Sterling, Connecticut
Windham county. This town lies 10 miles S.E. from Brooklyn and 44 E. by S. from Hartford. It was taken from Voluntown in 1794. Population, 1830, 1,240. The soil is a light gravelly and sandy loam, and produces good grain. Sterling is watered by two branches of Moosup river, a good mill stream, on which are four cotton mills.
"Near the centre of this town, there is a cavern, called the 'Devil's Den', possessing very singular and curious features. It is situated within a ledge of rocks, and has a circular area of about 100 feet in diameter. The rock is cleft in two places, forming at each a chasm or fissure about 50 feet in depth, through one of which there runs a small stream of water; the other communicates with a room about 12 feet square, at the interior part of which there is a fire place, and a chimney extending through the rock above, forming an aperture of about 3 feet square. In another part of the rock there is a natural stair case, winding around it from the bottom to the top. In the cold season of the year a large mass of ice is formed in the room above described, by the dashing of the water down the chimney, which continues there through nearly the whole of the warm months, the sun being almost excluded from this subterranean recess."
