The Sterling genealogy

WILLIAM STERLING OF HAVERHILL, MASS. 277
Smith seventeen acres, near the highway leading to Capt. John
Coults, for £525.
Oct. 22, 1740, Ephraim Brockway deeded to Capt. Starlin a
two shilling right, near the Captain's home, " to be taken up in
y e Right formerly belonging to y e Daughter of Elizabeth Cornstock,
decsd," and Dec. 16 of the same year Capt. Starlin bought
of William Ely for £12, four acres lying near Hart Swamp. John
Butler sold to Daniel eight acres west of Hart Swamp, for £25,
on Apr. 27, 1741, and on May 12, 1743, Butler sold him land by
Hart Swamp for " Twelve Pounds old Tenor money." Again on
Sept. 13, of the latter year, Butler sold Capt. Starling land by
Falls River, for £12.
The last appearance of Daniel's name on the Lyme land records
is under date of Dec. 4, 1744, when he purchased of Capt. Richard
Ely an acre of land for £10 at Chestnut Hill.
Capt. Daniel Sterling had now passed his seventy-first birth-
day. He had been a prominent citizen of his town for forty years,
had served many terms in the town offices and been called in the
settlement of neighborhood differences and difficulties many times.
He had been an officer in the militia of the Northern portion
of the town since 1718 and a deacon in the Third Church of Christ
for many years beside being a member of various committees. He
was a man of considerable wealth and his position and aristo-
cratic tendencies are indicated by the number and value of the
articles of clothing mentioned in the inventory of his estate and by
the fact that he had a negro slave who undoubtedly served his
master in the capacity of a body servant. At this time there
were several thousand slaves in New England, the majority being
negroes brought from Africa and the West Indies, though a few
were of Indian blood. Slavery continued from the earliest Puri-
tan days down to 1800, but it never became general and there
always appears to have been some prejudice against it.
Captain Daniel was surely a man of high character and integ-
rity, who lived his life well in the fear of God. He died in Sterling
City " y e 30 th Day of June A. D. 1747." He is buried in the
Sterling City cemetery on his own ground, near the " Mil] Stream
or Falls Brook " with which his name was so intimately connected