Mary had a little lamb

As written By John Roulstone,
Author of the first twelve lines of the now famous poem.

Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was as white as snow,
And every were that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.

It followed her to school one day,
That was against the rule,
It made the children laugh and play,
To see the lamb at school.

And so the teacher turned it out,
but still it lingered near,
And waited patiently about,
Till Mary did appear.

The story goes that one day in March of 1815 in Sterling, Mass. a lamb was born and it was forsaken by its mother, and was almost dead. (Mary was about 9) Mary asked her farther if she could take it into the house, at first he said no but Mary convinced him to allow her to take the lamb in. She nursed the lamb thru the night and by morning the lamb could stand and its health had improved rapidly. The lamb became a pet and would follow her every were.

One day on her way to school the lamb followed Mary, she did not know this at first, when she did notice her brother Nat suggested that they take the lamb to school. Being a child she thought it was a good idea. When they reached the school yard the teacher had not arrived yet so Mary
took the lamb to her seat and put it under her seat and covered it up with a blanket, the lamb laid down and was very quite. Later on when Mary was called to the front of class to recite something the lamb followed her.

The teacher (Miss Polly Kimball) laughed and so did all the children, she then took the lamb out side until lunch time when she took the lamb home.

That day a young man was visiting the school by the name of John Roulstone (John was born in 1805 and died on Feb. 20, 1822 in Boston at the age of 17), a nephew of the Reverend Lemuel Capen a minister in Sterling from 1815 - 1819. The man was so inspired by the incident that
the next day he rode up on horse back to the school house and handed Mary a piece of paper with the poems for 12 lines written on it.

Whilst there is not a direct link between our Roulstone line of the surname as yet, it could still be conceivable that we are related as the forename and middle name of John does reoccure through out our line of Roulstone's names.