The Redstone School is an historic

one-room school One-room schools, or schoolhouses, were commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Spain. In most rural and s ...

located in

Sudbury, Massachusetts Sudbury is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 18,934. The town, located in Greater Boston's MetroWest region, has a rich colonial history. History Incorporated in 1639, the bou ...

. Built in 1798, it is believed to be the school which Mary Tyler (née Sawyer) took her lamb to in the

nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes. From t ...

Mary Had a Little Lamb "Mary Had a Little Lamb" is an English language nursery rhyme of nineteenth-century American origin, first published by American writer Sarah Josepha Hale in 1830. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7622. Background The nursery rhyme was fi ...

". At the time of Tyler's attendance at the school, it was located in

Sterling, Massachusetts Sterling is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, USA. The population was 7,985 at the 2020 census. History Sterling was first settled by Europeans in 1720 and was officially incorporated in 1781. Previous to its incorporation it was "t ...

. The property was later purchased by

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...

and relocated to a

churchyard In Christian countries a churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church, which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language and in both Scottish English and Ulster-Scots, this can also ...

, on the property of

Longfellow's Wayside Inn The Wayside Inn Historic District is a historic district on Old Boston Post Road in Sudbury, Massachusetts. The district contains the Wayside Inn, a historic landmark that is one of the oldest inns in the country, operating as Howe's Tavern ...

, where it stands today. Ford operated the school for the benefit of children of his employees at the Wayside Inn. After closing in 1927, prior to its move, the school reopened for a further twenty-four years, with an average of around sixteen students of grades one through four. It closed permanently in 1951. The school has windows on the right-hand side and at the rear; its

blackboard A blackboard (also known as a chalkboard) is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate or calcium carbonate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Blackboards were originally made of ...

occupies the interior of the left-hand wall. File:Redstone School (rear).jpg, Rear File:Redstone School (interior).jpg, Interior

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures completed in 1798 1798 establishments in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Sudbury, Massachusetts One-room schoolhouses in Massachusetts