Redstone School

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Coordinates42°21′31″N 71°28′16″W / 42.358650°N 71.471215°W / 42.358650; -71.471215
Completed1798 (228 years ago) (1798)
Floor count1
Redstone School
Interactive map of the Redstone School area
General information
LocationSudbury, Massachusetts, U.S.
Coordinates42°21′31″N 71°28′16″W / 42.358650°N 71.471215°W / 42.358650; -71.471215
Completed1798 (228 years ago) (1798)
Technical details
Floor count1

The Redstone School is a one-room school located in the Wayside Inn Historic District of Sudbury, Massachusetts.[1] Built in 1798, it is believed to be the school to which Mary Sawyer took her lamb in the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb".[2][3]

At the time of Sawyer's attendance at the school, it was located in Sterling, Massachusetts. Since before the American Civil War, the building had served as a barn for a local Baptist Church parsonage. In early 1926,[4] the property was purchased by Henry Ford[5] and relocated around 20 miles (32 km) to the east, to a churchyard, on the property of Longfellow's Wayside Inn, where it stands today.[2] Ford operated the school for the benefit of children of his employees at the Wayside Inn.[6]

On January 17, 1927, the building reopened as a school,[4] operating for a further twenty-four years, with an average of around sixteen students of grades one through four.[6] It closed permanently in 1951.[2][6]

The school has windows on the right-hand side and at the rear; its blackboard occupies the interior of the left-hand wall.

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