You know the tune. Honestly, you probably couldn't forget it if you tried. It’s the first thing kids learn to peck out on a piano and the first audio ever recorded by Thomas Edison on his phonograph in 1877. But when you ask who wrote Mary Had a Little Lamb, you usually get one of two very different answers, depending on who you’re talking to. It’s a bit of a historical tug-of-war between a prolific female editor from New Hampshire and a young girl from Massachusetts who claimed she lived the whole thing.
History is messy.
Most people just assume these rhymes materialized out of thin air or some ancient "Mother Goose" collection. This one is different. It’s tied to a real person, a real sheep, and a real schoolhouse that you can actually visit today if you’re ever driving through Sudbury, Massachusetts.
The Official Record: Sarah Josepha Hale
If you’re looking for the name on the copyright, it’s Sarah Josepha Hale. She was a powerhouse. We’re talking about the woman who basically single-handedly convinced Abraham Lincoln to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. In 1830, she published a book called Poems for Our Children, and right there on page ten was "Mary’s Lamb."
Hale didn't just write little ditty pieces for kids. She was the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, which was basically the Vogue of the 19th century. She was influential, educated, and sharp. Her version of the poem was three stanzas long and included a moralizing ending about how if children are kind to animals, the animals will love them back. It was very "1830s proper."
But here is where it gets kind of weird.
Decades later, an elderly woman named Mary Tyler (later Mary Sawyer) stepped forward and said, "Wait a minute. That’s my lamb."
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The Girl, the Lamb, and the Red Hook Schoolhouse
According to Mary Sawyer’s account—which she gave in the late 1800s to help raise money for the preservation of the Old South Meeting House in Boston—the poem wasn’t a work of fiction. It was a memory.
In 1806, on a farm in Sterling, Massachusetts, Mary found a sickly lamb in the barn that had been rejected by its mother. She spent the whole night bottle-feeding it. It survived. It became her shadow. One day, her brother Nate suggested they take the lamb to school.
You can probably guess what happened.
They tucked the lamb under a desk, hidden by Mary's shawl. But when Mary stood up for her lessons, the lamb trotted out after her. The whole class erupted. The teacher, a young man named Polly Kimball, laughed and shooed the lamb outside, where it waited on the steps for Mary to finish her day.
The "Third Party" Theory
Mary Sawyer claimed that a young man named John Roulstone, who was a student at the school, saw the whole thing. The story goes that he came back the next day and handed Mary a slip of paper with the first three verses of the rhyme written on it.
So, did Sarah Josepha Hale steal it?
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Not necessarily. Some historians think Hale might have heard the first few lines—which had become a sort of local folk rhyme in Massachusetts—and then expanded on it, adding the moral lesson and polishing the meter for her book. Others, including Hale’s own descendants, have been pretty adamant that she wrote the whole thing from scratch, drawing on her own childhood memories of New Hampshire farm life.
It's a classic "he-said, she-said" from two centuries ago.
Why the Red Bull of Rhymes Matters
It’s easy to dismiss this as trivial trivia, but the debate over who wrote Mary Had a Little Lamb actually tells us a lot about how intellectual property worked before the internet. Back then, stories traveled by word of mouth. They morphed. A "true" story from a schoolhouse in Sterling could easily find its way into the ears of an editor in Boston.
Henry Ford—yes, the car guy—was so obsessed with this story that he actually bought the schoolhouse Mary Sawyer attended. He had it moved to the Longfellow’s Wayside Inn property in Sudbury. He even tracked down Mary’s old "wool" (she had kept stockings made from the lamb's fleece) and distributed pieces of it as souvenirs. Ford was a firm believer in the Mary Sawyer version.
Breaking Down the Versions
Hale’s version is the one we recognize today as the "standard" text. It’s structured, rhythmic, and fits the 4-3-4-3 iambic meter perfectly.
- The Folk Version: Short, punchy, focused on the event.
- The Hale Version: Polished, published, and pedagogical.
Hale was a professional. She knew how to write for an audience. Even if Roulstone wrote a couple of lines as a joke for a classmate, Hale is the one who turned it into a cultural phenomenon. She gave it the legs to survive for 200 years.
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How to Verify the History Yourself
If you’re a history nerd or just want to win a pub quiz, here is how you can actually dig into the primary sources. Most of this is digitized now, so you don't even have to go to a dusty library.
- Search the Archives: Look for the 1830 edition of Poems for Our Children. You can find scans of this in the Library of Congress digital collections. It clearly lists Sarah Josepha Hale as the author.
- Visit the Site: The Redstone Schoolhouse in Sudbury, MA, is open to the public. You can see the actual building where the lamb allegedly disrupted class.
- Read the Affidavit: Mary Sawyer signed a formal statement in the 1880s attesting to the truth of the story. While an affidavit isn't "proof" of authorship (she was an old woman remembering something from 70 years prior), it provides a fascinating look at the oral tradition of the time.
Honestly, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. It’s highly likely that a real girl named Mary had a real lamb that really followed her to school. That’s the kind of cute story that sticks in a small town. It’s equally likely that Sarah Josepha Hale heard that story, or a version of it, and used her considerable talent to turn it into the poem that eventually conquered the world.
Actionable Takeaways for History Buffs
Don't just take the first result on Google as gospel. When researching historical figures like Hale or Sawyer, look for the "why." Why did Mary Sawyer come forward so late in life? (She was asked to help save a historic building). Why did Hale never acknowledge the Sterling story? (She was a professional author who took pride in her original work).
If you want to explore more about 19th-century literature and its origins, your next step should be looking into the Old South Meeting House archives. They hold many of the original documents related to Mary Sawyer’s claims. You can also look up the life of Sarah Josepha Hale; her work on the Bunker Hill Monument and Thanksgiving is actually far more impressive than a poem about a sheep.
Stop by the Wayside Inn if you're ever in New England. Standing in that tiny schoolhouse makes the whole debate feel a lot more real. You can almost see the lamb peeking around the door.
Next Steps for Researching This Topic:
- Check the Boston Public Library digital collections for 19th-century schoolbooks.
- Search for Sarah Josepha Hale’s letters regarding her editorial work at Godey’s Lady’s Book.
- Investigate the Henry Ford Museum archives for records on the relocation of the Redstone Schoolhouse.