The history of the Mary Had a Little Lamb song goes back to the early 1800s, and is quite possibly based on a real incident involving Mary Sawyer and her pet lamb. At the insistence of Mary’s brother, Mary brought her lamb friend to the schoolhouse, attracting the attention of her classmates and a minister’s nephew John Roulstone. At the time, it was customary to prepare for college by studying with a minister, thus, the reason for Roulstone being there. One theory states that it was Roulstone who wrote the first few lines “Mary had a little lamb/whose fleece was white as snow,” and that the rest of the nursery rhyme was written by Sarah Josepha Hale. Another theory states that Hale wrote the entire poem herself, and most sources tend to abide by that theory.
The poem was published on May 24, 1830 by a Boston publishing firm Marsh, Capen, & Lyon. History tells us that the incident took place in Sterling, Massachusetts at the Redstone School. The school was constructed in 1798, then bought and relocated to Sudbury, Massachusetts by Henry Ford. It currently stands on a churchyard by Longfellow’s Wayside Inn. A statue of the famous lamb stands in the town center of Sterling, with the first few lines and credited to John Roulstone.
The rhyme has been re-imagined several times, most notably by blues artists Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughn, as well as Paul McCartney. Mary Had a Little Lamb is very innocent in origin, compared to other nursery rhymes. Mary, the lamb, the classmates and schoolteacher being representations of the real Mary Sawyer and the events that occurred that day. You will come into contact with this rhyme in various forms, including children’s books, music, animation, and in the classroom. It remains very popular to this day!