Mary had a little lamb...

 "Mary had a little lamb 

Its fleece as white as snow 

And everywhere that Mary went

The lamb was sure to go "

The famous nursery rhyme was published in 1830 in "Poems for our children" by Sarah Hale. Did you know that Mary actually had a lamb? Mary Elizabeth Sawyer from Sterling, a 9 years old girl in 1815, discovered a sick lamb abandoned by his mother. After pleading with her father, she managed to keep the lamb as a pet and miraculously the lamb survived. He became a member of the family and often tagged along with Mary and her brother when they were going to Redstone school. Mary secretly petted him under the desk covering the lamb with a blanket. Oneday unfortunately Mary was called to the front and lamb jumped out of his hiding place.Children were delighted and had a good time with this pet lamb that day. Few days later John Roulstone, a student in the same school hands over a poem to Mary about her lamb.

The lamb lived four years and gave birth to three more lambs and Rhoulstone died at the age of 17 and he was a freshman at the Harvard university at the time. In 1839 Sarah Hale publishes the Poems for our children book and it contains Roulstones poem with 3 more stanzas at the end. However Hale claimed that the poem she has in her book was purely fictional and she was the author.

In 1920s Henry Ford came across these and he sided with Mary Sawyers version of the story. Ford ends up buying the Redstone school and  publishing a book about Mary and her lamb.

This poem is also the first audio recording in the world as Thomas Edison recorded it on his newly invented phonograph in 1877 as a a test. (You can listen to it from here) Mary Sawyers house was destroyed by some arsonists in 2007 but there is a restored version of her house and a statue of her lamb in Sterling and they continue to celebrate the local legend.