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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that uncovers a little bit more about history

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Speaker 1: every day. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're looking at

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Speaker 1: the surprisingly controversial story behind one of the world's most

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Speaker 1: beloved nursery rhymes. The day was May eighteen. Mary's Lamb

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Speaker 1: was released as part of a small book of children's

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Speaker 1: poems written by Sarah Josepha Hale. The poem eventually took

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Speaker 1: on new life as a musical nursery rhyme called Mary

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Speaker 1: Had a Little Lamb. Music director Lowell Mason was the

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Speaker 1: one who set the poem to its now famous tune

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Speaker 1: in the eighteen thirties. He also added the repetition of

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Speaker 1: key lines and phrases to lengthen the song and help

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Speaker 1: it better fit the melody. Mason's contributions are well agreed upon,

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Speaker 1: but the authorship of the original poem has been the

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Speaker 1: subject of a long and controversial debate. The title page

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Speaker 1: of Sarah Hale's book Poems for Children clearly attributes Mary's

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Speaker 1: Lamb to her, but more than fifty years after the

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Speaker 1: book's release, a woman named Mary Sawyer claimed that Hale

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Speaker 1: had only written half the poem. According to her, the

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Speaker 1: first twelve lines of the twenty four line work were

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Speaker 1: actually written a decade and a half earlier by one

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Speaker 1: of her former classmates, a boy named John roll Stone.

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Speaker 1: Sawyer claimed he had written the poem based on a

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Speaker 1: real life incident from their childhood. The story goes that

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Speaker 1: in March of eighteen fifteen, nine year old Mary Sawyer

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Speaker 1: was caring for an orphaned lamb on her family's farm

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Speaker 1: in Sterling, Massachusetts. The lamb, which had been abandoned by

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Speaker 1: its mother, was so weak and sickly that it couldn't

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Speaker 1: stand up or even swallow food. The odds of its

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Speaker 1: survival looked pretty grim, but Mary persevered, eventually managing to

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Speaker 1: nurse the animal back to health. She reflected on that

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Speaker 1: happy day many decades later, writing quote, in the morning,

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Speaker 1: much to my girlish delight, the lamb could stand, and

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Speaker 1: from that time on it improved rapidly. It soon learned

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Speaker 1: to drink milk, and from the time it would walk

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Speaker 1: about it would follow me anywhere. If I only called it,

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Speaker 1: you can probably see where this is going. One day,

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Speaker 1: Mary called to her lamb right before setting off to school.

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Speaker 1: When the pet came to greet her, Mary's brother Nat

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Speaker 1: suggested they let the lamb follow them to the one

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Speaker 1: room schoolhouse they attended. Mary concealed the little lamb in

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Speaker 1: a basket beneath her desk, hoping that it would keep

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Speaker 1: quiet and stay out of sight. The lamb cooperated at first,

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Speaker 1: but when Mary was called on to stand up and

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Speaker 1: read out loud for the class, the lamb jumped out

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Speaker 1: of its basket to join her. The teacher is said

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Speaker 1: to have laughed right along with her students, before warning

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Speaker 1: Mary not to bring the lamb to school again and

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Speaker 1: to tie it up outside until class was over. According

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Speaker 1: to Mary Sawyer, it was the very next day that

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Speaker 1: an older boy named John roll Stone gave her a

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Speaker 1: twelve line poem that he had written about the lamb incident.

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Speaker 1: Mary was never able to produce the original copy she

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Speaker 1: was handed, but in the eighties she claimed the lines

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Speaker 1: were the same as those and Sarah Hale's poem. That

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Speaker 1: would mean they read as follows. Mary had a little lamb.

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Speaker 1: Its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went,

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Speaker 1: the lamb was sure to go. It followed her to

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Speaker 1: school one day which was against the rule. It made

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Speaker 1: the children laugh and play to see a lamb at school,

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Speaker 1: and so the teacher turned it out, But still it

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Speaker 1: lingered near and waited patiently about till Mary did appear.

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Speaker 1: According to Sawyer, Sarah Hales somehow got a copy of

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Speaker 1: roll Stone's poem fourteen years later. She then added the

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Speaker 1: final twelve lines of the poem as a way to

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Speaker 1: incorporate a moral lesson about showing kindness to animals. The

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Speaker 1: second half of the poem tells what happens when Mary

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Speaker 1: finally reappears before the lamb. It goes like this, And

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Speaker 1: then he ran to her and laid his head upon

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Speaker 1: her arm, as if he said, I'm not afraid You'll

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Speaker 1: keep me from all harm? What makes the lamb love Mary?

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Speaker 1: So the eager children cry, Oh, Mary loves the lamb?

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Speaker 1: You know? The teacher did reply. And you, each, gentle animal,

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Speaker 1: and confidence may bind and make them follow at your

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Speaker 1: call if you are always kind. Mary Sawyer was twenty

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Speaker 1: four years old when Sarah Hale's poem was published in

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty. It's unclear when Sawyer first saw the poem,

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Speaker 1: but she didn't come forward with her story until eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy six, when she was seventy years old. By that point,

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Speaker 1: she was convinced the poem was about her, and that

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Speaker 1: the first half of it had been written by John

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Speaker 1: roll Stone. Unfortunately, he was no longer alive to confirm

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Speaker 1: or deny that story. Roll Stone had died unexpectedly at

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Speaker 1: age seventeen during his freshman year at Harvard. Sawyer no

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Speaker 1: longer had the poem he allegedly gave her, but that

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Speaker 1: didn't stop her from claiming to be the Mary in

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Speaker 1: the poem. In eighteen seventy six, she used that claim

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Speaker 1: to fame to raise money for Boston's Old South Meeting House,

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Speaker 1: which had been damaged in a fire four years earlier.

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Speaker 1: Sawyer are participated in the fundraising effort by selling autographed

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Speaker 1: cards that included a piece of yarn supposedly made from

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Speaker 1: the wool of Mary's little lamb. The cards were a

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Speaker 1: popular item and helped bring attention to Mary Sawyer's claim.

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Speaker 1: A few years later, Sawyer wrote down the poem she

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Speaker 1: attributed to roll Stone, and it was identical to the

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Speaker 1: first half of Sarah Hale's poem. Of course, by that point,

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Speaker 1: Mary had a Little Lamb was well known across the country,

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Speaker 1: and Hale's version had been in print for fifty years,

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Speaker 1: so the fact that Sawyer had knowledge of it in

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Speaker 1: eighty three did very little to support her claim. Sawyer

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Speaker 1: admitted to the press that she had no clue how

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Speaker 1: Sarah Hale could have gotten roll Stone's poem. As far

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Speaker 1: as she knew, she had been given the only copy

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Speaker 1: and she had lost it long ago. For her part,

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Speaker 1: Sarah Hale maintained that she was the one and only

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Speaker 1: author of the poem and that she hadn't based it

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Speaker 1: on a specific real life episode. The dispute drew so

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Speaker 1: much public attention that both women eventually signed sworn statements

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Speaker 1: that their version of events was the truth. Unfortunately, the

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Speaker 1: controversy was still unresolved when the women died, prompting residents

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Speaker 1: of their respective hometowns to carry on the fight over

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Speaker 1: authorship for decades to come. The feud was later intensified

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Speaker 1: in n when Henry Ford, of all people, injected himself

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Speaker 1: into the debate. That year, he purchased Mary Sawyer's old

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Speaker 1: schoolhouse and had it relocated to Sudbury, Massachusetts, where he

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Speaker 1: hoped it would become a tourist attraction. Ford also published

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Speaker 1: a book about Sawyer to help promote his endeavor. It

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Speaker 1: was called The Story of Mary and her Little Lamb,

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Speaker 1: and it attributed full credit for the original poem to

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Speaker 1: John roll Stone. Ford wasn't privy to any historical facts

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Speaker 1: that proved Sawyer's story, but it was her version of

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Speaker 1: a sense, not Sarah Hales, that provided a tangible object

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Speaker 1: he could promote, the very schoolhouse to which Mary's little

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Speaker 1: Lamb had followed her. Ford's promotion kept Sawyer's story in

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Speaker 1: the limelight throughout the twentieth century, even though the story

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Speaker 1: itself is less than convincing. I mean, don't get me wrong,

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Speaker 1: I fully believe that Mary Sawyer had a pet lamb

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Speaker 1: that followed her to school, caused a disturbance, and had

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Speaker 1: to be put outside. I also believe that one of

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Speaker 1: her schoolmates wrote a poem about the event and gifted

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Speaker 1: it to her. But there's quite a gap between believing

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Speaker 1: that and believing the claim she made nearly fifty years later.

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Speaker 1: The truth is there's no written record of roll Stone's poem.

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Speaker 1: There's also nothing so unique about the poem's story that

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Speaker 1: would tie it specifically to Mary Sawyer. In the nineteenth century,

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Speaker 1: New England had no shortage of girls named Mary, orphaned

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Speaker 1: pet lambs, or one room schoolhouses. One such Lamb fall

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Speaker 1: would marry Sawyer to her school one day, but that

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Speaker 1: was likely true of many other children in the area

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Speaker 1: as well, including those named Mary. At the very least,

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Speaker 1: it's a scenario that Sarah Hale could have easily come

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Speaker 1: up with on her own. It's true that the last

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Speaker 1: twelve lines of the poem are more message driven than

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Speaker 1: the first twelve lines, but that was a popular format

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Speaker 1: for children's poems at the time. Like Aesop's Fables before them,

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Speaker 1: Hale's poems hooked the reader with an amusing scene or story,

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Speaker 1: and then concluded by spelling out the deeper meaning or

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Speaker 1: message of the tale. There's also the matter of Sarah

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Speaker 1: Hale's character to consider. If Mary Sawyer was right, then

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Speaker 1: Hale plagiarized half of her poem from a dead college

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Speaker 1: student and then claimed the whole thing as her own.

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Speaker 1: That simply doesn't fit with what we know about her life.

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Speaker 1: Hale was the respected editor of a popular magazine as

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Speaker 1: well as an influential activist. She led a successful campaign

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Speaker 1: to complete a monument to the Battle of Bunker Hill,

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Speaker 1: and most famously, she played an instrumental role in making

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Speaker 1: Thanksgiving a national holiday. It's hard to square that conception

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Speaker 1: of her with Sawyer's accusation, and given the lack of

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Speaker 1: evidence for the claim, maybe we don't have to. Today.

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Speaker 1: Sarah Hale is generally attributed as the one and only

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Speaker 1: author of Mary's Lamb, but there's often a caveat or

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Speaker 1: asterix along with that statement. It seems like an undeserved

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Speaker 1: footnote to her legacy, and hopefully, in the years ahead,

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Speaker 1: it's one that will be removed. I'm Gabe Louzier and

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Speaker 1: hopefully you now know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. If you want to keep up

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Speaker 1: with the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: you have any comments or suggestions, you can always send

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Speaker 1: them my way at this Day at I heart media

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Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back

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Speaker 1: here again tomorrow for another Day in History. Class h