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 Rockwalll, 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. (1981)