The Sterling genealogy

WILLIAM STERLING OF HAVERHILL, MASS. 295
William appears to have lived at Norwalk, Conn., for a short
time after his marriage. He first appears at Fairfield, Conn., when
he bought land on Paul's Neck, May 11, 1716, of Daniel Burr.
William had a great-grandson, Nathaniel Sterling, of Wilton,
whose interest in the family's history led him to make some investi-
gation, the results of which were thus entered in the family Bible
of his, Nathaniel's, father: "Jacob Sterling was living on Paul's
Neck (a little east of the village and court house of Old Fairfield,
just where Ash house creek empties into the Sound and where
there is now standing an old tide mill ; another which stood very
near has just been torn down and taken away) in 1709." " William
Sterling, supposed to be Jacob's son, lived on Paul's Neck and
probably there died and was buried there. He had 4 sons, named
William, Isaac, Daniel, & Samuel who all emigrated about 1760,
to the north part of Norwalk, now Wilton, where they all lived
until their deaths."
" William second, left a son William [Nathaniel's father] and
died in 1801, aged 84, and was buried in the old grave yard, south
of the M. E. Church in Wilton. These facts were ascertained
by N. Sterling, by visiting the ground and the Town Records,
on this seventh day of July, 1847." " An old Lady, the widow
of James Penfield, who lived on Paul's Neck before and after 1786,
who is now eighty one years old and lives on Holland Hill, near
Fairfield, confirms the account above stated."
Nathaniel made two mistakes ; Jacob lived on Seeley's Neck,
separated from Paul's Neck by an arm of Long Island Sound,
and he was not William's father, but his uncle.
William Sterling was a miller. He owned a tide mill on Paul's
Neck, very likely one of those which his great-grandson mentions
above. In those early days, fences about fields were not as general
as they are now, so that cattle often strayed. The " Proprietors'
Book " for Fairfield, Jan. 3, 1748-49, tells us : " Taken up in a
suffering condition by W lllm Starling, a red, white face steer,
bapt. Mar. 24, 1604-5, m. William Sterling: Sarah, bapt. May 22. 1098; Jacob, 1>.
Nov. 2, 1701, m. Abigail Sterling; Martha b. Sept. 12, 1703, and Samuel, b. June SO,
1706.
(Savage's Gene. Dictionary; Hubbard Gene.; Town Records of Roxbury, lair-
field, and Wilton.)