Mary Had A Little Lamb, And 2 Towns Claim Her

BOSTON - The question is not whether Mary had a little lamb. The question - or polite debate between two New England towns - is whether Mary and her lamb really did inspire the poem, or if the rhyming ditty is complete fiction.

Residents of Sterling, a tiny town in central Massachusetts, insist the poem about a lamb with fleece as white as snow was written by a classmate of Mary Sawyer after Mary's lamb followed her to school one day in 1815.

The people of Newport, N.H., beg to differ.

They claim "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was penned by poet and publisher Sarah Josepha Hale, and scoff at the suggestion it was done by a child.

Though parties to the dispute say the issue is not a big deal, their passion belies their supposed nonchalance.

Diane Melone, a direct descendant of Mary Sawyer, said it has always been known that Mary's classmate, John Roulston, wrote the poem after Mary's lamb arrived at school.

"I've got written testimonies from people that were either in the classroom, or from his father sort of stating it happened," Melone said.

Melone owns the Sterling house where her forebear lived and is trying to get it listed on the National Register of Historic Places. She has a massive collection of documents relating to the nursery rhyme, and ever since she can remember, she or a member of her family has dressed up as Mary with the lamb in her town's annual parade.

The town is behind Mary, too.

It not only throws a parade, it has a statue of her in the town square and an entire room at the historical society dedicated to her memory.

The devotion to the poem may be a little more subdued in Newport, N.H., but the townspeople are no less sure of themselves.

Newport, which is about 70 miles from Sterling, has a plaque memorializing Hale as the author.

"We don't have a lamb on the common and we don't have a schoolhouse you can visit," sniffed Andrea Thorpe, director of the Richards Free Library in Newport.

What the town does have is published proof of Hale's poem.

The first recorded publication of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was by Hale in a magazine called Juvenile Miscellany in 1830. The poem also appeared the same year in Hale's book "Poems for Our Children."

Born in 1788, Hale was the author of several books, as well as an abolitionist and editor of the influential Godey's Ladies Magazine for 41 years. Several publications of the nursery rhyme appear under Hale's name, and the Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes lists her as author, although it does acknowledge the debate about Mary Sawyer.

Melone has no problem giving Hale credit for first publishing the verse. But she claims Hale took the original first three stanzas written by Mary, added the final ones, then published the whole thing under her name.

"Sarah Josepha Hale was a writer and publisher. She was certainly an amazing woman," Melone said. "The first three (stanzas) are certainly very different from the last three. It doesn't take a poetry expert to see that."

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Woolly debate

Mary had a little lamb,

Its fleece was white as snow,

And everywhere that Mary went

The lamb was sure to go;

He followed her to school one day,

That was against the rule.

It made the children laugh and play,

To see a lamb at school.

And so the teacher turned him out,

But still he lingered near,

And waited patiently about,

'Till Mary did appear;

And then he ran to her, and laid

His head upon her arm,

As if he said, 'I'm not afraid,

You'll keep me from all harm.'

`What makes the lamb love Mary so?'

The eager children cry,

`O, Mary loves the lamb, you know,'

The teacher did reply;

And you each gentle animal

In confidence may bind,

And make them follow at your will,

If you are always kind.