. Show.
(07:08):
It was kind of his entree into the entertainment industry.
And he does, yeah, he does a spot on impression
of Bob Odenkirk. Oh yeah, Oh it's great. I gotta
see that. It's very funny. Alright, So Mason and Hale
are writing uh songs together. They put fifteen poems to
music called Poems for Our Children, and uh, we should
(07:30):
point out that the original tune that they wrote for
her version of Mary had a Little Lamb was not
the familiar melody that we know that came on later.
I think, yeah, apparently that comes from a British song
that goes, um, merrily we roll along, roll along, roll
along merrily, we roll along over the dark blue sea.
(07:52):
Hey nice, Oh, thank you, thank you. I've practiced pretty
extensively for it was on key um, I'm a little
tone deaf, was a little pitchy, but it was fine.
I'll go with it was fine, No, it was good.
But yeah, that came on later. The original melody. I
don't even think we know that, do we No? But
(08:15):
if you can get your hands on Juvenile Liar leer
l y r e that that book that it was
originally in, I think the notes are in there. Okay,
it sounds like in a Gotta Da Vida, that's your
go to. So Mary Sawyer going back to her the
(08:36):
little girl who allegedly actually nurse this little lamb who
followed her around and stalked her. She said, you know what,
those first three verses of your poem, miss Hale, is
exactly like the ones that John roll Stone wrote about
my true story. What is up with that? Yeah? I
guess she just thought that somehow, Sarah Josepha Hale Um
(09:02):
had gotten her hands somehow on this this poem that
John Rolstone had had written for and just expanded on
that um. And Sarah Joseph Hale was like, no, that's
not it at all. I made this whole thing up
from scratch, using strictly my imagination. I've never heard of
you or your delightful little story from your childhood about
(09:23):
the lamb h sounds totally made up by the way, right,
And so that this was like, so now you had
two upstanding women, Sarah Joseph Hale, the founder of the
the American holiday Thanksgiving, and Mary Sawyer, who went on
to become the matron of her local hospital. We're basically
(09:45):
saying that one another was lying without saying that one
another was lying, and two towns like reputations were on
the line. Yeah, and they they actually, as older ladies,
signed sworn statements saying that what they were saying was
true and correct. And uh, it kind of went on
like this for a little while. And I promised Henry
(10:05):
Ford and here we're going to deliver, because in automobile
magnate Henry Ford got involved and was firmly in the
Mary Sawyer camp. Um. He was just a fan of hers,
I guess, because he bought the original frame from that
red schoolhouse and moved it to Sudbury, where he owned
(10:28):
an inn. And he wrote a book about this, called
The Story of Mary and her Little Lamb. I find
that him moving the end to Sudbury confuses this story
tremendously because it just takes two small towns and adds
a third one unnecessarily if you ask me, sure you know.
But yeah, Henry Ford wrote a sixty page book just
(10:49):
basically touting Mary Sawyer's story, much to the chagrin of
the town of Newport, New Hampshire and its historical society. UM.
And to this day they will say, like Henry Ford
made a great car. Um. I don't know how he
would be really as in a story, and so you know,
his opinion doesn't count for much. What I want to
know is what was on the other fifty six pages, right?
(11:13):
You know, couldn't have taken more than four to tell
this little story. No, I know, I don't know what
he he talked about. And I think my my joke
bone is broken because I can't come up with anything
stupid to add, well, it depends on There are very
much two camps here and to this day, people that
defend Hale, I mean people that defense Sawyers are like,
(11:34):
you know, this is a sweet, sweet girl who had
the sweet story. Why would she make this up and
tell it her whole life? And Hail defenders were like, well,
why would she just conjure up this poem out of
thin air? Or I mean, why would she copy it
and claim she conjured it from thin air? Because they like,
she wouldn't have even known about this poem? Yeah, she
just from what I can tell, she doesn't seem like
(11:54):
the type who would have committed plagiarism and then stuck
to the lie her entire life. Yeah, so mystery. It's
a mystery, and even Henry Ford couldn't solve it. But
to end this one because we don't really have a
resolution to it. There is um Like the the full
poem by Sarah Joseph Hale. It ends pretty cutely because
(12:15):
she's talking about how um everyone wanted to know why
the lamb loved Mary so much, and in the poem
it says, well, it's because Mary loves the lamb back
and then it ends with and you, each gentle animal,
and confidence may bind and make them follow at your will,
if only you are kind. And then a sweet thing
(12:36):
to teach little kids be kind of animals, and you
can basically be the boss of them. Yes, and you
will never be a serial killer. That's right, because you're
kind to them rather than tortures of them. That's right. Well,
that's it for short stuff. Everybody, we're out. Stuff you
should know is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff
(12:56):
works for more podcasts for my heart Radio because at
the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts are wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. H m hm
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.