MARY'S LITTLE LAMB

Waipa Post, Volume 37, Issue 2191, 2 August 1928, Page 3

MARY'S LITTLE LAMB

Despatches from London reporting the 88th. birthday of Mrs Mary Hughes, the original "Mary" >of the famous nursery rhyme, "Mary had a Little Lamb," are particularly interesting because the Hughes claim is challenged stqutly by American students, the majority of whom have been taught to be believe, that Mary Sawyer, of Sterling, Massachusetts, was the original owner of the historic animal (writes the New York correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph). The Rev. Samuel Capen, Methodist minister at Sterling, left a record describing how ;Mary Sawyer was followed by an affectionate lamb, and that the latter was expelled by the teacher "for inciting the children to laughter and play." Sterling's claims, however, are in turn disputed by Newport, New Hamshire, which also claims to have been the original scene of the episode and that Sarah Josepha Hale, of that town, was actually the author of the famous rhyme.. Suddenly, Massachusetts, has a schoc 1 which is believed by the oldest inhabitants to be a restoration of the one that Mary and her lamb attended. Mr Henry Ford, the motor-car manufacturer, bought the door-step, corrhr stone, and several pieces of the foundation of the Sterling school, and subsequently acquired some of the woodwork which had been taken from the school to build a garage. Mr Ford caused these to be transported to Sudbury, where the school was reerected, and the pupils, children of his motor-car factory employees, are now in daily attendance. Mr Ford is a strong supporter of the school which believes that Mary Sawyer was the heroine of the childhood classic, and that John Roulston, nephew of the Rev. Samuel Capen, was the actual author. In Sterling to-day there is far more excitement regarding the authorship of Mary's "little lamb" than ever existed regarding the rival claims of Shakespeare and Bacon.