SOURCE: "Chapter XVII: Mary's Lamb and Mr. Ford" in The Lady of Godey 's: Sarah Josepha Hale, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1931, pp. 279-305.

In the following excerpt, Finley discusses the controversy surrounding Hale's authorship of the poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

"Mary Had a Little Lamb," the most famous children's poem in the English language, was first printed in 1830. It was signed by Sarah Hale. Now Mrs. Hale's authorship of the first half of the poem has been challenged by Mr. Henry Ford, who has given credence to an old claim first made public in the late eighteen-seventies by a Mrs. Mary Sawyer Tyler. Mrs. Tyler asserted that she was the "Mary" of the poem, that it originally consisted of but twelve lines and was written by one John Roulstone, a youth who died in 1822.

"Mary's Lamb," as the poem was titled in Mrs. Hale's little volume...