Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogelbaumb here with a classic episode
Speaker 2: from the vault. In this one, we explore the perhaps
Speaker 2: surprisingly tangled story behind the common nursery rhyme Mary had
Speaker 2: a Little Lamb, proving that even before the Internet, people
Speaker 2: would argue about anything.
Speaker 1: Hey Brainstuff, Lauren vogelbaumb Here. If you visit the town
Speaker 1: of Sterling, Massachusetts today, you'll find a small copper statue
Speaker 1: of a wooly little creature meant to be a replica
Speaker 1: of the original lamb that followed nine year old Mary
Speaker 1: Sawyer to school in eighteen fifteen. Below the statue is
Speaker 1: a plaque inscribed with the famous opening verse and an
Speaker 1: inscription Mary had a Little Lamb. Its fleece was white
Speaker 1: of snow, And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was
Speaker 1: sure to go John Ralstone. So who exactly was Mary Sawyer?
Speaker 1: And who was this John Rawlstone who allegedly wrote to
Speaker 1: the original poem, According to a sixty page book titled
Speaker 1: The Story of Mary and Her Little Lamb and published
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty eight by none other than car Mogul
Speaker 1: Henry Ford more on that later Mary Sawyer was a
Speaker 1: typical New England schoolgirl who nursed a starving lamb back
Speaker 1: to health, winning a lifelong friend. In this book, an
Speaker 1: adult Sawyer recounted, I got the lamb warm by wrapping
Speaker 1: it in an old garment and holding it in my
Speaker 1: arms beside the fireplace in the morning. Much to my
Speaker 1: girlish delight, it could stand, and from that time it
Speaker 1: improved rapidly. It soon learned to drink milk, and from
Speaker 1: the time it would walk about, it would follow me
Speaker 1: anywhere if I only called it. The books behind the
Speaker 1: Music story of the song explains that before leaving for
Speaker 1: school one morning, Sawyer whistled for the lamb and it
Speaker 1: came faithfully trotting over, at which point her brother Nat suggested,
Speaker 1: let's take the lamb to school with us. She tried
Speaker 1: to hide the lamb in a basket under her chair,
Speaker 1: but it was discovered when she stood up to recite
Speaker 1: a lesson and the fluffy critter started to bleat her.
Speaker 1: Teacher Polly Kimball laughed outright, which caused sawyer somembarrassment, so
Speaker 1: she took the lamb out to a shed until school
Speaker 1: was over for the day. John Ralstone was a local
Speaker 1: boy preparing for college who happened to be visiting the
Speaker 1: old Red schoolhouse that day and was, according to Sawyer,
Speaker 1: very much pleased with the incident of the lamb. So
Speaker 1: Ralstone went home, wrote a three stands a poem, and
Speaker 1: returned the next day on horseback to hand deliver the
Speaker 1: original verses of Mary had a little lamb to Sawyer herself,
Speaker 1: or so the story goes in Sterling, Massachusetts. Meanwhile, in Newport,
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, the folks celebrate hometown hero Sarah Josepha Hale
Speaker 1: as the author of this beloved nursery rhyme. Hale is
Speaker 1: also famous for her role in creating the modern American
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving via a long running letter campaign to five US presidents.
Speaker 1: As a young poet and writer, Hale moved to Boston
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty eight to become the editor of the
Speaker 1: first women's magazine in the United States, later known as
Speaker 1: Goody's Lady's Book. It was in Boston that Hale met
Speaker 1: Lowell Mason, a young musician and composer intent on bringing
Speaker 1: music education into America's public schools. Mason and Hale shared
Speaker 1: the belief that simple children's poems set to music could
Speaker 1: be used to teach good Christian morals to kids that
Speaker 1: would help them grow into productive and upright citizens. At
Speaker 1: Mason's request, Hale wrote a short book of fifteen poems
Speaker 1: called Poems for Our Children, which was published in eighteen thirty.
Speaker 1: Mason then wrote simple melodies to accompany each poem, including
Speaker 1: these six verse poem, then known as Mary's Lamb. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: the tune Mason wrote for Mary's Lamb, which was included
Speaker 1: in his eighteen thirty one book Juvenile Liar, likely the
Speaker 1: first public school songbook, sounds nothing like the melody we
Speaker 1: know today. That melody was borrowed later from the course
Speaker 1: of a popular minstrel show song called good Night Ladies.
Speaker 1: So which story is true? Sawyer claimed that the first
Speaker 1: three verses of Hale's poem were identical to the one
Speaker 1: written by young John Rowlstone, although the piece of paper
Speaker 1: gifted to Sawyer had long since disappeared, and Ralstone tragically
Speaker 1: died while a freshman at Harvard, so he wasn't around
Speaker 1: to corroborate when Hale's version was included in school readers
Speaker 1: nationwide in the eighteen fifties. Sawyer assumed that the author
Speaker 1: had simply expanded on Ralestone's original three verses, but Hale
Speaker 1: denied ever seeing another version of Mary had a Little Lamb,
Speaker 1: and swore she had conjured the story wholly from her imagination.
Speaker 1: Both Sawyer and Hale signed letters and sworn statements in
Speaker 1: their old age, Hale just days before her death in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine, professing that they were telling the truth
Speaker 1: of the origin of what had already become a classic
Speaker 1: nursery rhyme. Enter Henry Ford, after both of the women
Speaker 1: were long gone, automobile magnate Henry Ford stepped into the
Speaker 1: fray in nineteen twenty seven, he took up the cause
Speaker 1: of Mary Sawyer, moving the wooden frame of Mary's original
Speaker 1: red schoolhouse from Starling, Massachusetts, to the nearby town of Sudbury,
Speaker 1: where Ford owned an inn, and then in nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: eight he published the aforementioned book, which gives Ralhstone full
Speaker 1: credit for the original verses, and asked why a respected
Speaker 1: local woman who served as a matron of the local
Speaker 1: hospital make up such a wild story and repeat it
Speaker 1: her entire life. Hale's defenders asked the same question. Sandra Sonison,
Speaker 1: volunteer archivist of the Sarah J. Hale Collection at the
Speaker 1: Richard's Free Library in Newport, New Hampshire. A writing for
Speaker 1: the library's website said, the story of Mary Sawyer implies
Speaker 1: that somehow Sarah Hale came across this never published schoolhouse
Speaker 1: poem and plagiarized it. How could she have come across it?
Speaker 1: Henry Ford's book explains that the two towns where Sawyer
Speaker 1: and Hale lived were close to each other. They are
Speaker 1: ninety miles apart over the most direct route that would
Speaker 1: have been followed in eighteen fifteen. Henry had not yet
Speaker 1: invented the automobile, so the distance was considerable. In a
Speaker 1: Baltimore Sun story from nineteen ninety eight about the ongoing
Speaker 1: feud between Stirling, Massachusetts and Newport, New Hampshire, a Hale
Speaker 1: supporter and Newport librarian weighed in let's face it, Henry
Speaker 1: Ford made good cars. I don't think he's a good historian.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is based on the art of the surprising
Speaker 2: controversy behind Mary Had a Little Lamb on how Stuffworks
Speaker 2: dot com.
Speaker 1: Written by Dave Ruse.
Speaker 2: Brain Stuff is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks.
Speaker 2: Dot com and is produced by Tyler Playing. Four more
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