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 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 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 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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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
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 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 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. 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 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
written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler. Playing brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more on this and lots of other surprise and controversies, visit our home planet how stuff Works dot com, and for more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.