Sterling Rex Barnes
(Gravesite in Heath Cemetery)
Virginia native Sterling Rex Barnes (1799-1866) migrated to this area from Mississippi with his wife Martha Ann (Mitchell) (b.1809) and family in 1846. A pioneer settler in the community of Black Hill, now Heath, he was a charter member of East Trinity Masonic Lodge No. 157 in Rockwall, organized in 1854. Barnes was the local justice of the peace in 1852 and operated a toll bridge at a site on the East Fork of the Trinity River, now under the waters of Lake Ray Hubbard. Five sons and one son-in-law served with the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Marker is at the intersection of Smirl Drive (Farm to Market Road 1140) and Terry Lane, on the left when traveling east on Smirl Drive.
Courtesy hmdb.org
