historicall.y

A fictional illustration of the trial of Rebecca Nurse Between February of 1692 and May 1693 a witch finding hysteria that occurred in Massachusetts, America. These are known as the Salem witch trials because a group of young girls claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several old women in the colony. The trials resulted in twenty executions, one of the so called 'witches' was seventy- one years old Rebecca Nurse. Rebecca Nurse was a devout Christian and a kindly family woman, as well as being the pillar of the community. She was born in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk and went on the Mayflower voyage to New England (aka America). Rebecca's parents were William and Joanna Towne. William and Joanna also had three other daughters- Susan (died aged five), Mary (executed alongside her sister during the Salem witch trials) and Sarah (who was also convicted but survived and defended her innocent sisters but failed and was excommunicated along with the Nurses); th...

Mary had a little lamb, Little lamb, little lamb, Mary had a little lamb, It's fleece as white as snow,  And everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, The lamb was sure to go.  That is the first verse of a traditional nursery rhyme. In 1812 Mary Sawyer, an 11 year old girl from Boston, supposedly had a lamb that she took her to school one day on the suggestion of her brother! In 1863 Mary was raising money for her parish church when she found a pair of old stockings that had been made from the infamous lamb's wool, unraveled them and sold bits of the wool on little cards; these were priced at ten cents per souvenir!  Sarah Josepha Hale of Philadelphia is said to have written the original poem in 1823 but it was published in an American children's magazine in 1830. However, Mary claimed that a man named John Roulstone had actually written the rhyme. As a result a plaque was laid commentating the first three verses to Roulstone and the rest to Hale. The m...