Butternut and Zion Roads, Sterling Township A history of the house done by Alice Lenz for Sterling Township states that Edward Cross came to Sterling in 1804 with his wife Frances Simons and the first three of their ten children. Tradition says that Edward had Masonic papers and built the stone house himself soon after he arrived in Sterling. The house stayed in the Cross family until 1895 when George Butler bought it. His children, Gerald and Glenna Butler Gilpin, became owners in 1953. They secured the old house but lived in a mobile home nearby. In 1991 Mario Egozi and Brian Millsap bought the house, unchanged in its essentials after almost 200 years. They had the house repointed, rewired, and a bathroom installed. The classic end-gabled, two-story stone house has a symmetrical facade with a simple center doorway, and six-over-six windows. There is a chimney at each gable end. An attached shed was made into a garage. Under layers of paneling and floor covering were the original exposed beams, the old plaster, and plank floors. There are the four fireplaces, two upstairs and two down with their original mantles. The kitchen fireplace has its swinging iron arm for pots still in place. What looks to be the remnants of a beehive oven are visible from the exterior kitchen wall. Stone houses are unusual in Wayne County where wood was so readily available and easily worked. The beautiful proportions of this early stone house speak to us today of an Irish builder who knew his trade and had an eye for perfection. Surrounded by fields, birch trees and a pond. it is truly an idyllic place.

From 1993 through 2008 the Honesdale National Bank published an annual wall calendar, each featured 13 historic sites. The sites were chosen and researched by a committee of the historical society and artwork was commissioned to Judy Hunt and William Amptman by the bank.

This page was one month of the calendar and was made possible through the Wayne County Commissioners and a Tourism Promotion Committee’s Tourism Grant.