 sarah josepha buell hale (october 24, 1788 â april 30, 1879) was an american writer and an influential editor. she is the author of the nursery rhyme "mary had a little lamb". hale famously campaigned for the creation of the american holiday known as thanksgiving, and for the completion of the bunker hill monument. ==early life and family== sarah josepha buell was born in newport, new hampshire, to captain gordon buell and martha whittlesay buell. her parents believed in equal education for both sexes.howe, daniel walker. what hath god wrought: the transformation of america, 1815â1848. new york: oxford university press, 2007: 608. isbn 978-0-19-507894-7 home-schooled by her mother and elder brother horatio (who had attended dartmouth), hale was otherwise an autodidact. as sarah buell grew up and became a local schoolteacher, in 1811 her father opened a tavern called the rising sun in newport. sarah met lawyer david hale the same year.parker, gail underwood. more than petticoats: remarkable new hampshire women. guilford, ct: globe pequot, 2009: 25. isbn 978-0-7627-4002-4 the couple married at the rising sun on october 23, 1813, and ultimately had five children: david (1815), horatio (1817), frances (1819), sarah (1820) and william (1822).parker, gail underwood. more than petticoats: remarkable new hampshire women. guilford, ct: globe pequot, 2009: 26â27. isbn 978-0-7627-4002-4 david hale died in 1822,douglas, ann. the feminization of american culture. new york: alfred a. knopf, 1977: 332. 10-isbn 0-394-40532-3 and sarah josepha hale wore black for the rest of her life as a sign of perpetual mourning.rose, anne c. transcendentalism as a social movement, 1830â1850. new haven, ct: yale university press, 1981: 24. isbn 0-300-02587-4 ==career== in 1823, with the financial support of her late husband's freemason lodge, sarah hale published a collection of her poems titled the genius of oblivion. thumb|northwood: life north and south (1852) four years later, in 1827, her first novel was published in the u.s. under the title northwood: life north and south and in london under the title a new england tale. the novel made hale one of the first novelists to write a book about slavery, as well as the first american woman novelists. the book also espoused new england virtues as the model to follow for national prosperity, and was an immediate success. the novel supported relocating the nation's afri
1788_births 1879_deaths 19th-century_American_novelists 19th-century_American_poets 19th-century_American_writers 19th-century_women_writers American_women_novelists American_women_poets American_women_writers Anglican_saints Burials_in_Philadelphia,_Pennsylvania Thanksgiving Writers_from_New_Hampshire Writers_from_Philadelphia,_Pennsylvania