Aspinock Memories
The history of nursery rhymes --- and one is true!
ByTerri Pearsall, AHS Curator
The other day I was planting flowers in my garden and one of my youngest neighbors — she’s almost 5 years old — saw me and came over to help me. After a few minutes, she asked me if I had any cookies. So, we went into the house and she saw my piano. She started singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and tried to play it on the piano. This got me thinking about nursery rhymes we sang or recited in our formative years.
“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” is an English lullaby. The lyrics are from an early-19th-century English poem written by Jane Taylor, “The Star” The poem was first published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection of poems by Taylor and her sister Ann. It is now sung to the tune of the French melody “Ah! vous dirai-je, maman”, which was first published in 1761 and later arranged by several composers, including Mozart.
How about the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb” that we all used to sing repeatedly. Did you know that it wasn’t just a nursery rhyme? There was a real 9-year-old girl named Mary who saved a dying lamb, and that lamb’s wool eventually helped save a piece of American History.
Her name was Mary Sawyer; she lived in Sterling, Mass. On a cold morning in March 1815, while helping her father do the morning chores, she discovered one of their ewes had given birth to twin lambs during the night. The mother rejected one of the lambs and it was too weak to stand, barely breathing. Without its mothers’ milk and warmth, the tiny lamb was dying. Mary’s heart broke and she asked her father if she could take it inside to save it. Her father said that it was almost dead and even if she tried it probably won’t survive. She pleaded until her father finally agreed although he made it clear he thought it was hopeless.
She carried the freezing lamb into the house and her mother agreed to let her try to save it. Mary wrapped the lamb in old garments and held it close to the fireplace, cradling it through the long night. By dawn, against all odds, the lamb was standing. Constant care feeding it milk by hand, keeping it warm for the next few days, the little lamb recovered completely.
The lamb became devoted to Mary recognizing her voice, came running when she called and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb truly was “sure to go”. One morning Mary’s brother grinned at her and suggested “let’s take the lamb to school”. Although she knew it was against the rules, the temptation was too strong and she agreed.
She smuggled the lamb inside by hiding it in a large basket under her desk, hoping it would stay quiet. It worked for a while until Mary was called to the front of the classroom. As she stood and began reading aloud, the lamb suddenly bleated loudly and leaped out from under her desk, following Mary’s voice to the front of the classroom. Students burst into laughter at the sight of a fluffy white lamb wandering through the desks bleating and looking for Mary. She was embarrassed but smiled at her lamb and led it outside to a shed until school ended. She thought that would be the end of it, a funny story to tell at dinner except that there was a visitor at the school that day, John Roulstone Jr., a college-bound student. He was amused by the sight of Mary’s devoted lamb following her into the schoolhouse.
The next day, John went back to the schoolhouse and handed Mary a slip of paper.
On it, he’d written three simple stanzas:
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go,
It followed her to school one day,
That was against the rules,
It made the children laugh and play,
To see a lamb at school.”
Mary treasured that piece of paper for years. The lamb lived to be four years old before she was accidentally killed in the barn. Mary’s mother saved some of the lamb’s wool and knitted stockings for her. She treasured those stockings for the rest of her life.
But this is just the beginning of the story. In 1830, 15 years after the incident, writer and editor Sara Josepha Hale published a collection called “Poems for Our Children.” “Mary’s Lamb” was among them, the verses John Roulstone had written, plus three additional stanzas with a moral lesson about kindness to animals. The poem spread like wildfire. By the 1850s, it was one of the most famous poems in the country.
It gets even better from here. In 1877, 62 years after Mary saved the lamb, inventor Thomas Edison was testing his brand-new phonograph, the first machine ever capable of recording and playing back sound. He needed something to recite to test if it worked. He chose “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and his voice reciting those words were the first audio recording in human history. The poem that began with a 9-year- old girl’s compassion became the first sound ever recorded.
In 1876, when Mary was 70 years old, Boston’s historic Old South Meeting House needed funds for preservation. Mary came forward donating the stockings her mother made from her lamb’s wool. She sold autographed cards tied with yarn from those stockings telling the world: “I am the Mary. This is my lamb’s wool.”
Mary died in 1889 at age 83. Today, a statue of her little lamb stands in Sterling, Mass.
So, the next time you hear someone sing “Mary had a little lamb,” remember: It wasn’t just a nursery rhyme. It was a true story about a real girl who taught us that compassion matters, those small acts of kindness echo through history, and that sometimes the gentlest hearts change the world in the most unexpected ways.
All information in this article was found on the internet.
Aspinock Memories graces the pages of the Putnam Town Crier to keep history alive.
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