[taken from Chapter 9 Manx Worthies, A.W.Moore, 1901]

DANIEL TEAR (b. 1677, d. 1787),

a native of Andreas, was, during the latter part of his life, a vagrant, spending his time in " going on the houses," as the Manx phrase has it. Sir Wadsworth Busk, attorney-general, erected a stone to his memory in Santon Churchyard, and wrote the following lines which are engraved upon it :-

Here friends is little Daniel's tomb,
To Joseph's years he did arrive;
sloth killing thousands in their bloom,
While labour kept poor Dan alive.
How strange, yet true, full seventy years
Was his wife happy-in her Tears.

His age, as given on the stone, is 110, but he was generally supposed to be older.