Short Stuff: Mary Had A Little Lamb

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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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? 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, 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 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 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 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 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