The Sawyer Homestead was a historic house at 108 Maple Street in
Sterling, Massachusetts
Sterling is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 7,985 at the 2020 census.
History
Previous to its incorporation, it was "the Second Parish of Lancaster." It was commonly called by a portion of its In ...
. With an estimated construction date of 1756, the house was one of Sterling's oldest surviving structures, before it was destroyed by an
arsonist
Arson is the act of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, waterc ...
in 2007. It was also notable as the birthplace of
Mary Sawyer, who alleged she was the subject of the American children's
nursery rhyme
A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and other European 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.
Fr ...
"
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. Its Roud Folk Song Index number is 7622.
Background
The nursery rhyme was firs ...
".
The house was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 2000.
The Sawyer family, whose descendants still own the property, have had a reproduction of the house built on its site.
Description and history
The Sawyer Homestead is located in rural eastern Sterling, at the junction of Maple Street and Rugg Road. It is a -story Cape style wood-frame structure, four bays wide, with an off-center interior chimney, clapboard siding, and a stone foundation. The main entrance is in the second bay from the left. A single-story gabled ell extends to the rear. The property included, prior to the rebuilding effort, an early 20th-century Federal Revival outbuilding, and a barn was located across Rugg Road. The barn was also destroyed by an arsonist, in 1979.
[
The original house had a complex evolutionary construction history, dictated by the changing demands of the Sawyer family, who occupied the house for more than 250 years. The traditional historical claim is that the core of the house was built in 1756 by Ezra Sawyer, Jr., who died while serving in the ]American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...
. Sawyer's granddaughter Mary is believed to be the girl described in the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb," attributed to Sarah Josepha Hale
Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (October 24, 1788April 30, 1879) was an American writer, activist, and editor of the most widely circulated magazine in the period before the American Civil War, Civil War, ''Godey's Lady's Book''. She was the author of t ...
. Sawyers lived in the house until 1889, and owned it and the surrounding farmland for most of that time as well. The property then stood vacant and deteriorating, but remained the property of a Sawyer family trust.[ It was destroyed by an arsonist on August 12, 2007.]
See also
*
References
{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Sterling, Massachusetts
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts