The Sterling genealogy

200 THE STERLING GENEALOGY
William died at the home of his son, Capt. Daniel, in Sterling City,
Lyme, Jan. 22, 1719.
He was buried a mile south of Sterling City on the road which
now runs from Hamburg south to Old Lyme, in what is known as
the Bill Hill burying ground. The inscription on the stone which
marks the spot where his remains lie reads
Here lies the Body of
Mr. William Starlin
who departed this life
Jan. 22 nd 1719, in the
87 th year of his age.
In the summer of 1905 a stone wall was erected around the
Sterling family burial-ground at Sterling City, a sum having
been raised by the Compiler of this work for the purpose, by sub-
scription among a few of the descendants of the Lyme family of
Sterling.
It was thought advisable to remove the remains of William
Sterling from the Bill Hill ground, so that, after one hundred and
eighty-six years they might lie among those of his family and
descendants. This was done in the autumn of the same year.
The bones were in a fairly good state of preservation and from
their size it was determined that William Sterling was a man of
unusual height and strength. With the bones were found a quan-
tity of hand wrought nails used in the construction of his coffin.
Within the Sterling burying ground lie the remains of about
twenty-four members of the family. In 1905 the headstones of
the first wife of Capt. Samuel Sterling and of Stephen Sterling
were set up in the ground. The exact location of their graves is
lost, the stones having been removed and placed against a wall
that the land occupied by the graves might be tilled. These two
were buried back of the Capt. Samuel Sterling house, near a little
brook. They died of smallpox in 1777. After the cemetery came
into disuse by the family, some of the town's poor were illegally
buried there, but their graves, unmarked by stones, were not en-
closed within the wall.
Sterling City is a local name for a cluster of houses, num-
bering about fifteen, within a radius of an eighth of a mile, which