<P> As a young girl, Mary Sawyer (later Mary Tyler) kept a pet lamb that she took to school one day at the suggestion of her brother . A commotion naturally ensued . Mary recalled: "Visiting school that morning was a young man by the name of John Roulstone, a nephew of the Reverend Lemuel Capen, who was then settled in Sterling . It was the custom then for students to prepare for college with ministers, and for this purpose Roulstone was studying with his uncle . The young man was very much pleased with the incident of the lamb; and the next day he rode across the fields on horseback to the little old schoolhouse and handed me a slip of paper which had written upon it the three original stanzas of the poem ..." </P> <P> Mary Sawyer's house, located in Sterling, Massachusetts, was destroyed by arson on August 12, 2007 . A statue representing Mary's Little Lamb stands in the town center . The Redstone School, which was built in 1798, was purchased by Henry Ford and relocated to a churchyard on the property of Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts . </P> <P> In the 1830s, Lowell Mason set the nursery rhyme to a melody adding repetition in the verses, starting with "Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb, Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow . </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (May 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table>

Lyrics of mary had a little lamb poem