"Mary's Little Lamb"
And in the afternoons Mary and Laura and Carrie recited. Even Grace knew "Mary's Little Lamb," and "Bo-peep Has Lost Her Sheep." – The Long Winter, Chapter 22, "Cold and Dark"
"Mary's Lamb" was first published in a small volume called Poems for Our Children, written by Sarah Josepha Hale (Boston: Marsh, Capen & Lyon,
1830). The following year, it was set to music and reprinted in Juvenile Lyre, the first American songbook for school children. It then appeared in the 1844, 1848, and 1853 editions of McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader, and, in 1857, was featured as Lesson XLVII in McGuffey's Second Reader;
none of the McGuffey entries give credit to an author. In 1858, Mrs. Hale, then the editor of Godey's Lady's Book, wrote that her children's books were out of print, but - copyright laws being what they were at the time - most of the poems had "been copied into other works."
Millions of children have grown up believing that "Mary's Little Lamb" is a Mother Goose rhyme, as it is often included in Mother Goose books. "Mary's Little Lamb" was so well known that the first four lines were recited by Thomas Edison in his first sound recording made in 1877. In a 1927 re-enactment of that first sound recording, Edison said: "The first words I spoke in the original phonograph, a little piece of practical poetry: Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go."
The poem at left is exactly as it was printed in Poems for Our Children, 1830, pages 6-7, written by Mrs. Sarah J. Hale.
The story, circa 1880.
At the time of the "Little House"® books, there was already a controversy over who wrote "Mary's Little Lamb," mainly because Sarah Josepha Hale hadn't fought for recognition as the author. Since this is something that the Ingalls family - and later, Laura Ingalls Wilder - might have read about in newspapers, it is included here.
In 1878, the following story appeared in many newspapers:
The True Story More in Detail than has Heretofore Been Published. – This is the last week of the spinning bee at the Old South Meeting-house, and the children will be interested in the following story, which is substantially correct, except that the lamb fed upon a more singular beverage than milk, namely, catnip tea. Mary has at some inconvenience promised to come each day this week, if possible, so as not to disappoint the children. Friday will be her seventy-second birthday.
Who would have believed that the little pet lamb which followed Mary everywhere would now be helping to save the Old South Church! All children know the old song: "Mary had a little lamb, / Its fleece was white as snow, / And everywhere that Mary went, / The lamb was sure to go." And many of them know that there is in Boston an old church, on Washington Street, at the corner of Milk. The land upon which it stands is worth a great sum of money, and, as the property was offered for sale, there was much danger that the house would be town down to make room for a block of stores. The old church has been so famous in the history of Massachusetts that there was a strong feeling against tearing it down, and to save it a number of women of wealth bought it, pledging over $400,000. For months they have been hard at work in a great many ways to secure money enough to pay for it. For several weeks past "Aunt Tabitha" has held a spinning bee in the church. Three or four old ladies, who were famous spinners in their young days, when it was the custom to wear homespun garments, have had their satchels and reels and wheels, and have spun for the people. A great many have watched them at their work each afternoon. To add to the attractions of the exhibition, the old ladies have been dressed in the styles which were common when they were young, and have worked in an old-time kitchen, with its open fireplace and glowing logs.
Among the visitors one day was the real Mary, who, when a little girl, had the pet lamb for her own. She was very willing to tell the story; suppose we listen with the rest. Little Mary's name was Mary Sawyer, and she lived in Sterling, Mass. She is now Mrs. Tyler, of Somerville, a vigorous lady over 70 years old. One morning she went out to the barn and found two little lambs, which had been born in the night. One was so weak and small that her father said it was of no use to try to raise it. Mary's tender heart pitied the tiny creature, and she begged her father to let her try to save it. he gave it to her care, promising that if it lived it should be her lamb. Mary took it into the house, wrapped it up, laid it in a warm place, and fed it carefully with milk. All day she watched it, and all night too. In the morning how glad she was to hear her father say that the lamb would live!
It was no wonder that the pet lamb loved its small mistress, and wanted to go everywhere with her. The day that it went to school, and was turned out, it happened that a young man was there who saw the whole, and wrote out the story in the verses which the children know so well. The lamb lived and thrived and had lambs of its own; it ran in the fields with the cattle, till one day a cow, with sharp horns, while playing, tossed it into the air, and it fell bleeding at the feet of Mary, who happened to be in the field. With deep grief she watched its life go out. From the lamb's wool a quantity of yarn had been spun, and Mrs. Tyler brought some of it to Aunt Tabitha's bee, and sold it at 25 cents for each piece, so that up to last week Mary's little lamb had earned $60 toward paying for the Old South Church in Boston. This is the true story of Mary's little lamb.
When the "real" subject of the story, said to be Mary Sawyer Tyler, died in 1889, it was circulated that "Mary's Little Lamb" was actually written by John Roulstone, a student of Harvard College, who was visiting at his uncle's parish in Sterling, Massachusetts, when he heard about the lamb and decided to write a poem about it. Mrs. Hale's son Horatio wrote a long letter to the Boston newspaper denying both stories, then Mary Tyler's nephew swore his aunt's tale to be correct, and Roulstone's story was also repeatedly said to be the truth.
The dispute was even more confusing because Sarah Hale had often said that the story was entirely fictional, yet some of her children and grandchildren remembered her saying that it was based on a real pet lamb she had as a child. There are debates over the authorship "Mary's Little Lamb" today, and much has been written about the subject. [Background information is from Joseph Kaster's "The Tale Behind Mary's Little Lamb." The New York Times, April 13, 1980, Sunday magazine, page 2+.]
Obituary. Sarah Josepha Hale.
As the Republic advances in its second century, the white-haired men and women who fought the battles, carried on the business, wrote the books, and edited the newspapers of its first hundred years drop away one by one. Mrs. Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, one of the oldest of American writers, died in Philadelphia on Wednesday evening, leaving as her memorial a mass of writings covering a period of nearly 60 years, and which everywhere show painstaking industry and a respectable literary capacity. She was born in Newport, N.H., in 1789. She married David Hale, a lawyer, retaining, however, her maiden name of Buell after assuming that of her husband. Mr. Hale died in 1822, and his widow began her literary life a year later, a book of poems, "The Genius of Oblivion," Concord, 1823, being her first venture. "Northwood," a novel in two volumes, appeared in 1827, and in 1828 she became editor of the Ladies' Magazine, published in Boston. In 1837 this periodical was united with Godey's Lady's Book. Mrs. Hale was its editor, ostensibly at least, till 1877. Her name has been most widely known in connection with the Lady's Book, but her pen was busy with other subjects than those growing out of her editorial duties. She wrote, first and last, more than 20 books, mostly of that peculiar type that one associates with the round table, with its red-and-black spread, the high-posted bedstead, the wooden mantel, with gilt china ornaments, and the white muslin curtain of the "spare room" in the low farm-house where, perchance, one has a passed a few careless vacation days. American women have written a whole library full of this class of literature. They were the books that mothers gave their sons and daughters as birthday presents, 30 years ago, bound, commonly in full morocco, with sides and backs gilt in arabesque patterns, but sometimes in simple muslin, with the same ornaments, and in silken case, with gilt edges. Such titles as "Flora's Interpreter," "The Ladies' Wreath," and "The Poet's Offering," some of Mrs. Hale's best-known books, will suggest the whole class. "Woman's Record, or Sketches of Distinguished Women," is a very useful manual, and takes its place with the best books of reference. Mrs. Hale's poems, plays, and novels failed to show any noteworthy creative ability in their author, but she never wrote a harmful line, and doubtless did much to benefit the circle she reached in communicating the simple faith and hopefulness of her own life. — The New York Times, May 2, 1879, page 4.
"Mary's Little Lamb" (TLW 22)
