Mary did indeed have a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow, and yes it did follow her to school one day. Mary was Mary Sawyer, an 11-year-old Bostonian whose lamb followed her to school one day in 1817. But who wrote the poem?
There’s some dispute here. A manuscript of the poem signed by Sarah Josepha Hale of Philadelphia and dated 23 January 1823 is still in existence, though it was written much earlier. It was first published in 1830 in an American children’s magazine.
In the late 1860s, Mary Tyler (née Sawyer) was trying to raise money to save an old church in Boston and took a pair of woollen stockings that had been made from the famous lamb, unravelled the wool and sold small pieces of it attached to commemorative cards at 10 cents a time.
Mary claimed that it was not Mrs Hale who had written the poem, but a man named John Roulstone. When Henry Ford bought Mary’s school in 1926 he had researchers look into the whole business, and on the commemorative plaque they attribute the first three verses to Roulstone and the last one to Hale.
The Redstone School (1798), now in sudbury,Massachusetts, is believed to be the school mentioned in the nursery rhyme.
Kind of random, but the more you know. Am I right?!?! Hope you enjoy this small little read. Thanks for reading!
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