{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_28223/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_28223","id":"gutenberg_28223","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28223","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - American","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Sociology","Quaker Hill (N.Y.)"],"text":"Produced by Tom Roch, Meredith Bach, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images produced by Core Historical\nLiterature in Agriculture (CHLA), Cornell University)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n               QUAKER HILL\n          A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY\n\n                   BY\n         WARREN H. WILSON, A. M.\n\n SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE\n     REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF\n         DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY\n\n                IN THE\n\n      FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE\n          COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY\n\n               NEW YORK\n                 1907\n\n\n\n\n           COPYRIGHT 1907,\n                  BY\n           WARREN H. WILSON.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nPART I.\n\nTHE QUAKER COMMUNITY:\n\nFROM THE SETTLEMENT OF QUAKER HILL, 1728, TO THE\nDIVISION OF THE MEETING, 1828.\n\n                                                                  PAGE\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nSources                                                              5\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nThe Locality                                                         8\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nThe Assembling of the Quakers                                       16\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nEconomic Activities of the Quaker Community                         20\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nAmusements                                                          28\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nThe Ideals of the Quakers                                           32\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nMorals of the Quaker Community                                      38\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nToleration of Hostile Forces                                        50\n\n\nPART II.\n\nTHE TRANSITION\n\nFROM THE DIVISION OF THE MEETING TO THE FOUNDING\nOF AKIN HALL, 1828 TO 1880.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nCommunication,--The Roads                                           63\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nEconomic Changes                                                    69\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nReligious Life in Transition                                        79\n\n\nPART III.\n\nTHE MIXED COMMUNITY\n\nFROM THE FOUNDING OF AKIN HALL TO THE PRESENT\nTIME, 1880 TO 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nDemotic Composition                                                 88\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nThe Economy of House and Field                                      98\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nNew Ideals of Quakerism, Assimilation of Strangers                 112\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nThe Common Mind                                                    118\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nPractical Differences and Resemblances                             130\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nThe Social Organization                                            135\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nThe Social Welfare                                                 141\n\n\nPART IV.\n\nORIGINAL APPENDICES\n\nFAMILY AND CHURCH RECORDS.\n\nAppendix A:--Heads of Families in Oblong Meeting, 1760             155\n\nAppendix B:--Names of Customers of Daniel Merritt, 1771            158\n\nAppendix C:--Deeds of Meeting-House Lands                          167\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nFourteen years ago the author came to Quaker Hill as a resident, and has\nspent at least a part of each of the intervening years in interested\nstudy of the locality. For ten of those years the fascination of the\nsocial life peculiar to the place was upon him. Yet all the time, and\nincreasingly of late, the disillusionment which affects every resident\nin communities of this sort was awakening questions and causing regrets.\nWhy does not the place grow? Why do the residents leave? What is the\nillusive unity which holds all the residents of the place in affection,\neven in a sort of passion for the locality, yet robs them of full\nsatisfaction in it, and drives the young and ambitious forth to live\nelsewhere?\n\nThe answer to these questions is not easily to be had. It is evident\nthat on Quaker Hill life is closely organized, and that for eighteen\ndecades a continuous vital principle has given character to the\npopulation. The author has attempted, by use of the analysis of the\nmaterial, according to the \"Inductive Sociology\" of Professor Franklin\nH. Giddings, to study patiently in detail each factor which has played\nits part in the life of this community.\n\nThis book presents the result of that study, and the author acknowledges\nhis indebtedness to Professor Giddings for the working analysis\nnecessary to the knowledge of his problem, as well as for patient\nassistance and inspiring interest. The gradual unfolding of the\nconclusions, the logical unity of the whole, and the explanation of that\nwhich before was not clear, have all been the fruit of this patient\nfield-work.\n\nThe study of human society is at the present time little more than a\nclassifying of material. Only with great reserve should any student\nannounce ultimate results, or generalize upon the whole problem. For\nthis period of classifying and analyzing the material, such study of\nlimited populations as this should have value. The author makes no\napology for the smallness of his field of study. Quaker Hill is not even\na civil division. It is a fraction of a New York town. Therefore no\nstatistical material of value is available. It is, moreover, not now an\neconomic unit, though it still may be considered a sociological one.\nThis study, therefore, must be of interest as an analysis of the working\nof purely social forces in a small population, in which the whole\nprocess may be observed, more closely than in the intricate and subtle\nevolution of a larger, more self-sufficient social aggregate.\n\nThe descriptive history of Quaker Hill, which it is my purpose in this\nbook to write, comprises three periods; and the descriptive sociology\nrecords two differing yet related forms of social life, connected by a\nperiod of transition. This study will then be made up of three parts:\nFirst, the Quaker Community; second, the Transition; and third, the\nMixed Community. The periods of time corresponding to these three are:\nThe Period of the Quaker Community, 1730 to 1830; second, the Period of\nTransition, 1830 to 1880; and third, the Period of the Mixed Community,\n1880 to 1905.\n\nThe Quaker Community, which ran its course in the one hundred years\nfollowing the settlement of the Hill, presents the social history of a\nhomogeneous population, assembled in response to common stimuli,\nobedient to one ideal, sharing an environment limited by nature,\ncultivating an isolation favored by the conditions of the time,\nintermarrying, and interlacing their relations of mutual dependence\nthrough a diversified industry; knowing no government so well as the\nintimate authority of their Monthly Meeting; and after a century\nsuffering absorption in the commerce and thinking of the time through\nincreased freedom of communication.\n\nThe Transition follows the Division of the Quaker Meeting in 1828, the\nbuilding of turnpikes, and the coming of the railroad in 1849. A\ncultured daughter of Quaker Hill, whose life has extended through some\nof those years, has called them \"the dark ages.\" It was the middle age\nof the community. The economic life of the place was undergoing change,\nunder the penetrating influence of the railroad; the population was\nundergoing radical renovation, the ambitious sons of the old stock\nmoving away, and their places being filled at the bottom of the social\nladder by foreigners, and by immigration of residents and \"summer\nboarders\" of the \"world's people.\" Above all, the powerful ideal of\nQuakerism was shattered. The community had lost the \"make-believe\" at\nwhich it had played for a century in perfect unity. With it went the\nmoral and social authority of the Meeting. Two Meetings mutually\ncontradicting could never express the ideal of Quakerism, that asserted\nthe inspiration of all and every man with the one divine spirit. This\nschism, too, was not local, but the Monthly Meeting on the Hill was\ndivided in the same year as the Yearly Meeting in New York, the\nQuarterly Meetings in the various sections, and the local Monthly\nMeetings throughout the United States.\n\nThe Period of the Mixed Community, from the building of Akin Hall and\nthe Mizzen-Top Hotel in 1880 to the year 1905 has been studied\npersonally by the present writer; and it is his belief that during this\nshort period, especially from 1890 to 1900, the Hill enjoyed as perfect\na communal life as in the Period of the Quaker Community. The same\nsocial influence was at work. An exceptionally strong principle of\nassimilation, to be studied in detail in this book, which made of the\noriginal population a century and a half earlier a perfect community,\nnow made a mixed population of Quakers, Irish Catholics and New York\nCity residents, into a community unified, no less obedient to a\nmodified ideal, having its leaders, its mode of association, its\npeculiar local integrity and a certain moral distinction.\n\nThis period appears at the time of this writing, in 1907, to be coming\nslowly to an end, owing to the death of many of the older members of the\nQuaker families, and the swift diminution--with their authority\nremoved--of the Quaker influence, which was the chief factor in the\ncommunity's power of assimilation.\n\nIf one may state in condensed form what this study discovers in Quaker\nHill that is uncommon and exceptional, one would say that the social\npeculiarity of the Hill is: first, the consistent working out of an idea\nin a social population, with the resultant social organization, and\ncommunal integrity; and second, the power of this community to\nassimilate individuals and make them part of itself.\n\n\n\n\nPART I.\n\nThe Quaker Community, from its Settlement in 1728, to the Division in 1828.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE SOURCES OF THIS HISTORY.\n\n\nThe sources of the history and descriptive sociology of Quaker hill are,\nfirst, the reminiscences of the older residents of the Hill, many of\nwhom have died in the period under direct study in this paper; and\nsecond, the written records mentioned below. At no time was Quaker Hill\na civil division, and the church records available were not kept with\nsuch accuracy as to give numerical results; so that statistical material\nis lacking.\n\nThe written sources are:\n\n    1. The records of Oblong Meeting of the Society of Friends until\n    1828; of the Hicksite Meeting until 1885, when it was \"laid down\";\n    and of the Orthodox Meeting until 1905, when it ceased to meet.[1]\n\n    2. Records of Purchase Meeting of the Society of Friends for the\n    period antedating 1770.\n\n    3. Ledgers of the Merritt general store of dates 1771, 1772, 1839.\n\n    4. Daybooks and ledgers of the Toffey store of dates 1815, 1824,\n    1833.\n\n    5. The \"Quaker Hill Series\" of Local History, publications of the\n    Quaker Hill Conference. In particular Nos. II, III, IV, VII, VIII,\n    IX, X, XI, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI and XVII.[2]\n\n    6. Maps of Fredericksburgh and vicinity by Robert Erskine in the De\n    Witt Clinton Collection, in the New York Historical Society\n    Building.\n\n    7. Papers by Hon. Alfred T. Ackert, read before the Dutchess County\n    Society in the City of New York, 1898 and 1899.\n\n    8. An Historical Sketch. The Bi-Centennial of the New York Yearly\n    Meeting, an address delivered at Flushing, 1895, by James Wood.\n\n    9. A Declaration of some of the Fundamental Principles of Christian\n    Truth, as held by the Religious Society of Friends.\n\n    10. James Smith's History of Dutchess County.\n\n    11. Philip H. Smith's History of Dutchess County.\n\n    12. Lossing's \"Field Book of the Revolution.\"\n\n    13. Bancroft's \"History of the United States.\"\n\n    14. Irving's \"Life of Washington.\"\n\n    15. \"Gazetteer of New York,\" 1812.\n\n    16. Akin and Ferris, Wing, Briggs and Hoag Family Records.\n\n    17. De Chastellux's \"Travels in North America.\"\n\n    18. Anburey's \"Travels in North America.\"\n\n    19. Thatcher's \"Military Journal of the Revolution.\"\n\n    20. Wilson's \"Rise and Fall of the Slave Power.\"\n\n    21. Barnum's \"Enoch Crosby.\"\n\n    22. \"The Writings of Washington,\" especially in Fall of 1778.\n\n    23. Proceedings of the New York Historical Society, 1859, etc.\n\n    24. New Milford Gazette, 1858, Boardman's Letter.\n\n    25. Poughkeepsie Eagle, July, 1876, Lossing's Articles.\n\n    26. Fishkill (New York) Packet, 1776-1783.\n\n    27. New York Mercury, 1776-1783.\n\n    28. Tax-lists of the Town of Pawling, New York.\n\n\n[1] The oldest records of Oblong meeting are contained in the\nrecords of Purchase Meeting, the mother society, from the earliest date,\nabout 1741, at which Oblong is mentioned, to 1744, when it became an\nindependent monthly meeting. Most of the early settlers on the Oblong\ncame through Purchase, married there and left their names on its pages.\nFrom the year 1744 Oblong Meeting was a meeting of record, but for\nthirteen years the minutes were written on loose sheets, which have been\nlost. They may indeed be in existence, for in 1760 the meeting directs\nClerk Zebulon Ferriss to record the minutes for the time he has been\nclerk; and appoints two to record the previous minutes from the\nestablishment of the meeting. If those two did as they were directed,\nthere should be a book of the oldest records of the Hill in existence;\nand in any case there may be in some old leather bound trunk, leaves of\nrecords from 1744 to 1757, whose value is beyond calculation. The\nminutes of the Meeting from 1757 until the division, and from that date\nuntil the Hicksite Meeting was laid down in 1885, are in the possession\nof John Cox, Librarian of the Yearly Meeting (Hicksite). From 1828, the\nyear of the division, until the present year, the minutes of the\nOrthodox Friends are in the possession of William H. Osborn. The minutes\nof the Women's Meeting previous to 1807 are missing; one volume, from\n9th Mo., 14th, 1807, to 3rd Mo., 16th, 1835, is with John Cox. In the\nsame place are three volumes of the record of Births, Marriages and\nDeaths: one from 1745 to 1774; then, after a gap, due to the absence of\na volume, is the second, from 1786 to 1866; and a third volume of births\nand deaths alone from 1828 to 1893. Volumes lacking in this collection\nare the records of births and deaths previous to 1828: and of marriages\nfrom 1774 to 1786.\n\nThe records of the present Orthodox Meeting in full, as well as the\nfollowing two volumes of the records of the Preparative Meeting of\nMinisters and Elders at Oblong, are in the possession of William H.\nOsborn on Quaker Hill; first from 10th month, 12th, 1783, to 1st month,\n13th, 1878; and second from 1878 to present time. Last of all, the\nrecord of births and deaths of the meeting, from 1810 to the present\nday, following the line of the Orthodox society, is in the possession of\nthe Post family on Quaker Hill.\n\n[2] LOCAL HISTORY SERIES.\n\nDavid Irish--A Memoir, by his daughter, Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer, of Quaker\nHill, N. Y.\n\nQuaker Hill in the Eighteenth century, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson, of\nBrooklyn, N. Y.\n\nQuaker Hill in the Nineteenth century, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson, of\nBrooklyn, N. Y.\n\nHiram B. Jones and His School, by Rev. Edward L. Chichester, of\nHartsdale, N. Y.\n\nRichard Osborn--A Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan, of Quaker Hill,\nN. Y.\n\nAlbert J. Akin--A Tribute, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson, of Brooklyn, N. Y.\n\nAncient Homes and Early Days at Quaker Hill, by Amanda Akin Stearns, of\nQuaker Hill, N. Y.\n\nThomas Taber and Edward Shove--a Reminiscence, by Rev. Benjamin Shove,\nof New York.\n\nSome Glimpses of the Past, by Alicia Hopkins Taber, of Pawling, N. Y.\n\nThe Purchase Meeting, by James Wood, of Mt. Kisco, N. Y.\n\nIn Loving Remembrance of Ann Hayes, by Mrs. Warren H. Wilson, of\nBrooklyn, N. Y.\n\nWashington's Headquarters at Fredericksburgh, by Lewis S. Patrick, of\nMarinette, Wis.\n\nHistorical Landmarks in the Town of Sherman, by Ruth Rogers, of Sherman,\nConn.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE LOCALITY.\n\n\nIn the hill country, sixty-two miles north of New York, and twenty-eight\nmiles east of the Hudson River at Fishkill, lies Quaker Hill. It is the\neastern margin of the town of Pawling, and its eastern boundary is the\nstate line of Connecticut. On the north and south it is bounded by the\ntowns of Dover and Patterson respectively; on the west by a line which\nroughly corresponds to the western line of the Oblong, that territory\nwhich was for a century in dispute between the States of New York and\nConnecticut. Its length is the north and south dimension of Pawling.\n\nThis area is six and a half miles long, north and south, and irregularly\ntwo miles in width, east and west. Quaker Hill can scarcely be called a\nhamlet, because instead of a cluster of houses, it is a long road\nrunning from south to north by N. N. E. and intersected by four roads\nrunning from east to west. The households located on this road for one\nhundred and sixty years constituted a community of Quakers dwelling near\ntheir Meeting House; and until the building of the Harlem Railroad in\nthe valley below in 1849, had their own stores and local industries.\n\nBefore the railroad came, Quaker Hill was obliged to go to Poughkeepsie\nfor access to the world, over the precipitous sides of West Mountain,\nand all supplies had to be brought up from the river level to this\nheight. At present Quaker Hill, in its nearest group of houses at the\nMizzen-Top Hotel, is three miles and three-quarters from the railroad\nstation at Pawling. Other houses are five and seven miles from Pawling.\nOn the east the nearest station of the New York, New Haven and Hartford\nRailroad, New Milford, is nine miles away. The \"Central New England\"\nBranch of the N. Y. N. H. & H., running east and west, is at West\nPatterson or West Pawling, seven and eight miles.\n\nThe natural obstacle which does more than miles to isolate Quaker Hill\nis its elevation. The \"Mizzen-Top Hill,\" as it is now called, is a\nstraightforward Quaker road, mounting the face of the Hill four hundred\nfeet in a half-mile. The ancient settler on horseback laid it out; and\nthe modern wayfarer in hotel stage, carriage or motor-car has to follow.\nQuaker Hill is conservative of change.\n\nThe mean elevation is about 1,100 feet above the sea. The highest point\nbeing Tip-Top, 1,310 feet, and the lowest point 620 feet. The Hill is\ncharacterized by its immediate and abrupt rise above surrounding\nlocalities, being from 500 to 830 feet above the village of Pawling, in\nwhich the waters divide for the Hudson and Housatonic Rivers. On its\nhighest hill rises the brook which becomes the Croton River. From almost\nthe whole length of Quaker Hill road one looks off over intervening\nhills to the east for twenty-five miles, and to the west for forty miles\nto Minnewaska and Mohonk; and to the north fifty and sixty miles to the\nCatskill Mountains.\n\nOne's first impressions are of the green of the foliage and herbage. The\ngrass is always fresh, and usually the great heaving fields are mellowed\nwith orange tints and the masses of trees are of a lighter shade of\ngreen than elsewhere. The qualities of the soil which have made Quaker\nHill \"a grass country\" for cattle make it a delight to the eye. Well\nwatered always, when other sections may be in drought, its natural\nadvantages take forms of beauty which delight the artist and satisfy the\neye of the untrained observer.\n\nThe Hill is a conspicuous plateau, very narrow, extending north and\nsouth. It is \"the place that is all length and no breadth.\" Six miles\nlong upon the crest of the height runs the road which is its main\nthoroughfare, and was in its first century the chief avenue of travel.\nCrossing it at right angles are four roads, that now carry the wagon and\ncarriage traffic to the valleys on either side; which since railroad\ndays are the termini of all journeys. The elevation above the\nsurrounding hills and valleys is such that one must always climb to\nattain the hill; and one moves upon its lofty ridge in constant sight of\nthe distant conspicuous heights, the Connecticut uplands east of the\nHousatonic on one side, and on the other, the Shawangunk and Catskill\nMountains, west of the Hudson, all of them more than 25 miles away.\n\nUnsheltered as it is, the locality is subject to severe weather. The\nextreme of heat observed has been 105 degrees; and of cold--24 degrees.\n\nQuaker Hill possesses natural advantages for agriculture only. No\nminerals of commercial value are there; although iron ore is found in\nPawling and nearby towns. On the confines of the Hill, in Deuell Hollow,\na shaft was driven into the hillside for forty feet, by some lonely\nprospector, and then abandoned; to be later on seized upon and made the\ntraditional location of a gold mine. The Quaker Hill imagination is more\nfertile and varied than Quaker Hill land. No commercial advantages have\never fallen upon the place, except those resultant from cultivation of\nthe fertile soil in the way of stores, now passed away; and the\nopportunity to keep summer boarders in the heated season.\n\nInterest which attaches to Quaker Hill is of a three-fold sort:\nhistorical, scenic and climatic. The locality has a history of\npeculiarly dramatic interest. It is beautiful with a rare and satisfying\ndignity and loveliness of scene; and it is the choice central spot of a\nregion bathed in a salubrious atmosphere which has had much to do with\nits social character in the past, and is to-day very effective in making\nthe place a summer settlement of New York people. The population is\nincreased one hundred per cent. in the summer months, the increase being\nsolely due to the healthful and refreshing nature of the place.\n\nThe history of the locality is associated with the quaint name, \"The\nOblong.\" This was the name of a strip of land, lying along the eastern\nboundary of New York State, now part of Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess\nCounties, and narrowing to the northward, which was for a century in\ndispute between New York and Connecticut.\n\nThere had been a half century in which this was all disputed land,\nbetween the Dutch at New York and the English in New England. Then\nfollowed a half century of dispute as to the boundary between sister\ncolonies, which are now New York and Connecticut. As soon as this was\nsettled in 1731 the immigration flowed in, and the history of Quaker\nHill, the first settlement in the Oblong, begins. It was granted to New\nYork; and in compensation the lands on which Stamford and Greenwich\nstand were granted to Connecticut after a long and bitter dispute. The\nend of the dispute and the first settlement of the Oblong came, for\nobvious reasons, in the same year. The first considerable settlement of\npioneers was made at Quaker Hill in 1731, by Friends, who came from\nHarrison's Purchase, now a part of Rye.[3]\n\nThe historical interest of the locality dwells in the contrast between\nthe simple annals of Quakerism, which was practiced there in the\neighteenth century, and the military traditions which have fallen to the\nlot of peaceful Quaker Hill. The \"Old Meeting House,\" known for years\nofficially as Oblong Meeting House, experienced in its past, full of\nmemories of men of peace, the violent seizures by men of war. That\nstoried scene, in the fall of 1778, when the Meeting House was seized\nfor the uses of the army as a hospital,[4] has lived in the thoughts of\nall who have known the place, and has been cherished by none more\nreverently than by the children of Quakers, whose peace the soldiers\ninvaded. Both the soldier and the Quaker laid their bones in the dust of\nthe Hill. Both had faith in liberty and equality. The history of Quaker\nHill in the eighteenth century is the story of these two schools of\nidealists, who ignored each other, but were moved by the same passion,\nobeyed the same spirit. It is said that a locality never loses the\nimpression made upon it by its earliest residents. Certain it is that\nthe roots of modern things are to be traced in that earliest period, and\nthrough a continuous self-contained life until the present day.\n\nIn the eighteenth century Quaker Hill was the chosen asylum of men of\npeace. Yet it became the rallying place of periodic outbursts of the\nfighting spirit of that warlike age; and it was invaded during the\ngreat struggle for national independence by the camps of Washington.\n\nThere is a dignity common to Washington battling for liberty, and the\nQuaker pioneers serenely planning seven years before the Revolution for\nthe freedom of the slave. But he was a Revolutionist, they were loyal to\nKing George; he was a man of blood, brilliant in the garb of a warrior,\nand they were men of peace, dreaming only of the kingdom of God. He was\nfighting for a definite advance in liberty to be enjoyed at once; they\nwere set on an enfranchisement that involved one hundred years; and a\ngreater war at the end than his revolution. Their records contains no\nmention of his presence here, though his soldiers seized and fortified\nthe Meeting House.[5] His letters never mention the Quakers, neither\ntheir picturesque abode, their dreams of freedom for the slave, nor\ntheir Tory loyalty.\n\nEach cherished his ideal and staked his life and ease and happiness upon\nit. Each, after the fashion of a narrow age, ignored the other's\nadherence to that ideal. To us they are sublime figures in bold contrast\ncrossing that far-off stage: Washington, booted, with belted sword,\nspurring his horse up the western slope of the Hill, to review the\nsoldiers of the Revolution in 1778; and Paul Osborn, Joseph Irish and\nAbner Hoag, plain men, unarmed save with faith, riding their plough\nhorses down the eastern slope in 1775, to plead for the freedom of the\nslave at the Yearly Meeting at Flushing.\n\nWhat effect the beauty of the place had upon the pioneer settlers it is,\nof course, impossible to say, for they have left no record of their\nappreciation of its beauty. Probably their interest in the picturesque\nwas the same as that of a Quaker elder, of fine and choice culture after\nthe Quaker standards, who said to the author, with a quiet laugh:\n\"People all say that the views from my house are very beautiful, and I\nsuppose they are; but I have lived here all my life, and I have never\nseen it.\" A Quakeress confessed to the same indifference to the beauty\nof the Hill, until she had resided for a time in another state, and had\nmingled with those who had a lively sense of beauty of scene; returning\nthereafter to the Hill, it appeared beautiful to her ever afterward.\n\nThe land has been for several generations under a high state of\ncultivation. The keeping of many cattle has enriched the broad pastures;\nand the dairy industry has been carried on with constant fertilizing of\nthe lands; so that the great fields, heaping up one upon another, high\nabove the valley, and plunging down in steep slopes so suddenly that the\nfalling land is lost from view and the valley below seems to hang\nunattached, are covered with a brilliancy of coloring and a variety of\nthose rich tints of green and orange which spell to the eye abundance,\nand arouse a keen delight, like that of possessing and enjoying.\n\nThere is also a large dignity in the outlines of every scene, which\nconstantly expands the sensations and gives, on every hand, a sense of\nexhilaration and a pleasurable excitement to the emotions, which seems\nin experience to have something to do with the industry and application\ncharacteristic of Quaker Hill.\n\nWith this the atmosphere has had much to do, no doubt, being dry and\nsoft. The first sensation of one alighting from a train in the town is\none of lightness and exhilaration. This sensation continues through the\nfirst hours of one's stay on the Hill.[6] After the first day of\nexhilaration come a day or more of drowsiness, with nights of profound\nsleep. In some persons a heightened nervousness is experienced, but in\nmost cases the Hill has the effect upon those who reside there of a\nsteady nervous arousal, a pleasure in activity, and a keen interest in\nlife and work.\n\nWhether the early settlers, in selecting the highest ground in this\nregion, had a sense of this excellence of the climatic effect we do not\nknow; but their descendants believe that such was their reason for\nsettling the highest arable land on the Hill before the valleys or the\nlower slopes were cleared.\n\nIt is the common tradition that they settled on the Hill first, and on\nits highest parts, in order to avoid the malaria of the lowlands; as\nwell as because they thought the hill lands to be more fertile.\n\nThe excellence of the climate is witnessed in the long lives of its\nresidents. There were living in 1903, in a population of four hundred,\nfive persons, each of whom was at least ninety years of age; and\nfifteen, each of whom was more than seventy-five years of age.\n\n\n[3] Mr. James Wood, in his Bicentennial Address in 1895, thus\ndescribed the Oblong:\n\nThe eastern side of the country had been settled by Presbyterians from\nConnecticut, and the western side along the Hudson River by the Dutch.\nThe feeling between them was far from friendly. Their disputes had been\nvery bitter, and Rye and Bedford had revolted from New York's\njurisdiction. Their whipping-posts stood ready for the punishment of any\nfrom the river settlements who committed even slight offenses within\ntheir limits. As the two peoples naturally repelled each other they had\nleft a strip of land, comparatively unoccupied, between them. This\ncontinued in nearly a north and south line, parallel with the river, and\na little more than midway between it and the Connecticut and\nMassachusetts lines, as far as they extended. Into and through the strip\nof land the Quaker stream flowed, like a liquid injected into a fissure\nin the rocks. Each Quaker home as it settled became a resting place for\nthose who followed, for it was a cardinal principle of Quaker\nhospitality to keep open house for all fellow members, under all\ncircumstances.\n\n[4] \"One First Day morning, in the mellow October days of that\nyear, the worshipping stillness of the Friends' Meeting was broken by\nthe tramp of horses, and the jangling of spurs, as a band of soldiers\nrode up, dismounted and entered the building. They remained quiet and\nreverent, till the handshaking of the elders closed the meeting; then\nthe commanding officer rose, and in the name of the Continental Congress\ntook possession of the building for a hospital for the troops, and as\nsuch it was used all that winter. After this meetings were held in the\n'great room' in the house of Paul Osborn, and were often frequented by\nsoldiers stationed in the place, who listened attentively to the\nspeaking, and left quietly at the close of the meeting.\"--Richard\nOsborn--a Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan, Quaker Hill Local\nHistory Series, No. VIII.\n\n[5] In the garret of the Meeting House rifle-ports, cut through\nthe original planks, were discovered by the present writer.\n\n[6] \"Bodily functions are facilitated by atmospheric conditions\nwhich make evaporation from the skin and lungs rapid. That weak persons\nwhose variations of health furnish good tests, are worse when the air is\nsurcharged with water, and better when the weather is fine; and that\ncommonly such persons are enervated by residence in moist localities but\ninvigorated by residence in dry ones, are facts generally recognized.\nAnd this relation of cause and effect, manifest in individuals,\ndoubtless holds in races.\"--Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology,\nVol. I, p. 21.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE ASSEMBLING OF THE QUAKERS.\n\n\nThe social mind of the Quaker Hill population was formed, at the\nsettlement of the place, in a common response to common stimuli. The\npopulation was congregated from Long Island and Massachusetts\nsettlements, by the tidings of the opening of this fertile land of the\nOblong for settlement in 1731. I infer from the fact that settlements\nwere previously made on both sides, at Fredericksburgh on one side, and\nat New Milford on the other,--at New Milford there was a Quaker Meeting\nestablished in 1729, fifteen years before Quaker Hill--that the value of\nthe lands in the Oblong was well advertised. From the fact noted by\nJames Wood (The Purchase Meeting, p. 10) that \"the first settlement in\nany considerable numbers was upon Quaker Hill in the Oblong,\" I infer\nthat the uncommon promise of this hill land had been made known to the\nQuakers then assembling at this \"Purchase in the Rye Woods,\" and that\nQuaker Hill was settled in response to the stimulus of valuable, fertile\nlands offered for occupation and ownership.\n\nIt seems to have been the desire of the first settlers to form a\ncommunity where they could live apart, maintain their form of religion\nand possess land fertile and rich. The Quakers are always shrewd as to\neconomic affairs, and the business motive is never lost sight of in the\nspiritual inner light. In choosing Quaker Hill soil they selected ground\nwhich after one hundred and sixty-seven years is the richest in the\nregion, sustains the best dairies, and is able longer than any other in\nthe neighborhood in time of drought to afford abundant green grass\nand verdure.\n\n\n[Illustration: MAP No. I.\n\nQUAKER HILL AND VICINITY. (From Robert Erskine's Map, 1778-1780, in De\nWitt Clinton Collection, New York Historical Society.)]\n\n\n[Illustration: MAP No. II.\n\nQUAKER HILL AND VICINITY. (Based on a tracing of United States\nGeographical Survey.)]\n\n\nTo this place thus secluded, came Benjamin Ferriss in 1728, and Nathan\nBirdsall. They settled upon the sites marked 31 and 39; which are 1,200\nand 1,100 feet above the sea, and very near the highest ground for many\nmiles. There was at this time, 1729, a meeting of Friends at New\nMilford, nine miles away; but these two men came from Purchase Meeting\nin the town of Rye, forty miles directly to the South. There soon\nfollowed others, bearing the names, Irish, Wing, Briggs, Toffey, Akin,\nTaber, Russell, Osborn, Merritt, Dakin, Hoag. In ten years the tide of\nsettlement was flowing full. In forty years the little community was\nfilled with as many as could profitably find a living.\n\nComplete records of the sources of this immigration are not available.\nJohn Cox, Jr., Librarian of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, says \"the\nrecords do not show in any direct way where the members came from. A few\ncame from Long Island meetings by way of Purchase, but most of them from\nthe East, and I believe from Massachusetts. Indirectly the records show\nthat the members occasionally went on visits into New England, and took\ncertificates of clearance there (to marry).\" Dartmouth, Mass., a town\nbetween Fall River and New Bedford, was the original home of so many of\nthem that it easily leads all localities as a source of Quaker Hill\nancestry. The Akin, Taber, Briggs families came from Dartmouth, which\nwas in a region of both temporary and permanent Quaker settlement.\nQuaker Hill, R. I., is within fifteen miles of Dartmouth. The residents\nof Quaker Hill, New York, preserve traditions of the returns of the\nearly Friends \"to Rhode Island.\" There is a Briggs family tradition of\nthe first pair of boots owned on the Hill, which were borrowed in turn\nby every man who made a visit to the ancestral home at Dartmouth.\n\nIt is probable also that some of the original residents came from Long\nIsland, though from what localities I do not know. The minutes of\nPurchase Meeting at Rye, through which meeting most of the Quaker Hill\nsettlers came, indicate in only a limited number of cases that the\nimmigrant came from a farther point; and leave the impression that the\nFriend so commended to the Oblong was already a resident of \"the\nPurchase,\" or of its related meetings at Flushing on Long Island. An\nexample is the case of William Russell and his wife, notable pioneers,\nthe earliest residents of Site 25, whose letter from Purchase Meeting in\n1741 indicates only that they came to Oblong from Purchase.\n\nThe settlement of the Hill continued from the early years, 1728-1731, at\nwhich it began, until 1770, when the community may be said to have been\ncomplete. The land was supporting by that time all it would bear. Since\nthat time the number of houses on the Hill has remained about the same,\nas will be seen from a comparison of the Maps I and II, the one made for\nWashington in 1778-80 and the other being a tracing of the map of the\nTopographical Survey of the United States Government of recent date.\n\nThe extent of this population resident upon the Hill is shown in the\nlists of persons whose names appear in Appendix A, which is a census of\nthe heads of families in the Meeting in the year 1761; added to which is\na list of names which appear in the minutes of the Meeting in years\nimmediately following. These lists show the growth of the population\nunder study, in the years from 1761 to 1780, for there are whole\nfamilies omitted from the list of 1761, who are named in the minutes in\nsucceeding years. An instance is that of Paul and Isaac Osborn, who came\nfrom Rhode Island in 1760.[7]\n\nAs this list of members of the meeting shows the actual size of the\npopulation resident upon the Hill in 1761, the other list published in\nAppendix B, containing the names of those who traded at the Merritt\nstore in 1771, exhibits, with startling vividness, the importance of\nQuaker Hill at that time. Little as the place is now, and geographically\nremote and hard of access always, it was evidently in the years named a\ncenter of a far-reaching country trade. This list is published in full,\nexactly as the names appear on Daniel Merritt's ledger, to convey this\nimpression; and by contrast, the impression of the shrinkage in the\nyears since the railway changed the currents of trade. It is published\nalso as a basis of this study, being a numerical description, in the\nrough, of the problem we are studying. And a third use which such a list\nmay serve is that of information to those interested in genealogy. It is\na veritable mine of information, suggestion, and even color, of the life\nof that time--as indeed are the ancient ledgers, bound in calf, and kept\nwith exquisite care, by this colonial merchant. In these old records are\nsuggested, though not described, the lives of a hard-working, prosperous\npopulation, filling the countryside, laying the foundations of fortunes\nwhich are to-day enriching descendants. It was a community without an\nidler, with trades and occupations so many as to be independent of other\ncommunities, hopeful, abounding in credit, laying plans for generations\nto come, and living bountifully, heartily from day to day.\n\nEvery item in these mercantile records is of interest and full of\nsuggestion, from the names of the negro slaves, who had accounts on the\nbooks, to the products brought for sale by one customer after another,\nby which they liquidated their accounts; from the \"quart of rum\" bought\nby so many with every \"trading,\" to the Greek Testament and Latin\nGrammar bought by solid Thomas Taber, who wrote his name in real estate\nby his thrift and force, if he did not write it in dead languages.\n\n\n[7] Richard Osborn--A Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan,\nQuaker Hill Local History Series, No. VIII, p. 10.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nECONOMIC ACTIVITIES OF THE QUAKER COMMUNITY.\n\n\nThe economic activity of the early Quaker Community was varied. All they\nconsumed they had to produce and manufacture. Though the stores sold\ncane sugar, the farmers made of maple sap in the spring both sugar and\nsyrup, and in the fall they boiled down the juice of sweet apples to a\nsyrup, which served for \"sweetness\" in the ordinary needs of the\nkitchen.\n\nEvery man was in some degree a farmer, in that each household cultivated\nthe soil. On every farm all wants had to be supplied from local\nresources, so that mixed farming was the rule. The land which its modern\nowners think unsuited to anything but grass, because it is such \"heavy,\nclay soil,\" was made in the 18th century to bear, in addition to the\ngrass for cattle and sheep, wheat, rye, oats and corn, flax, potatoes,\napples. Of whatever the farmer was to use he must produce the raw\nmaterial from the soil, and the manufacture of it must be within the\ncommunity.\n\nTwo lists which come to us from early days cast light on the population\nand occupations of the early period. One is the sheriff's list of\nlandowners in Dutchess County in 1740, on which is no name of any farmer\nthen resident on Quaker Hill. The other list is that of those who\nclaimed exemption from military duty in 1755; 38 are from Oblong and 21\nfrom Beekman, many of them being Quakers resident on the Oblong. This\nlist is as follows:\n\nJoshua Shearman, Beekman Prec'nt, shoemaker; Moses Shearman, Beekman\nPrec'nt, laborer; Daniel Shearman, Beekman Prec'nt, laborer; Joseph\nDoty, Beekman Prec'nt, blacksmith; John Wing, Beekman Prec'nt, farmer;\nZebulon Ferris (Oblong), Beekman Prec'nt, farmer; Joseph Smith, son of\nRich'd, Beekman Prec'nt, laborer; Robert Whiteley, Beekman Prec'nt,\nfarmer; Elijah Doty, Oblong House, carpenter; Philip Allen, Oblong,\nweaver; Richard Smith, Oblong, farmer; James Aiken, Oblong, blacksmith;\nAbrah'm Chase, son of Henry, Oblong, farmer; David Hoeg, Oblong, ----;\nJohn Hoeg, Oblong, farmer; Jonathan Hoeg, Oblong, blacksmith; Amos Hoeg,\nson of John, Oblong, laborer; William Hoeg, son of David, Oblong,\nfarmer; John Hoeg, son of John, Oblong, farmer; Ezekiel Hoeg, Oblong,\nlaborer; Judah Smith, Oblong, tailor; Matthew Wing, Oblong, ----;\nTimothy Dakin, Oblong, farmer; Jonathan Dakin, Oblong, laborer; Samuel\nRussell, Oblong, laborer; John Fish, Oblong, farmer; Reed Ferris,\nOblong, shoemaker; Benjamin Ferris, Junr., Oblong, laborer; Joseph Akin,\nOblong, blacksmith; Israel Howland, Oblong, farmer; Elisha Akin, Oblong,\nfarmer; Isaac Haviland, Oblong, blacksmith; Nathan Soule, son of George,\nOblong, farmer; James Birdsall, Oblong, laborer; Daniel Chase, Oblong,\nfarmer; Silas Mossher, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; William Mosher,\nOswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Silvester Richmond, Oswego in Beekman\nPrec't, farmer; Jesse Irish, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; David\nIrish, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; William Irish, Oswego in\nBeekman Prec't, farmer; Josiah Bull, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer;\nJosiah Bull, Junr., Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Allen Moore,\nOswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Andrew Moore, Oswego in Beekman\nPrec't, farmer; William Gifford, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer;\nNathaniel Yeomans, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Eliab Yeomans,\nOswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; William Parks, Oswego in Beekman\nPrec't, farmer.\n\nThis list mentions six occupations: the farmer, blacksmith, tailor,\nshoemaker, carpenter and laborer. With these six a frontier community\ncould live, for every man of them was a potential butcher, tanner,\ntrader. There is record of others in later years, when the communal life\nhad become differentiated. There were at various times in the Quaker\ncentury stores at four places on the Hill. The Merritt store, at Site\n28, descended to the sons of Daniel Merritt, and finally to James Craft.\nThere was a store in Deuell Hollow, kept by Benjamin and Silas Deuell\nfor several years. There is extant one bill of merchandise purchased by\nthem of Edward and William Laight, merchants of New York, the amount\nbeing L200 and the date Feb. 25, 1785. The Akin stores at Sites 47 and\n46, were kept by Daniel and Albro Akin, and the store at Site 53, by\nJohn Toffey. These stores during the period of the Quaker community were\nin trade largely by barter, taking all the commodities the farmer had\nbeyond his immediate use, and selling sugar, coffee, cloth and other\ncommodities which after 1815, as will be shown later, rapidly increased\nin number and in quantity. The use of money increased at the same\nperiod. The phrase still lingers in Quaker Hill speech: \"I am going to\nthe store to do some trading,\" though the milk farmer has engaged in no\nbarter for fifty years.\n\nIn the culminating period of the Quaker Community, which followed the\nRevolutionary War, the following were some of the occupations practiced\non the Hill, the record or remembrance of which is preserved:[8]\n\nAbram Thomas was a blacksmith, at Site 14,[9] and is said to have made\nthe nails used in building the Meeting House. George Kirby, at Site\n99-1/2, had a blacksmith shop; there was another at Site x100, now\nabandoned on Burch Hill, kept by Joel Winter Church, where Washington's\ncharger was shod, and the bill was paid at the close of the war.\n\nBut the most notable smithy was at Site 41, where now stands one of the\noldest houses on the Hill. Here Davis Marsh wrought in iron, and the\nsound of his trip-hammer audible for miles smote its own remembered\nimpression upon the ears of those ancient generations. Doubtless the\nfavored location of Marsh's shop in the neighborhood most central, as is\nshown in Chapter III, Part III, gave it greater use. There was at one\ntime a forge in the Glen at Site 66, to which magnetic ore was hauled\nfrom Brewster to be worked.\n\nA \"smith shop\" is also noted on Erskine's map for Washington in 1778 at\nSite x111. The most important manufacturing business of the community,\nhowever, was the wagon-worker's shop at Site 45, kept by Hiram Sherman.\nUnder the general title of wagon maker he manufactured all movables in\nwood and iron, from fancy wagons to coffins.\n\nOther trades were of increasing variety as the century of isolation\nproceeded. Shoemakers went from house to house to make shoes for the\nfamily, of the leather from the backs of the farmer's own cattle, tanned\non the farm or not far away. Reed Ferris was a shoemaker, in whose\nresidence at Site 99 Washington was entertained in September, 1778,\nuntil he took up Headquarters at John Kane's. Stephen Riggs was a\nshoemaker. Three tanneries were maintained on the Hill in the bloom of\nthe Quaker community by Ransom Aldrich about Site 13; Amos Asborn, at\nSite x21, who also made pottery there; and Isaac Ingersoll, at Site 134.\n\nAlbro Akin had a sawmill in the Glen, and a gristmill was also located\nthere in an early period. William Taber had a gristmill and also a cloth\nmill, consisting of carding machine, fulling mill, and apparatus for\npressing, coloring and dressing cloth. John Toffey, at Site 53, and\nJoseph Seeley, at Site 15, and some of the Arnolds, near Site 12, were\nhatters. Jephtha Sabin, at Site 74, and Joseph Hungerford were saddlers\nand harnessmakers.\n\nEvery farmer and indeed every householder raised hogs. Pork was salted,\nas it is to-day, for winter use, in barrels of brine. Hogs also were\nextensively raised and butchered for market, at a year and a half old,\nthe meat being taken to Poughkeepsie by wagon, and thence to New York.\nMany who raised more pork than their own use demanded exchanged it at\nthe stores. Fields of peas were raised to feed the hogs.\n\nSheep also were raised for their wool; their meat afforded an acceptable\nvariety in farmer's fare and their hides had many uses. David Irish,\nDaniel and David Merritt, Jonathan A. Taber and George P. Taber were\nfarmers whose product of wool was notably fine and abundant. Jonathan\nAkin Taber \"kept about eleven hundred sheep, some merino and some\nsaxony.\"\n\nButter and cheese making were an important part of the business and\nincome of the farmer's family, the butter being packed and sent weekly\nto the Hudson River boats for New York markets, or to Bridgeport or New\nHaven--a two-days' journey in either case. The cheese was ripened, or\ncured, being rubbed and turned every day, and kept until the dealers\ncame around to inspect and purchase. On every farm was kept a flock of\ngeese, which were picked once in six weeks to keep up the supply of\nfeather beds and to furnish the requisite number for the outfit of each\ndaughter of the family.\n\nIn the year 1767, Oblong Meeting took action which resulted, after seven\nyears of agitation, in the clear declaration by the Yearly Meeting of\nNew York, earliest of such acts, in favor of the freeing of slaves. This\nwas one hundred years before the Emancipation Proclamation.\n\nWilson's \"Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America\" says that\n\"Members of the Society of Friends took the lead in the opposition to\nslavery.\" There had been action taken in 1688 by a small body of\nGermantown Quakers, in the form of a petition to their Yearly Meeting\nagainst \"buying, selling and holding men in slavery.\" But to this the\nYearly Meeting, after eight years of delay, replied only that \"the\nmembers should discourage the introduction of slavery, and be careful of\nthe moral and intellectual training of such as they held in servitude.\"\n\nMeantime the Quaker Meetings on Long Island, in New York and\nPhiladelphia took action recognizing slavery, with only a gradual\ntendency to regard the institution of slavery with disfavor. Now the\ntime had come for putting the denomination in array against the\ninstitution.\n\nThere was a preacher of the Quakers who traveled much from 1746 to 1767\nthrough the colonies, proclaiming that \"the practice of continuing\nslavery is not right;\" and that \"liberty is the natural right equally of\nall men.\" In the last year of his propaganda occurred the event notable\nin local history. This was thirteen years before the action of the State\nof Pennsylvania, which initiated the lawmaking for emancipation among\nthe northern colonies. It was \"twenty years before Wilberforce took the\nfirst step in England against the slave-trade.\" The record of this\naction is as follows:\n\n\"At a (Yearly) Meeting at the Meeting House at Flushing the 30th day of\nthe 5th month, 1767, a Querie from the Quarterly Meeting of the Oblong\nin Relation to buying and Selling Negroes was Read in this meeting and\nit was concluded to be left for consideration on the minds of friends\nuntil the Next Yearly Meeting. The Query is as follows: It is not\nconsistent with Christianity to buy and Sell our Fellowmen for Slaves\nduring their Lives, & their Posterities after them, then whether it is\nconsistent with a Christian Spirit to keep those in Slavery that we have\nalready in possession by Purchase, Gift or any otherways.\"\n\nThe year after, not without due hesitation, a committee was appointed\nwhich \"drew an Essay on that subject which was read and approved and is\nas follows: We are of the mind that it is not convenient (considering\nthe circumstances of things amongst us) to give an Answer to this\nQuerie, at least at this time, as the answering of it in direct terms\nmanifestly tends to cause divisions and may Introduce heart burnings and\nStrife amongst us, which ought to be Avoided, and Charity exercised, and\npersuasive methods pursued and that which makes for peace. We are\nhowever fully of the mind that Negroes as Rational Creatures are by\nnature born free, and where the way opens liberty ought to be extended\nto them, and they not held in Bondage for Self ends. But to turn them\nout at large Indiscriminately--which seems to be the tendency of the\nQuerie, will, we Apprehend, be attended with great Inconveniency, as\nsome are too young and some too old to obtain a livelihood for\nthemselves.\"\n\nHere, then, is the first action in a legislative body in New York State,\nupon the freeing of slaves. The \"Querie from Oblong\" had secured a clear\ndeliverance in favor of the essential right of the negro as a man, in\nfavor of his being freed \"where the way opened,\" and against the holding\nof man for the service of another. The only hesitation of the meeting\nwas frankly stated; emancipation was not to be pushed to the point of\ndivision among Christians, and was not to be accomplished to the\nimpoverishment of the negro.\n\nYet if this action seems to any one like \"trimming,\" it was followed by\nother deliverances increasingly clear and emphatic. Three years later\nFriends were forbidden to sell their slaves, except under conditions\ncontrolled by the Meeting. Throughout the communities of Friends the\nagitation was being carried on, and the meetings were anxious to purge\nthemselves of the evil.\n\nFinally in 1775 came the clear utterance of the Yearly Meeting in favor\nof emancipation without conditions: \"it being our solid judgment that\nall in profession with us who hold Negroes ought to restore to them\ntheir natural right to liberty as soon as they arrive at a suitable age\nfor freedom.\" At this meeting the Oblong was represented by Joseph\nIrish, Abner Hoag and Paul Osborn.\n\nIt only remains to picture the rest of the process by which slavery was\npurged away on Quaker Hill. In 1775 the practice of buying and selling\nslaves had come to an end, and no public abuse was noted by the Meeting\nin the treatment accorded to slaves by their masters. The next year\nthere was but one slave owned by a member of the Meeting; and the day he\nwas freed in the fall of 1777 was counted by the Meeting so notable that\nthe clerk was directed to make a minute of the event. The owner had been\nSamuel Field, and the slave was called Philips. Another manumission in\n1779 is recorded, but it was doubtless in the case of a new resident of\nthe Hill, for it is recorded without signs of the joy exhibited in the\nfreedom of Philips.\n\nIn the years 1782-3 the final act in emancipating the local slaves was\ntaken, in the investigation by a committee of the Meeting into the\ncondition of the freed slaves, and the obligations of their old masters\nto them. It was not very cordially received at first, but in the third\nyear of the life and labors of the committee it was reported by them\nthat \"the negroes appear to be satisfied without further settlement.\" So\nthe first American community to free herself from slavery required but\nsixteen years of agitation fully to complete the process.\n\n\n[8] See \"Some Glimpses of the Past,\" by Alicia Hopkins Taber,\n1906; Quaker Hill Series.\n\n[9] See Map II.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nAMUSEMENTS IN THE QUAKER COMMUNITY.\n\n\nThe Quaker community had little time for amusements, and less patience.\nThe discipline of the Meeting levelled its guns at the play spirit, and\nfor a century men were threatened, visited, disowned if necessary, for\n\"going to frollicks,\" and \"going to places of amusement.\" The Meeting\nHouse records leave no room for doubt as to the opinion held by the\nSociety of Friends upon the matter of play.\n\nAn account is given elsewhere of the discipline of the Meeting in its\nstruggle against immorality and \"frollicking.\" The following quotation\nfrom James Woods' \"The Purchase Meeting,\" vividly depicts the confused\nelements of the social life of that time: \"On great occasions such as\nthe holding of a Quarterly Meeting, the population turned out _en\nmasse_. Piety and worldliness both observed the day. The latter class\ngathered about the meeting house, had wrestling matches and various\nathletic sports in the neighboring fields, and horse races on the\nadjacent roads. The meetings regularly appointed committees as a police\nforce to keep order about the meeting house during the time of worship\nand business.\"\n\nThe stories told by old Quaker Hill residents of the gatherings about\nthe meeting house, even on First Day, or Sunday, confirm the above\nquotation. The field opposite the meeting house, for years after 1769,\nwhen the earliest meeting house was moved away from that site, was used\nas a burial ground, and later, no headstones being placed in those early\ndays, as a space for tethering horses. An old resident tells me that\ncrowds of men were always about the meeting house before and after\nmeeting, and even during meeting, and that in later years the resident\nof Site No. 32, who owned valuable horses, used to exhibit a blooded\nstallion on a tether, leading him up and down to the admiration of the\nhorse-owners present, and to their probable interest.\n\nThese conditions seem to have continued through that whole century. The\nplay spirit had no permitted or authorized occasions. It had to exercise\nitself with the other instincts, in the common gatherings. It was, as\nfar as we can see, a time of asceticism. Men were forbidden rather than\ninvited, in those days.\n\nThe Meeting not only provided no play opportunities, but it forbade the\nattendance of its members upon the \"frollicks,\" which then were held, as\nnowadays they are held, in the country side. A gathering with plenty to\neat, and in those days a free indulgence in drink on the part of the\nmen, with music of the fiddler, and dancing, this was a \"frollick\"--that\nhorror of the meeting house elders. Indeed, it was of incidental moral\ndetriment; for it was outlawed amusement, and being under the ban, was\ncontrolled by men beyond the influence or control of the meeting. The\nyoung people of the Quaker families, and sometimes their elders, yielded\nto the fascinations of these gatherings. The unwonted excitement of\nmeeting, the sound of music, playing upon the capacity for motor\nreactions in a people living and laboring outdoors, inflamed beyond\ncontrol by rum and hard cider, soon led to lively, impulsive activities\nand physical exertions, both in immoderate excess and in disregard of\nall the inhibitions of tradition and of conscience. That there was a\nclose relation of these \"frollicks\" with the sexual immorality of the\nperiod is probable.\n\nOf more concern to us here is the observation, which is made with\ncaution, that the attitude of the community to amusements was not\nconducive to moral betterment, because amusement was not specialized.\nThe repression of the play spirit, offering it no occasions,\nrecognizing no times and places as appropriate for it, disturbed the\nequilibrium of life, forced the normal animal spirits of the population\nto impulsive and explosive expressions and deprived them of the\nregulative control of the community.\n\nIt is probable that that early period had modes of amusement the record\nof which is wholly lost. There are few sources existing to inform us of\nthe amusements of laboring classes. Hints occur in such records as that\nof the sale of powder and shot, of fishhooks and a quart of rum, at the\nMerritt store, in 1771, to the Vaughns. Seven years later the Vaughns\nwere the Tory \"cowboys,\" who robbed the defenceless neighborhood, until\ntheir leader was killed by Captain Pearce, during the Revolution.\n\nIt is probable that then the community wore the aspect which now it\nwears, of industry without play; and that members went elsewhere for\ntheir amusement, the acknowledged leaders in which were resident in\nother neighborhoods and communities.\n\nThe recreation of the body of working population of the Hill was\nincidental to the religious assemblies. In these meetings they took an\nintense and a very human pleasure. Their solitary, outdoor labor was\nperformed in an intense atmosphere of communal interaction. He who\nraised hogs was to sell them, not to a distant market, but to Daniel\nMerritt, or John Toffey, the storekeepers. He who made shoes went from\nhouse to house, full of news, always talking, always hearing. He who\nwove heard not his creaking loom, but the voice of the storekeeper or of\nthe neighbor to whom he would sell. The cheeses a woman pressed and\nwiped in a morning were to be sold, not far away to persons unseen, but\nto neighbors known, whose tastes were nicely ascertained and regarded.\n\nThe result was that meetings on First Day and Fourth Day were times of\nintense pleasure, occasions of all-around interest: not mere business\ninterest, but incidentally a large satisfaction of the play instinct,\nespecially for the working and mature persons. The young, too, had their\nhappiness and enjoyment of one another in a multitude of ways, in\naddition to those boisterous games described above by Mr. James Wood.\nTheir intense friendships and lively enterprises were probably not so\neasy to confine to the bounds of sober, staid meetings, but no less did\ntheir merry good spirits fill those assemblies. The galleries of the old\nMeeting House were built in 1800 for the young, who were expected to sit\nthere during meeting. The wooden curtains between the \"men's part\" and\nthe \"women's part\" are especially thorough in their exclusion of even an\neyeshot from one side to the other.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE IDEALS OF THE QUAKERS.\n\n\nIn the Introduction to Professor Carver's \"Sociology and Social\nProgress\" is a passage of great significance to one who would understand\nQuaker Hill, or indeed any community, especially if it be religiously\norganized. The writer refers to: \"a most important psychic factor,\nnamely the power of idealization. This may be defined, not very\naccurately, as the power of _making believe_, a factor which\nsociologists have scarcely appreciated as yet. We have such popular\nexpressions as 'making a virtue of necessity,' which indicates that\nthere is a certain popular appreciation of the real significance of this\npower, but we have very little in the way of a scientific appreciation\nof it.\n\n\"One of the greatest resources of the human mind is its ability to\npersuade itself that what is necessary is noble or dignified or\nhonorable or pleasant. For example, the greater part of the human race\nhas been found to live under conditions of almost incessant warfare. War\nbeing a necessity from which there was no escape, it was a great\nadvantage to be able to glorify it, to persuade ourselves that it was a\nnoble calling--in other words, a good in itself.\n\n\"Another example is found in the case of work. Work is a necessity as\nimperious as war ever was. Looked at frankly and truthfully, work is a\ndisagreeable necessity and not a good in itself. Yet by persuading\nourselves that work is a blessing, that it is dignified and honorable,\nour willingness to work is materially increased, and therefore the\nprocess of adaptation is facilitated--in other words, progress is\naccelerated. Among the most effective agencies for the promotion of\nprogress, therefore, must be included those which stimulate this power\nof idealization. In short, he who in any age helps to idealize those\nfactors and forces upon which the progress of his age depends, is\nperhaps the most useful man, the most powerful agent in the promotion of\nhuman well-being, even though from the strictly realistic point of view\nhe only succeeds in making things appear other than they really are.\nFrom the sociologist's point of view this is the mission of art and\npreaching of all kinds.\"\n\nThe quotation from Professor Carver bears the impression of\nincompleteness, or rather of suggestiveness. If \"making a virtue of\nnecessity\" is idealization, is not symbolism also a form of \"make\nbelieve.\" If the \"ability to persuade oneself that what is necessary is\nnoble or dignified or honorable or pleasant,\" is exhibited on Quaker\nHill as a \"most important psychic factor,\" so is also the idealization\nof the commonplace the \"making believe\" that peace and plainness, that\nsimple, old-fashioned dress, and seventeenth century forms of speech are\nspiritual and are serviceable to the believing mind. The power of\nidealization is nowhere exhibited as a social force more clearly than in\na Quaker community. Professor Carver's word, \"make believe,\" is most\naccurate. Quakers act with all sincerity the drama of life, using\ncostume and artificial speech, and attaching to all conduct peculiar\nmannerisms; casting over all action a special veil of complacent\nserenity; all which are parts in their realization of the ideal of life.\nTheir fundamental principle is that the divine spirit dwells and acts in\nthe heart of every man; not in a chosen few, not in the elect only, but\nin all hearts. Quaker Hill to this day acts this out, in that every\nperson in the community is known, thought upon, reckoned and estimated\nby every other. Towns on either side have a neglected population area,\nbut Quaker Hill has none. Pawling in its other neighborhoods has\nforgotten roads, despised cabins, in which dwell persons for whom nobody\ncares, drunkards, ill-doers, whom others forget and ignore. Quaker Hill\nignores no one. There are, indeed, rich and poor, but the former employ\nthe latter, know their state, enjoy their peculiarities, relish their\nhumor. It has apparently always been so. Elsewhere I have described the\nmeasures taken by popular subscription to replace the losses suffered by\nthe humbler members of the community, in the tools of life (see Chapter\nVII). It need not be said that the poorer members bear the rich in mind.\nEvery person resident on the Hill has come to partake in this sense of\nthe community, this practice of new Quakerism. No one is out of sight\nand yet there is no dream of equality behind this communal sense. It is\nas far from a communistic, as from a charitable state of mind. It is the\nresult of years of belief in common men and common things.\n\nThis \"make believe\" that commonplace things are the spiritual things was\na corollary of George Fox's life as much as of his doctrine. He opposed\npomp and ritual, salaried priests, ordinations and consecrations; he\ndisbelieved in \"the imposition of hands.\" His followers therefore went\nso far as to find in plainness a new sanctity. They adapted at once the\n\"plain garb\" of the period of William Penn and Robert Barclay, and the\ngenerations of men who followed felt themselves morally bettered by a\ndrab coat and breeches, a white neck-cloth, and a broad-brimmed brown\nhat; the women by dresses of simple lines, low tones of color, bonnets\nof peculiar shape, shielding the eyes on either side.\n\nOf course in time this exceptional garb by its uniqueness defeated the\nvery desire George Fox had for \"plainness.\" It was not commonplace but\nextraordinary. Roby Osborn's garb is thus described by her biographer:\n\"Her wedding gown was a thick, lustreless silk, of a delightful\nyellowish olive, her bonnet white. Beneath it her dark hair was smoothly\nbanded, and from its demure shelter her eyes looked gravely out. Her\nvest was a fine tawny brown, of a sprigged pattern, both gown and vest\nas artistically harmonious as the product of an Eastern loom. Pieces of\nboth were sewn into a patchwork quilt, now a family heirloom.\"[10]\n\nFor more than a century now \"plainness in dress\" has been extravagance\nin dress. A proper Quaker hat for man or woman costs twice or thrice\nwhat plain people of the same station in life would pay. But be it so.\nIn its day, which is now gone--for only one person now wears \"plain\ndress\" on Quaker Hill--it was a true expression of the \"make believe\" of\nsanctity in plainness. The quiet colors, the prescribed unworldliness\ninvolved a daily discipline, and infused into the wearer an emotional\nexperience which mere economy and real commonness would never so\ncontinuously have effected.\n\nThe \"plain speech\" has the same effect. It is part of the same dramatic\ncelebration of an ideal. It is a use of quaint and antique forms, not\ngrammatically correct nor scriptural, in which \"thee\" takes the place of\n\"thou\" and you in the singular, both in the nominative and objective\ncases. It is not used with the forms of the verb of solemn style, but\nwith common forms, as \"thee has\" instead of \"thou hast.\" Another element\nof the \"plain speech\" is the use of such terms as \"farewell\" for \"good\nday\"--which is declared to be untruthful on bad days! The Quakers also\naddress one another by their first names, and the old-fashioned Friends\naddressed everybody so, refusing to use such titles as \"Mr.,\" \"Mrs.,\" or\n\"Miss.\"\n\nOf late years the younger members of the Meeting, while maintaining\ntheir standing there, have used with persons not in the Meeting the\nordinary forms of speech, as they have refused to assume the Quaker\nplain garb. With fellow-Quakers and with members of their own families\nthey say \"thee.\"\n\nBefore the period of the mixed community this power of idealization, of\n\"making believe,\" had wrought its greatest effects, but it still has\nfull course and power without the highest direction. The minds of the\nresidents of the Hill are very suggestible; but the persons who have the\npower to implant the suggestion are no longer inspired as of old, with a\nsublime and unearthly ideal. They are only animated with an economic\none. But the result is the same. It is social, rather than religious. It\nwas one thing for the early Friends to cement together a community\nthrough the feeling that in every man was the Spirit of God. A wonderful\nappetite was that for the assimilation of new members coming into the\ncommunity. It was a doctrine that made all the children birthright\nmembers of the Meeting and so of the community.\n\nBut in our later time, between 1895 and 1905, this power of \"making\nbelieve\" had suffered the strain of a division of the meeting. It was\nharder to believe that the Spirit of God was in all men, when half the\ncommunity was set off as \"unorthodox.\" It had suffered the strain of\nseeing the wide social difference caused by money. Yet it bravely played\nthe game. Children are not more adapt at \"making believe\" than were\nthese old Friends. They deceived even themselves; and their \"pretending\"\nassimilated into the communal life every newcomer. For it created\nunderneath all differences a sense of oneness; it kept alive, in all\ndivisions, many of the operations of unity. It compelled strangers and\ndoctrinal enemies to \"make believe\" to be friends.\n\nI find it difficult to describe this elusive force of the communal\nspirit in the place, just as the communal character of the place is\nitself evanescent, while always powerful. I know clearly only this, that\nit proceeded, and still on Quaker Hill proceeds from the old religious\ninheritance, and from the present religious character of the place; that\nit tends directly to the creation of the community of all men, of all\ndifferent groups, and that it is ready at hand at all time, to be\ncalled to the assistance of anyone who knows how to appeal to that\ncommunal unity; and that it is a power of idealization, meaning by that\n\"a power of making believe.\" In this power, I recognize this community\nas being more expert and better versed than any I have ever known.\n\nThe dramatic expression of an ideal has had great social power. Upon the\ncasual observer or visitor it has wrought with the effect of a charm to\nimpress upon them in a subtle way the ideal of Quakerism. Expressed in\nwords, it would have no interest: acted out so quaintly, it awakens\nadmiration, interest, and imitation, not of the forms, but always in\nsome degree of the substance of the Quaker ideal.\n\nThus the Quaker ideal has given authority to the Friends, especially to\nthe older and more conservative of them; has furnished a subtle\nmachinery for assimilating new members into the community and thus has\nbeen an organizing power.\n\n\n[10] \"Richard Osborn--a Reminiscence,\" by Margaret B. Monahan;\nQuaker Hill Series, 1903.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nMORALS OF THE QUAKER COMMUNITY.\n\n\nFrom the first the members found themselves subjected to a clear, simple\nstandard of morals. Its dominion was unbroken for one hundred years, and\ncame to an end with the Division of the Meeting; though that event was a\nresult as much as a cause of its termination. For one hundred years a\nlocal ethical code prevailed. While they lived apart the Quakers in\ntheir community life rejoiced in the unbroken sway of a communal code of\nmorals, the obedience to which made for survival and economic success.\nWhen, with better roads to Poughkeepsie and to Fredericksburgh,\nnewcomers began to invade the community; when in 1849 the railroad came\nto the neighborhood, immersing the Quakers in the world economy, the\nQuaker code was insufficient, retarded rather than assisted survival,\nand rather forbade than encouraged success. It therefore lost its force.\nOnly in a few individuals has it survived.\n\nThe residents of the Hill, from their earliest settlement in 1728 to the\ntime of the Division in 1828, knew no other government than that of the\nMeeting. They accepted no other authority, hoped for public good through\nno other agency, even read no other literature, than that of the Quaker\nMonthly Meeting of the Oblong. The religious Meeting House was also the\nCity Hall, State House, and Legislature for the patriotism, as it was\nthe focus of the worship and doctrinal activity of this population. This\ncannot be stated too strongly, for there was no limit to its effect. It\nexplains many things otherwise diverse and unexplained.\n\nDuring all the periods of war the Quakers showed their separateness by\nrefusing to pay taxes, lest they contribute to the support of armies. In\nthe Revolution, the Meeting exercised unflinching discipline, for the\npurpose of keeping members out of the patriot armies, and punished with\nequal vigor those who paid for the privilege of exemption from military\nduty and those who enlisted in the ranks. In every act of the discipline\nof the Quaker Community appears the purpose of the Meeting, namely, to\nkeep its members to itself and away from all other moral and spiritual\ncontrol. This will appear in definite illustrations below.\n\nThe standard of morals which the Meeting thus upheld with jealous care\nwas a simple one, and logically derived from the distinctive doctrine of\nthe Society of Friends. That the Spirit of God dwells in every man was\ntheir belief,[11] and from 1650, when Fox was called \"a Quaker\" before\nJustice Bennett at Derby, England, to the Division in 1830, they applied\nthis doctrine in practical, rather than in metaphysical ways. They were\na moral, rather than a theological people. It will appear in this\nchapter that only when the moral grip of the Meeting was broken in a\ndivision did doctrinal questions come to discussion on the Hill.\n\nThe moral bearing of the one cardinal doctrine of Quakerism is well\nexpressed in the following quotation from a Friend qualified to speak\nwith authority:\n\n\"The Friends have been consistent in all their peculiarities with one\ncentral principle, the presence and inspiration of the Divine Spirit in\nthe human soul. This has been the reason for their opposition to\nslavery. They felt, You cannot hold in slavery GOD! And God is in this\nblack man's life, therefore you cannot enslave God in him. So you must\nnot inflict capital punishment upon this man in whom is God.\n\n\"The same argument dignified woman, who was made the equal of man. The\nsame argument applies to the impossibility of war. You cannot think of\nGod fighting against God. The Quaker had no sentimental idea of\nsuffering; but he believed that you cannot take life, in which is God.\n\n\"The same argument applied to weights and measures; the Quakers early\ndemanded that they be officially sealed. So they believed in only one\nstandard of truth, rather than one for conversation and one for a court\nof justice. No oaths were necessary for those who spoke for God all the\ntime.\"[12]\n\nIn this belief one sees the principle on which were selected the reforms\nin which the Quaker Preacher was interested. \"He appears to have had ...\nhis mind strongly influenced to an active protest against the evils of\nslavery, war, capital punishment and intemperance.\"[13] Each of these\nreforms was inspired by reverence for human life, which was thought to\nbe desecrated or abused.\n\nThis simple code expressed itself in abstinence from practices believed\nto defile the body. Members of the Meeting early adopted a strict rule\nagainst the use of intoxicating liquors. It is said of the ancestors of\nRichard Osborn that: \"Of these six generations not a man has ever been\nknown to use spirituous liquors, or tobacco, to indulge in profanity, or\nto be guilty of a dishonest action.\"[14]\n\nA sense of personal degradation underlay their opposition to poverty\namong members. There is record of an order of the Meeting, in 1775, for\nthe purchase of a cow \"to loan to Joseph ----.\" The practice thus early\nobserved has since then been unbroken. The member of the community who\ncomes to want is at this day taken care of by popular subscription.\nThrough the early century the Meeting accomplished this end, sometimes\nby formal, sometimes by informal methods. In the later years of the\nnineteenth century it was accomplished by special funds to which\neverybody gave. Thus simply was poverty forestalled. The family assisted\nsoon came to self-support again. No debt was incurred, and no obligation\nremained to be discharged; but every member of the Meeting and of the\ncommunity felt obliged to give and was glad to give to this anti-poverty\nfund. The basis of it seems to have been respect for human embodiments\nof the Divine Spirit.\n\nThis ideal of personality, divinely indwelt, created a sense of personal\nduty, even in opposition to all men. In the years of anti-slavery\nagitation David Irish and his sister \"made their protest against slavery\nby abstaining as far as possible from slave-made products; and together\nthey made maple, to take the place of cane sugar, and used nothing but\nlinen and woolen clothing (largely homespun).\"[15] This later Quaker,\npossessed of the spirit of the community of his fathers, shows his inner\nconflict with the ideals of a competitive age in the expression \"so far\nas possible.\" It was not as practicable in 1855 to \"abstain from\nslave-made products,\" as it would have been in the year 1755.\n\nThe hospitality of the neighborhood expressed this simple code. It was\nthe custom to entertain the traveler in any house to which he might\ncome. It would have been wrong to exclude him; he was welcomed with a\ndignified and formal respect by these old Friends, because entertainment\nof guests in those days was a vital reality, as well as a religious\npractice. These settlers in the wild forests believed that in every\nwayfarer was a divine voice, a possible message from heaven. They also\ntreated every traveler as a possible object of their \"preachments,\" and\nspared not to \"testify\" to him of their peculiar beliefs and \"leadings.\"\nIt was the Friends' method of propagating their gospel to send men and\nwomen on journeys, without pay, to distant states and provinces. This\nreligious touring was not peculiar to them, but it was made by them an\nofficial agency of great power in evangelizing the Colonies.\n\nAs an itinerant Friend, Woolman, the anti-slavery apostle, came to the\nHill in 176-. So Paul Osborn joined himself to a party of Friends\n\"travelling on truth's account,\" and with them visited the Carolinas, in\nthe years before the Revolution. The same pioneer left in his will\ndirections for the entertainment of such travellers upon his estate\nforever.[16]\n\nThis religious itinerating was a part of the economic life of those days\nas well; for the Friends never separated the one from the other.\nWherever they went they \"testified,\" and to every place they came with\nshrewd appreciation of its value as a place of settlement. Says James\nWood: \"Each Quaker home as it was settled became a resting-place for\nthose who followed, for it was a cardinal principle of Quaker\nhospitality to keep open house for all fellow-members, under all\ncircumstances.\"[17]\n\nThe development of the hospitality that was a part of the religion of\nthe Quakers would be itself a sufficient study. It has furnished some of\nthe most interesting chapters of the history of the Hill. It is now\ncompletely transformed, through the pressure of competitive economic\nlife; and, with undiminished activities, has become a means of revenue\nin \"the keeping of boarders.\" Seven of the old Quaker homes, in the\nperiod of the Mixed Community, took on the aspect of small hotels. For\nthis business the Quakers have a preparation in their history and\ntraditions. They have an inbred genius for hospitality. They have also a\nthrift and capacity for \"management\" which have made their efforts\nsuccessful. One is impressed in their houses by a union of abundance\nwith economy, impossible to imitate.\n\nLike other American pioneer neighborhoods, of a religious type, the\nQuaker community at Oblong had a history in the matter of sexual\nmorality. The relations of the sexes offered to the Friends a field in\nwhich their favorite doctrine of the indwelling divine spirit produced\nmoral harvests. The records of Oblong Meeting are filled with cases of\nmoral discipline. There is scarcely a meeting in whose minutes some case\nis not mentioned, either its initial, intermediate or final stages. No\nfamily was exempt from this experience. The best families furnished the\nculprits as often as they supplied the committees to investigate and to\ncondemn.\n\nThe regular method of procedure in marriage will best exhibit the moral\nstandards of the time. When a couple would marry, they indicated to the\nMeeting their intention; and a committee was at once appointed to\ninvestigate their \"clearness.\" That is, these two must be free of other\nengagements, and must be free of debt or other incumbrance of such sort\nas would render marriage impossible or unadvisable. At the next monthly\nmeeting the report of the committee advanced the case one stage; and if\nthey were found \"clear of all others,\" another committee was appointed\n\"to see that the marriage was orderly performed.\"\n\nThe parties on the day set appeared before the Meeting,[18] and in its\nregular course, stood up and said the words of mutual agreement which\nmade them man and wife. A certificate was used, and to it the guests\nsigned their names. But no minister had official part in the ceremony.\nIt was their belief, to which they adhered with logical strictness, that\nthe divine spirit in each of the parties to a marriage made it sacred,\nand that in marrying they spoke the will of the Spirit.\n\nEntire continence was expected of every unmarried person, and the\nstrictest marital faithfulness of man and wife, because of the\nsacredness of personal life. But in a pioneer society, through those\nrough early decades, when for long times war was disturbing the serenity\nof social life, the conduct of men and women, not mindful of propriety,\nwas determined by the strong, masterful passions of an out of door\npeople. Besides, the government of the Meeting was contrary to the\ngeneral opinion of the countryside, and the Meeting House members were\nimmersed in a population whose standards were looser, as well as\nsanctioned by authorities not recognized by the Meeting. The result was\nthat in the first century of the Hill, 1728-1828, there were many\ninstances of sexual immorality, many accusations of married persons\nuntrue to their vows, and a resulting attention of the whole community\nto this theme which we do not know to-day. Frankness of discussion of\nthese matters prevailed. The punishments inflicted, the public\nconfessions demanded, the condemnation of specific and detailed offences\nread from the steps of the Meeting Houses, were all as far from present\nday approval as the offences themselves from modern experience. The\nwriter is sure that, comparing the records of the Quaker Community with\nhis own knowledge of the annals of the Mixed Community, there were more\noffences of this kind considered by the Monthly Meeting of Oblong in any\none year, 1728-1828, than were publicly known in a population of the\nsame extent in the ten years 1890-1900. The commonest of these offences\nwere simple cases of illicit relations between unmarried persons, or\nbetween persons, one of whom was married; the offence often being\nassociated in the minds of the accusers with \"going to frollicks.\" In\nthese, as in all cases, the Meeting received the complaint and appointed\na committee to investigate and to labor with the accused. On receiving\nits report, if guilt was evidenced, the Meeting pressed the matter,\noften increasing the size of the committee. It always demanded an\nexpression of repentance, and the restoration of right conduct, without\nwhich no satisfaction was to be had. If the accused persons, being found\nguilty, did not repent, they were in the end \"disowned.\" The disownment\nby the Meeting was a serious penalty. It diminished a man's business\nopportunities, it shut the door of social life to him, and it\neffectually forbade his marriage within the Meeting.\n\nIts power is shown in a number of cases recorded in the minutes, in\nwhich the ban of the Meeting had been laid upon some one, who was\ncompelled later to come to the Meeting, make a tardy acknowledgement,\nand be restored, before he could proceed freely in some of the communal\nactivities controlled by the Meeting. Often the committee appointed by\nthe Meeting reported that they were not satisfied with the repentance\noffered, seeing in it evidently more of policy than penitence. Usually\nthey received, in later visitations of the accused, sufficient tokens\nof submission, and the Meeting was satisfied; but not always.\n\nThe most curious instance of the working out of this control exercised\nby the Meeting, especially over the sexual relations, is in the marriage\nof Joseph ---- with Elizabeth ----. The first act in the little drama\nwas the formal written statement of Joseph that he was sorry for \"having\nbeen familiar with his wife before his marriage to her.\" The Monthly\nMeeting appointed a committee, as usual, after making record of this\n\"acknowledgment.\" After a month the committee reported that they had\nvisited Joseph, and found his repentance sincere; and another committee\nwas appointed to draw up a testimony against his former misconduct, to\nwhich Joseph was required to subscribe; and in a later month to hear it\nread from the steps of the Preparative Meeting in the neighborhood where\nhe lived--or perhaps in that in which the offence was best known. After\nthis had all been done, with patient detail, and reported and recorded,\na further month elapsed, and then announcement was made at the Meeting\nof the intention of Joseph and Elizabeth to marry. The reader is\nastonished, thinking that Joseph has already evidenced his loyalty to\nhis wife. A closer re-reading of the stages of the incident shows that\nthe wife mentioned in the original offence was now dead; but that the\noffence was not dead. Joseph had to be restored to the Meeting before he\ncould marry Elizabeth, who was very evidently a devoted member. To win\nhis new wife, he had to make acknowledgment of the offence which\npreceded his former marriage.\n\nThis incident illustrates the whole attitude of that community toward\nthese moralities. They were thought to be defilements of the body, the\ntemple of God. No change of outward condition could eliminate the\noffence, which must be wiped out by repentance, public acknowledgment\nand formal restoration.\n\nIt is evident from the foregoing that the Meeting maintained control\nover the community, at least of its own members, by possessing an\neffective power to approve or to disapprove of the economic and the\nmarital condition of each individual.\n\nThe code of morals practiced in this community required strict business\nhonesty. The Quaker has moral discretion in economic affairs. He\n\"expects to get what he pays for, and he expects to give what he has\nagreed.\" The honesty of \"stroke-measure,\" by which bushels are topped\noff, the faithful performance of contracts and payment of debts were\ninculcated by the Meeting and enforced by its discipline.\n\nThis chapter may fitly close with a statement of the anathema of\nQuakerism, pronounced many times in a year, during the century. The\noffence selected shall be a moral one:\n\n\"Whereas, Jonathan Osgood hath had a right of membership among us, the\npeople called Quakers, but not taking heed to the dictates of truth,\nhath so far deviated from the good order established among Friends as to\nneglect attendance of our religious meetings for worship and discipline,\nto deviate from the plain scripture language, and to refuse to settle\nwith his creditors, and pay his just debts; and hath shut himself up\nconcealed from the civil authorities, therefore for the clearing of\ntruth and our Religious Society we do testify against his misconduct,\nand disown him, the said Jonathan Osgood, from being any longer a member\nof our Society, until he shall from a true sight and sense of his\nmisconduct condemn the same to the satisfaction of the Meeting. Which\nthat he may is our desire for him. Signed, in and on behalf of Purchase\nMonthly Meeting this th day of the th month.\"\n\nThe above wording except the name is taken from the minutes of Purchase\nMeeting; and some of the offences mentioned in a few pages of those\nminutes, for which men were disowned, or for acknowledgment pardoned\nand restored, are the following: \"deviating from plainness of speech and\napparel\"--\"not keeping to the plain scripture language;\" \"going to\nFrollicks,\" \"going to places of amusement,\" \"attending a horserace;\"\n\"frequenting a tavern, being frequently intoxicated with strong liquor;\"\n\"placing his son out apprentice with one not of our Society;\" \"leaving\nhis habitation in a manner disagreeable to his friends;\" \"to use profane\nlanguage and carry a pistol, in an unbecoming manner;\" \"bearing arms;\"\n\"to challenge a person to fight;\" \"to marry with a first cousin;\" \"to\nkeep company with a young woman not of our Society on account of\nmarriage;\" \"to be married by a magistrate;\" \"to marry with one not of\nour Society before a hireling priest;\" \"to join principles and practice\nwith another society of people;\" \"to be guilty of fornication;\" \"to be\nunchaste with her who is now my wife\" (the person afterward married by\nthe accused). Oblong minutes: \"to have bought a negro slave,\" \"to have\nbought a negro wench and to be familiar with her.\"\n\nIt was the operation of this code of morals, and of its ecclesiastical\nchecks and curbs, that made the Quaker Hill man and the Quaker Hill\nsentiment what they are. And having done its work this code at the last\ntended to weaken the Meeting, as it had strengthened the public\nconscience. In talking recently with a sweet old lady past eighty, I\nasked her, \"Did you ever hear anyone disowned in meeting?\" \"No,\" she\nnever had, and \"doubted if there had been many.\" Later, her daughter\nsaid, \"Why, Grandmother, you married out of meeting yourself!\" Whereupon\nI asked again, \"Well, what did they do with you then?\" \"Oh,\" she\nreplied, not at all embarrassed, \"they turned me out!\"\n\n\"But what was the outcome of it all?\" asks James Wood, in the closing\nsentences of his monograph, \"The Purchase Meeting.\" He continues: \"As a\nchurch the Quakers here missed their great opportunity. As settlers\ncame among them in increasing numbers, the Friends became solicitous to\npreserve the strictest moral observance among their members. They\nwithdrew from contact and association with the world about them and\nconfined their religious influence and effort to themselves. The\nstrictest watch was maintained over the deportment of old and young.\nMembers were dismissed for comparatively slight offences. Immigration\nfurther reduced their numbers. Hypercriticism produced disagreements\namong themselves. Finally, doctrinal differences arose which resulted in\na disastrous separation into two bodies in 1828.\"\n\n\n[11] Francis B. Gummere of Haverford college says of George\nFox, the founder of the Society of Friends: \"The central point of his\ndoctrine is the direct responsibility of each soul to God, without\nmediation of priest or form, because of the presence of the Holy Spirit\nin the heart of every human being.\" Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia,\n1894.\n\nThe following is authoritative for the Society: \"We believe in no\nprinciple of life, light or holiness, but the influence of the Holy\nSpirit of God, bestowed on mankind, in various measures and degrees,\nthrough Jesus Christ our Lord. It is the capacity to receive this\nblessed influence, which, in an especial manner, gives man pre-eminence\nabove the beasts that perish; which distinguishes him, in every nation\nand in every clime, as an object of the redeeming love of God; as a\nbeing not only intelligent but responsible;...\"--\"A Declaration of Some\nof the Fundamental Doctrines of Christian Truth, as held by the\nReligious Society of Friends.\"\n\n[12] Mr. James Wood, in an address at Quaker Hill Conference,\n1907.\n\n[13] \"David Irish, A Memoir,\" by Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer.\n\n[14] \"Richard Osborn, a Reminiscence,\" by Margaret B. Monahan.\n\n[15] \"David Irish, A Memoir,\" by Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer.\n\n[16] To \"friends travelling on truth's account\" the doors of\nthe old house always swung wide. Paul Osborn kept open house for \"his\nfriends, the people called Quakers,\" during his lifetime, and his will\nprovides in the most minute and careful manner for his wife \"the better\nto qualifye her to keep a house of entertainment for friends.\" ... The\n\"littel meadow in lot 29\" he gave to Isaac Osborn, that \"he shall keep\nwell all horses of friends my wife shall send him;\" and should Isaac\n\"neglect the injunctions herein enjoined,\" and cease to keep such house\nof entertainment for friends then his right to certain legacies \"shall\ndescend and revolve to them, him or her that shall truly fulfill them.\"\nAll his lands in the latter case Paul gives to the \"Yearly Meeting for\nFriends, the people called Quakers, of Philadelphia.\"--\"Richard Osborn,\na Reminiscence,\" by Margaret B. Monahan.\n\n[17] \"The Bi-Centennial of the New York Yearly Meeting, An\nHistorical Sketch,\" by James Wood, 1895.\n\n[18] \"It was Wednesday, the day of the regular mid-week\nmeeting, and the house was crowded. The young people took their places\nupon the facing seats, and the meeting began. Daniel Haviland was\nminister and he spoke at length. Then, after a short pause, Richard\nOsborn and Roby Hoag arose, and clasping hands, spoke alternately the\nsolemn sentences of the Friends' marriage ceremony, which have united\nthem for sixty years. Then was brought forth the marriage certificate,\nfairly engrossed in the bridegroom's own hand, and many names of those\npresent were affixed, after which it was read aloud. This being done,\nand kindly greetings offered, Richard and Roby Osborn drove back to\ntheir home. The wedding was well furnished with guests, and four fat\nturkeys graced the board that day.\"--\"Richard Osborn, a Reminiscence,\"\nby Margaret B. Monahan. Quaker Hill Series.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE TOLERATION OF HOSTILE FORCES.\n\n\nQuaker Hill has been always a place of peace. The earliest settlers came\nto make an asylum for the propagation of the principles of peace. I have\nspoken elsewhere of their consistent belief and practice of this\nprinciple.\n\nThe community always acted promptly in response to the known injury of\nits members. The Quakers have a \"Meeting of Sufferings,\" at which are\nrelated and recorded the persecutions from which they suffer. This\ncommunity, which for one hundred years was Quaker, has always been\nprompt to act \"solidly and judiciously\" in support of the injured. An\nillustration is the riot in opposition to Surgeon Fallon, who in\nJanuary, 1779, was left here with convalescent soldiers in the Meeting\nHouse. It is very interesting as showing the length to which men will go\nin the interest of peace, even to the use of violence. It illustrates\nalso the fact that kindness to the sick and wounded, simply because they\nare helpless and needy, is modern, a humanitarian not a dogmatic\ndevelopment.\n\nTo superior power the Quakers of this place have always submitted. Their\nforefathers were loyalists in England, and they in America, till far\ninto the Revolution. But see the resolutions passed in April, 1778:\n\n\"The answering of the 14th Query Respecting the Defrauding of the King\nof his dues is omitted by reason of the Difficulty of the times\ntherefore this meeting desires the Quarterly meeting to Consider whether\nit would not be well to omit the answering that part of the Query in\nfuture until the way may appear more Clear.\" This action was taken by\nthe meeting five months before the coming of Washington to the Hill,\nimmediately after the heroic winter of Valley Forge and just before the\nBritish retreated from Philadelphia. An official body which could speak\nof dues to the king at that time, after their country had been separated\nfrom him for three years, surely represented a community in which the\ngreat majority were Loyalists, and the disorderly and violent were\nTories.\n\nBut the non-resistant character of the neighborhood, perched between the\nConnecticut Yankees, who took ardent interest in the Revolution, and the\naggressive settlements of Pawling, Fredericksburgh and Beekman, rendered\nthe Hill at times an asylum, strange to say, of the most adventurous\nforces. Whenever in Colonial days an adventurer or soldier sought a\npeaceful region in which to recruit his forces, he thought upon Quaker\nHill; and in four memorable instances used the Hill as a place of safe\nrefuge. There no one would by force resist his enjoyment of a time for\nrecruiting.\n\nThe first instance of this is the so-called \"Anti-Rent War,\" which in\n1766 excited the inhabitants of Dutchess and Columbia Counties. Its\nsources were in the land grants made by the Crown, and in the\nindependent character of the settlers in this state. The series of\ndisturbances so caused continued until well into the years of the\nnineteenth century. They concern the local history only in one year,\n1766.\n\nThe Anti-Rent War of 1766 is a forgotten event. But in that time it\naroused the Indians and the white settlers to revolt. Bodies of armed\nmen assembled, British troopers marched from Poughkeepsie to Quaker\nHill, to seize a leader of rebellion; and at the time of his trial at\nPoughkeepsie in August, 1766, a company of regulars with three\nfield-pieces was brought up from New York.[19]\n\nThe prime cause of this insurrection was the granting of the land in\ngreat areas at the beginning of the century to favored proprietors, so\nthat the actual settlers could not become owners but only tenants.\nFragments of such great estates remain in the hands of certain families\ntill our time. The ownership of Hammersley Lake by the family of that\nname is an example. The exercise of authority by these monopolists of\nnatural opportunities drove the actual tillers of the soil, who had\ngiven it its value, to desperation. I have shown that in 1740 no land\nowners were enrolled on Quaker Hill, and that the list of its most\nrepresentative citizens in 1755 contained few landowners.[20] A further\ncause of this conflict may have been that, in the year of the settlement\nof the boundaries of the Oblong it was granted to one company by the\nBritish Crown, and to another by the Colony of New York. This brought\nthe title of all the lands on the Oblong into dispute. Moreover,\nboundaries were carelessly indicated and loosely described, a pile of\nstones or a conspicuous tree serving for a landmark. All this worked\ngreat confusion, for the settlement of which in a crude community courts\nwere ineffective.\n\nFinally the popular discontent broke out to the north in armed refusal\nof settlers to pay the rents exacted. The movement spread from Dutchess\nto Columbia County. William Prendergast, who is said to have lived in a\nhouse standing on the ground now part of the golf links in Pawling, was\nthe leader of the insurgents in this county. He assembled a band on\nQuaker Hill so formidable that the grenadiers at Poughkeepsie waited for\nreinforcements of two hundred troopers and two field pieces from New\nYork before proceeding against him. The sight of the red coats was\nenough. Prendergast surrendered. But so great was the local excitement\nthat, to forestall an attempt to rescue, he was taken a prisoner to New\nYork. In July he was brought back for trial; and on the same boat with\nthe King's counsel, judges, lawyers and prisoner came a company of\nsoldiers to put down the continued disturbance in Columbia County.[21]\n\nThe trial occurred the first fortnight of August. Prendergast was\nassisted in his defense by his wife, who made a strong impression on the\njury, proving that her husband, before the acts of which he was accused,\nwas \"esteemed a sober, honest and industrious farmer, much beloved by\nhis neighbors, but stirred up to act as he did by one Munro, who is\nabsconded.\" So ardent was this woman advocate that the State's attorney\nforgot himself and moved that she be excluded from the court room. The\nmotion was denied, and the mover of it emphatically rebuked. But there\nwas not lacking proof of the fact of treason, and Prendergast was\nconvicted and sentenced to be hanged in six weeks. Then this valiant\nwoman's energy and perseverance rose to their highest. She set off for\nan audience with the Governor, Sir Henry Moore, Bart., and returned\nabout the first of September with a reprieve. Just in time she arrived,\nfor a company of fifty mounted men had ridden the whole length of the\ncounty to rescue her husband from the jail. She convinced them of the\nfolly of such action as they proposed, and sent them home, while she\nturned to the task of obtaining a pardon from the King. Here, too, she\nwas successful; for, six months later, George III, who required six\nyears to be subdued by a Washington, released her husband. They arrived\nhome amid great popular rejoicings.\n\nWilliam Prendergast and Mehitabel Wing, whose descendants settled later\nabout Chautauqua Lake, New York, were bound to the Quaker Community by\nties of marriage and of trade. William was not, so far as I can learn, a\nmember of the Meeting; but Mehitabel was a daughter of Jedidiah Wing,\nwhose family was devoted to the Society from 1744 until the \"laying\ndown\" of the Meeting in 1885. William Prendergast was, however, a member\nof the community. His name heads an account in the ledgers of the\nMerritt store, in 1771 and 1772, and his purchases indicate that he was\na substantial farmer whose trading center was Quaker Hill.[22]\nPrendergast was an Irishman.\n\nBefore the Revolution he with his family and possessions, a caravan of\nseventeen vehicles and thirty horses, emigrated westward, going as far\nsouth as Kentucky, then north through Ohio and New York. A part of the\nfamily company proceeded to Canada. His son James settled, with other\nPrendergasts, on Chautauqua Lake, and became the founder of Jamestown,\nwhere his family, now extinct there, has given the city a library. When\nWilliam Prendergast and Mehitabel Wing, his resolute wife, died, is not\nknown. None of that name is later found on or near Quaker Hill.\n\nThe motive of their hegira appears to have been chagrin and a sense of\nhumiliation at the sentence of death pronounced upon the head of the\nfamily. In the Prendergast Library at Jamestown is a book containing\nfamily histories, which came from the Prendergast private library. From\nthis book two pages had been cleanly cut away. The Librarians set\nthemselves to replace the lost material, and after patient efforts in\nmany quarters, discovered another copy, and had typewritten pages made\nand pasted in. Upon the missing pages, thus replaced after the\nextinction of James Prendergast's family, was found the account of\nWilliam Prendergast's sentence to be hanged. His descendants, had they\nlived longer, might have been more proud than ashamed of his rebellion\nagainst injustice.\n\nThe Quakers, because they would passively tolerate an intrusion, were\nforced to harbor another rendezvous of turbulent men. It is said that\nEnoch Crosby, the famous spy of the Revolution, who is believed to\nhave been Cooper's model for the hero of the novel, \"The Spy,\" came to\nQuaker Hill during the Revolution, in pursuance of a plan he was at that\ntime following, and got together a band of Tory volunteers, who were\nplanning to join the British army; and delivered them to the Continental\nauthorities, as prisoners. In this he was assisted by Col. Moorehouse,\nwho kept a tavern on a site in South Dover, opposite the brick house\nwhich now stands one-half mile south of the Methodist Church.\n\n\n[Illustration: INTERIOR OF OBLONG MEETING HOUSE\n\nOn the \"facing seats\" are: OLIVE HOAG, ROBY OSBORN, BETSY POST, RICHARD\nOSBORN, JOHN L. WORDEN]\n\n\nI have spoken above of the sullen loyalty of the Quakers to the British\nCrown during the Revolution. It may have been in part owing to their\nloyalty that their neighborhood became more congenial for the Tories who\nduring that period harried the country-side. The Quakers were Tories,\nand are so called in the letters of the period; but the word \"Tories\"\nremains in the speech of Quaker Hill as a name of opprobrium. It\ndescribes a species of guerrillas who infested parts of New York and\nConnecticut.\n\nThe \"Tories\" of the Revolutionary days furnish the substance of the\nstories of violence that are told about the fireside to Quaker Hill boys\nand girls. It is difficult, however, to persuade those who have heard\nthese tales to relate them. Those who know them best are the very ones\nwho cannot recall them in systematic or orderly form. I mention only one\nmore of the free lances of the time. The chiefest of all bandit-leaders\nof those turbulent times was Waite Vaughn. It is related that this\nfellow was the head of a band of Tories, which means locally the same\nthat the term \"Cowboys\" or \"Skinners\" means in the history of\nWestchester County. The latter were lawless bands who infested the\nregions in which the armies made civil life insecure, and subsisted by\nstealing cattle, plundering houses, robbing and often murdering\ncitizens. \"They seemed,\" says a writer, \"like the savages to enjoy the\nsight of the sufferings they inflicted. Oftentimes they left their\nwretched victims from whom they had plundered their all, hung up by\ntheir arms, and sometimes by their thumbs, on barndoors, enduring the\nagony of wounds that had been inflicted to wrest from them their\nproperty. These miserable beings were frequently relieved by the\nAmerican patrol.\"[23] Waite Vaughn lived in Connecticut in the part of\nNew Fairfield known as Vaughn's Neck. Under the house, recently\ndemolished, in which \"Dr. Vaughn,\" his brother, is said to have lived\nduring the Revolution, was found rotted linen below the cellar floor.\nBehind the great heap of the chimney also was found a secret cellar, for\nyears forgotten, in which, among other rubbish of no significance, are\nsaid to have been found counterfeit coins of the Revolutionary period\nand other evidences of outlaw practices in that time.[24]\n\nVaughn used to ride at night with his troop to Quaker Hill, through\nConnecticut neighborhoods, which knew the sound of his passing. The\nPepper family still relate the tradition of his riding up \"Stony Hill,\"\npast the point where stands Coburn Meeting House, in the night, while\nthey and their neighbors stayed discreetly indoors. This rendezvous was\na place in the woods on Irish land, about half way between Sites 96 and\n120, now known as \"The Robber Rocks.\" Here the Vaughns are said to have\nconcealed booty at times, and from this point they made forages upon\nfarmhouses in the richest neighborhoods of this vicinity. Probably they\nspared the Quakers. I will speak later of the fact that Quakers have\nways of their own for protecting themselves against intruders. Moreover,\ntheir men were not gone to the war.\n\nThe record of these years, on the pages of the clerk's minute-book, are\na disappointment. One searches in vain for even the slightest trace of\nthe presence in the Meeting House of the troops. There is no record of\nthe presence in the Meeting House of the \"Tories\" or guerrillas of the\nRevolution; and not a word about the makers of the rifle-ports in the\ngables of this building which the present writer discovered there,\nunless it be the unruffled and serene utterance, under date of 8th\nMonth, 9th, 1781, the very period at which the \"Tories\" must have been\nat their worst: \"Samuel Hoag is appointed to take care of the Meeting\nHouse, and to keep the door locked and windows fastened, and to nail up\nthe hole that goes up into the Garratt.\" The \"Tories\" robbed the store\non Site 28. They had hidden for that purpose in the loft of the Meeting\nHouse and were discovered by some young Quakers who were skylarking in\nthe Meeting House under pretense of cleaning it. The story is that one\nof the young men, being dared--of course by a maiden--to open the\ntrap-door into the garret, and look for the Tories, found them hiding\nthere. The bandits, being discovered, tumbled down the hole from the\ngarret, and compelled their discoverers to go with them to the store;\nand proceeded at once to plunder it, relying no doubt on the\nnon-resistant character of the people of the Hill. They stacked their\narms at the door and went about their business in a thorough manner. But\nthere was that in the blood of some Quakers there that could not contain\nitself within the bounds of non-resistance, and one of them, Benjamin\nFerris, cried out, \"Seize the rascals.\" In the scrimmage that resulted\nfrom the excitement of this remark, the leader of the Tories was\nrecognized by the young lady who had by her challenge to the young man\ndiscovered them, and being taunted by her was so incensed that he\nstabbed her. It is only said in closing the story that the blood of both\nthe fair and adventurous young Quakeress whose abounding spirit brought\non all the trouble, and that of the leader of the \"Tories,\" flows in the\nveins, of some who live on the Hill in the twentieth century.\n\nSamuel Towner, a relative of Vaughn, resident in the region of\nFredericksburgh (now Patterson), returning from a trip, once found\nVaughn at his home, and urged him at once to leave, as his property\nwould be confiscated, if Vaughn's presence there were tolerated.\n\nVaughn was once pursued by farmers near Little Rest, and was sighted and\nsurrounded in a lonely road. He turned upon his pursuers coolly and\nsaid: \"Now, gentlemen, you can arrest me, or kill me, but you must take\nthe consequences; for I will kill some of you.\" Daunted by his\nresolution, they stood motionless while he crossed a fence and a field,\nand disappeared among the trees of a wooded hill.\n\nQuaker Hill became known as Vaughn's rendezvous, and here he met his\nend, I think about 1781. His band had robbed the home of one of the\nPearce family, then as now resident in the valley where Pawling village\nstands. The victim was hung up by his thumbs till life was almost\nextinct. The next day, Capt. Pearce, of the Revolutionary army, returned\nunexpectedly to his home, and set off with armed assistance for the\nRobber Rocks on Quaker Hill. Near that spot, in the fields east of Site\n97, on the Wing lands, Vaughn and his men were resting, some picking\nhuckleberries, and some playing cards on a flat stone. Pearce gave no\nwarning, but opened fire at once. Vaughn fell mortally wounded. He was\ncarried to John Toffey's residence, Site 53, where he soon died. He is\nburied under the trees outside the \"Toffey Burying Ground,\" beside the\nbrook, in the very heart of Quaker Hill, into which he had intruded\nbecause in that peaceful neighborhood he had for a time a safe asylum.\nWith his death it is believed that his band dispersed, and their\ndepredations ceased.\n\nA peaceful people like the Quakers must find means of their own to\nprotect themselves against intruders. No one can live long on Quaker\nHill without knowing that they have done so. One may brusquely intrude\nonce, but he will be a violent man indeed, not to say a dull one, who\ncontinues to enjoy invading the preserves of the \"Friends.\" The fourth\ninstance of a forcible invasion of the Hill was that of Washington's\narmy, which encamped in the vicinity in the fall of 1778, the\nHeadquarters being in John Kane's house, on a site now within the\nborders of Pawling Village. See on Map I, \"HeadQrs.\"\n\nOn his arrival, September 19, 1778, Washington,[25] with his bodyguard,\nwas entertained for six days at the home of Reed Ferris, in the Oblong,\nSite 99,[26] an honored guest, when he moved to the place designated as\nhis Headquarters on his maps by Erskine. His letters written during his\nresidence here are all dated from \"Fredericksburgh,\" the name at that\ntime of the western and older part of the town of Patterson.\nWashington's general officers were quartered in the homes of various\nresidents of the neighborhood. One was so entertained by Thomas Taber,\nat the extreme north end of the Hill. It is natural to suppose that\nothers were housed in nearer places. That Lafayette was entertained at\nthe home of Russell, who lived at Site 25, now the Post-office, is\nreliably asserted. The brick house standing at that time was torn down\nby Richard Osborn, who erected the present house. That Washington, with\nother officers, was entertained at Reed Ferris's home is asserted by the\ndescendants most interested, and is undoubtedly true.\n\nThe Meeting House was appropriated by the army officers for a hospital,\nbecause it was the largest available building. The only official record,\nsays Mr. L. S. Patrick, is that of Washington's order, Oct. 20th, \"No\nmore sick to be sent to the Hospital at Quaker Hill, without first\ninquiring of the Chief Surgeon there whether they can be received, as it\nis already full.\" Arguing from the date of Washington's order above,\nOct. 20, and from that of Surgeon Fallon below, this use of the\nbuilding for a hospital continued three and perhaps five months.\nMeantime the Friends' Meetings were held in the barn at Site 21, then\nthe residence of Paul Osborn. This barn had been the first Meeting House\nerected on the Hill in 1742. It was removed to Site 21 in 1769, when it\nwas used as a barn till 1884, when it was removed by the present\nresident.[27]\n\nThere is no mention, even by inference, in the records of Oblong Meeting\nthat proves this occupation of their building by soldiers. It was not\nvoluntarily surrendered; other records show that the use of the building\nwas supported by force; its surrender was grudging, not a matter to be\nrecorded in the Meeting. It is characteristic of the Friends that they\nignored it.\n\nThis toleration of the Hospital was never sympathetic. A letter of great\ninterest to the student of those times was written to the Governor of\nthe State of New York, Hon. George Clinton,[28] by Dr. James Fallon,\nphysician in charge of the sick which were left on Quaker Hill, in the\nMeeting House, after the departure of the Continental army. He could get\nno one to draw wood for his hospital in the dead of winter, till finally\n\"old Mr. Russell, an excellent and open Whig, tho' a Quaker,\" hired him\na wagon and ox team. He could buy no milk without paying in Continental\nmoney, six for one. He declared that \"Old Ferris, the Quaker, pulpiteer\nof this place, old Russell and his son, old Mr. Chace and his family,\nand Thomas Worth and his family, are the only Quakers on or about this\nHill, the public stands indebted to.\" The two pioneers of the Hill, the\npreacher and the builder, were patriots as well. He denounces the rest\nas Tories all, the \"Meriths,\" Akins, Wings, Kellys, Samuel Walker, the\nschoolmaster, and Samuel Downing, whom he declared a spurious Quaker and\nagent of the enemy; also the preacher, Lancaster, \"the Widow Irish;\"\nand many he called \"half-Quakers,\" who were probably more zealous, and\ncertainly more violent for Quaker and Tory principles than the Quakers\nthemselves.\n\nThe trouble culminated in Dr. Fallon's impressing the wagons of Wing,\nKelly and \"the widow Irish,\" to take fourteen men to Danbury and\nFishkill to save their lives. The former impress was not resisted; but\nthe soldiers who took the Irish team had to battle with a mob, headed by\nAbraham Wing and Benjamin Akin, who used the convalescent soldiers\nroughly, but could not prevent the seizure. They were not the first men\nto do violence for the sake of the principle of non-resistance. One can\nsee, too, that modern Quakerism has taken a gentler tone.\n\nThe small violence done by Abraham Wing and Benjamin Akin, like that of\nyoung Ferriss to prevent the robbery of the Merritt store, was\nineffective. But the Quaker mode of self-protection was more effective\nthan violence. They \"froze out\" the doctors and their soldiers from the\nMeeting House, by leaving them alone in the bitter winter, by letting\nthem starve. The bitterness of their Toryism, and the zeal of Quaker\nideals, the ardor of their \"make-believe,\" carried them too far. They\nforgot mercy for the sake of opposing the cruelty of war.\n\nAmong the soldiers who lay sick in the Meeting House many are said to\nhave died. They were buried in the grounds of the resident on Site 32,\nin the easterly portion of the field facing the Meeting House. No stones\nmark their place of rest, as none were ever placed in the cemetery of\nthe early Quakers in the western part of the same field. Over them both\nthe horses of persons attending meeting were tethered for many decades.\nThe ploughman and the mower for years traversed the ground. But it is\nnot forgotten who were buried there.\n\nSays L. S. Patrick in his attempt to estimate the amount of sickness\nand death of soldiers on the hill that winter:[29] \"Of the conditions\nexisting, the prejudices prevailing, and the probable number in the\nHospital, Dr. Fallon's letter to Governor Clinton furnishes the only\naccount known to exist: 'Out of the 100 sick, Providence took but three\nof my people off since my arrival.' On the occasion of the arrival of\nCol. Palfrey, the Paymaster General, at Boston from Fredericksburgh,\nGeneral Gates writes to General Sullivan: 'I am shocked at our poor\nfellows being still encamped, and falling sick by the hundreds.'\n\n\"The death list--out of the oblivion of the past but four names have\nbeen found--John Morgan, Capt. James Greer's Co., died at Quaker Hill\nHospital, Oct. 19, 1777(?); Alexander Robert, Capt. George Calhoun's\nCo., 4th Pa., Nov. 6, 1778; James Tryer, Capt. James Lang's Co., 5th\nPa., Oct. 22, 1778; Peter King, 1st Pa., enlisted 1777, Quaker Hill\nHospital, N. J.(?) 1778 (no such hospital).\n\n\"Some doubt may exist as to two of these, but as the hospital is named,\nan error may exist in copying the original record.\"\n\n\n[19] \"Dutchess County in Colonial Days,\" 1898, and \"Dutchess\nCounty,\" 1899, papers read before the Dutchess County Society, in the\nCity of New York, by Hon. Alfred T. Ackert. Also, \"History of Dutchess\nCounty,\" by James H. Smith.\n\n[20] See pp. 20 and 21.\n\n[21] See \"New York Mercury,\" July 28, 1766, August 18 and 25,\n1766, September 15, 1766. See also \"Dutchess County,\" by Alfred T.\nAckert, 1899, p. 5.\n\n[22] See Appendix B.\n\n[23] Thacher's \"Military Journal of the Revolution.\"\n\n[24] The narrative of Vaughn is gleaned from old residents,\nAlmira Briggs Treadwell, Archibald Dodge, Jane Crane, and others.\n\n[25] \"Washington Headquarters at Fredricksburgh,\" by L. S.\nPatrick; Quaker Hill Series, 1907.\n\n[26] This matter is very fully treated in \"Washington's\nHeadquarters at Fredericksburgh,\" by Lewis S. Patrick. Quaker Hill\nConference Local History Series, XVI. 1907.\n\n[27] See No. III, Quaker Hill Series, pp. 12, 42, and No. VIII,\npp. 16, 17.\n\n[28] \"Letters of Governor George Clinton,\" New York State\nLibrary.\n\n[29] \"Washington Headquarters at Fredricksburgh,\" by L. S.\nPatrick, 1907.\n\n\n\n\nPART II.\n\nThe Transition.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nCOMMUNICATION--THE ROADS.\n\n\nThe roads were originally bridle paths, and to this day many a stretch\nof road testifies in its steep grade to its use in the days of the pack\nsaddle. No driver of a wheeled vehicle would have selected so abrupt a\nslope.\n\nIn the early days the roads had a north and south direction. In the\nPeriod of Transition, with the diversion of commerce to the railroad in\nPawling, the roads of an east and west direction became the principal\nroads, though the one great Quaker Hill highway north and south is still\nthe avenue of communication on the Hill.\n\nAs the years passed wagons were used; indeed, by the time of the\nRevolution, in the second generation, they were bearing all the\ntransportation. The state of the roads is shown, however, by the fact\nthat Daniel Merritt was accustomed to pay, in 1772, L1, or $5, for\ncarting four barrels of beef to the river; that is, about 1,000 lbs.\nconstituted a load. At the present state of the country roads, a Quaker\nHill employer would expect 2,000 lbs. to make a load. The state of the\nroads before the turnpikes were made, that is, before 1800 to 1825, is\ndescribed by a resident as follows: \"The road was so full of stones,\nlarge and small, that people of to-day would consider impassable for an\nempty wagon, to say nothing of drawing a load over it. In the fall of\nthe year it is said that toward evening one could hear the hammering of\nthe wheels of the wagons on the stones of the road a distance of four\nor five miles.\"[30]\n\nI cannot learn that Quaker Hill was during the Quaker Period on any main\nline of country travel. Marquis De Chastelleux records in his \"Travels\nin North America,\" that he journeyed in 1789 to Moorehouse's Tavern (see\nMap I) along the Ten Mile River, two or three miles from the Housatonic\nto \"several handsome houses forming part of the district known as _The\nOblong_. The inn I was going to is in the Oblong, but two miles farther\non. It is kept by Col. Moorehouse, for nothing is more common in America\nthan to see an inn kept by a colonel ... the most esteemed and most\ncreditable citizen.\" There was no inn on Quaker Hill and no colonel. The\nQuaker aversion to military titles was then as great as to the sale of\nrum. The houses referred to by the French traveller were probably the\nnorthern boundary of the Quaker community, at what is now Webatuck. I\ncannot find record of any post road coming nearer than this, until in\nthe 19th century a stage was maintained between Poughkeepsie and New\nMilford, by way of Quaker Hill, making the journey every other day, and\nstopping at John Toffey's store at Site 53.\n\nThe building of turnpikes became, in the years following 1800, a popular\nform of public spirit. Says Miss Taber: \"In fact, turnpikes seemed to be\na fad in those days all over the state and probably a necessary one. The\nlongest one I learn of in this part of the country was from Cold Spring\non the Hudson River to New Milford in Connecticut. The turnpike in which\nthe people of this neighborhood were most interested was the one\nincorporated April 3, 1818, and reads, 'That Albro Akin, John Merritt,\nGideon Slocum, Job Crawford, Charles Hurd, William Taber, Joseph Arnold,\nEgbert Carey, Gabriel L. Vanderburgh, Newel Dodge, Jnrs., and such other\npersons as shall associate for the purpose of making a good and\nsufficient turnpike road in Dutchess Co.' It was named as the Pawlings\nand Beekman Turnpike, being a portion of what is known as the\nPoughkeepsie road passing over the West Mountain, but we do not find\nthat anything was done until after the act was revived in 1824, when\nJoseph C. Seeley, Benoni Pearce, Samuel Allen, Benjamin Barr and George\nW. Slocum were associated with them.\"\n\nThe Pawlings and Beekman Turnpike maintained a tollgate till 1905, when\nit was burned down; and the company, which had long discussed its\ndiscontinuance, then abandoned its private rights in that excellent\nstretch of road. The turnpike which crossed Quaker Hill ended at the\nJephtha Sabin residence, known to the present generation as \"the Garry\nFerris place,\" Site 74. The roads of the neighborhood were the same in\n1778-80 as at the present day, as will be seen from a comparison of Map\nI, made by Erskine for Washington, and Map 2, which is a copy of the U. S.\nSurvey; except the road from Mizzen-Top Hotel to Hammersley Lake,\nmade after the hotel was erected. The comparison of maps shows also, to\none who knows the use of these roads, that they have changed from a\nnorth and south use to an east and west use; the highway on the\nnorthward slope of the Hill in Dover, and on the southward slope in\nPatterson, being but little used to-day. The road from the Meeting House\nand cemetery westward, which was once much favored, is now scarcely ever\nused, and being neglected by the authorities, is little more than a\nstony gutter.\n\nThe whole character of the neighborhood was changed by a revolution in\ntransportation. Not turnpikes effected the change, but railroads. The\nearly years of the nineteenth century were filled with expectation of\nnew modes of travel. Robert Fulton was building his steamboat amid the\nderision of his contemporaries, and to their amazement steaming up the\nHudson against the tide. At first canals seemed to country folk the\nsolution of their problem. They occupied in the dawn of the 19th century\nthe place which trolley cars occupy in the minds of promoters to-day. A\ncanal was planned to run through the Harlem valley, where now Pawling\nstands, and Quaker Hill men were among the promoters of it, among them\nDaniel Akin and Johnathan Akin Taber.\n\nPresently, however, came the promotion of railroads, and many of the\nsame men who had favored the canals, entered heartily into the new\nprojects. The foundation of Albert Akin's fortune was made when, about\n1830, he began to borrow money of his neighbors and invest in the\nrapidly growing lines of steam-cars in New York State. There were those,\nhowever, who foresaw dire things from the new iron highway, and old\nresidents tell of \"one man who said that whosoever farm that locomotive\npassed through would have to give up fatting cattle, as it would be\nimpossible to keep a steer on the place.\"\n\nFor many years the railroad came no nearer than Croton Falls. Richard\nOsborn used to tell the story of one resident of the Hill who boasted\nthat he could go to New York and return the same day. This he finally\nattempted and accomplished by driving with a good pair of horses to\nCroton Falls in the morning, taking an early train to New York,\nreturning in the evening, and driving home before night. This story,\nwhich is well authenticated, proves the good condition of some of the\nroads before 1849, for the drive to Croton Falls is about twenty miles.\nAmong leading Quaker Hill residents who promoted railroads in the valley\nwere Jonathan Akin, Daniel D. Akin, J. Akin Taber, John and Albert J.\nAkin. The two men who were most influential in completing the last link\nof the road--from the local viewpoint--were Albert Akin and Hon. John\nKetcham, of Dover, both recently deceased. They supplied cash for the\ncontinuation of the road from Croton Falls to Dover Plains. To Mr.\nAkin the promise was made that if he would supply a building for a\nstation the road would place an eating house at the point nearest Quaker\nHill. There was then no such village or hamlet as Pawling, the locality\nbeing known as \"Goosetown.\" Patterson was an old village, west of its\npresent business center one mile, and was known as Fredericksburgh.\nDover also was a place of distinction in the country-side. Mr. Akin,\nwith several yoke of oxen, hauled a dwelling to the railroad track from\nthe site on which Washington's Headquarters stood in 1778; and thus was\ninitiated the settlement of the village which is now among the most\nthriving on the road.\n\n\n[Illustration: A QUAKER GENTLEMAN]\n\n\nAt that time Quaker Hill was the most prosperous community for many\nmiles around. A description of its industries will be found elsewhere,\nin Chap. IV, Part I. The coming of the railroad changed the whole aspect\nof things. The demand for milk to be delivered by farmers at the\nrailroad station every day, and sold the next day in New York, began at\nonce. It soon became the most profitable occupation for the farmers and\nthe most profitable freight for the railroad. Eleven years after the\nfirst train entered Pawling came the war, with inflated prices. The\nfarmer found that no use of his land paid him so much cash as the\n\"making of milk,\" and thereafter the raising of flax ceased, grain was\ncultivated less and less, except as it was to be used in the feeding of\ncattle, and even the fatting of cattle soon had to yield to the lowered\nprices occasioned by the importation of beef from western grazing lands.\nThe making of butter and cheese, with the increased cost of labor on the\nfarms, was abandoned, that the milk might be sold in bulk to the city\nmiddleman. The time had not come, however, in which farmers or their\nlaborers imported condensed milk, or used none. Quaker Hill farmers lived\ntoo generously and substantially for that; but they ceased, during the\nCivil War, when milk was bought \"at the platform\" for six cents a quart,\nto make butter or cheese.\n\nThus the Harlem Railroad transformed Quaker Hill from a community of\ndiversified farming, producing, manufacturing, selling, consuming,\nsufficient unto itself, into a locality of specialized farming. Its\nmarket had been Poughkeepsie, twenty-eight miles away, over high hills\nand indifferent roads. Its metropolis became New York City, sixty-two\nmiles away by rail and four to eight miles by wagon road.\n\nWith the railroad's coming the isolated homogeneous community scattered.\nThe sons of the Quakers emigrated. Laborers from Ireland and other\nEuropean lands, even negroes from Virginia, took their places. New\nYorkers became residents on the Hill, which became the farthest terminus\nof suburban traffic. The railroad granted commuters' rates to Pawling,\nand twice as many trains as to any station further out. The population\nof the Hill became diversified, while industries became simplified. In\nthe first century the people were one, the industries many. In the\nPeriod of the Mixed Community, in the second century, the people were\nmany and the industries but one. I speak elsewhere of these elements of\nthe mixed community. Suffice it to have traced here the simplifying of\nthe economic life of the Hill, by the influence of the railroad, which\nmade the neighborhood only one factor in a vaster industrial community,\nof which New York was the center. When the Meeting House and the Merritt\nstore were for a century the centers of a homogeneous Quaker community,\nit was a solid unit, of one type, doing varied things; when Wall Street\nand Broadway became the social and industrial centers, a varied people,\nno less unified, did but one thing.\n\n\n[30] \"Some Glimpses of the Past,\" by Alicia Hopkins Taber.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nECONOMIC CHANGES.\n\n\nThe transition from the mixed or diversified farming of the Quaker\ncommunity to the special and particular farming of the mixed community\nis written in the growth of the dairy industry, which in the year 1900\nwas the one industry of the Hill. In 1800 dairy products were only\nbeginning to emerge from a place in the list of products of the Quaker\nHill lands to a single and special place as the only product of salable\nvalue. While the Hill people constituted a community dependent on itself\nand sufficient unto itself, the exceptional fitness of the \"heavy clay\nsoil\" to the production of milk, butter and cheese did not assert\nitself, and wheat, rye, flax, apples, potatoes were raised in large\nquantities and sold; but in the period of opening communication with the\nworld in general, exactly in proportion as the Hill shared in the growth\nof commerce, by so much did the dairy activities supplant all other\noccupations. The order of this emergence is a significant commentary\nupon the opening of roads and the development of transportation. The\nstages are: first, cheese and butter; second, fat cattle; and third,\nmilk. At the end of the Quaker community, when the best roads were of\nthe east and west directions, and Poughkeepsie was the market-place,\ncheese and butter were made for a \"money crop,\" by the women, who\nretained the money for their own use.\n\nThere is a story told in the Taber and Shove families, which prettily\nshows the customs in the Quaker century. Anne Taber, wife of Thomas\nTaber, substantial pioneer at the north end of the Hill, \"had a fine\nreputation as a cheese maker.\" Being a New England woman, she was of the\nfew who in Revolutionary days were in sympathy with the Colonies, and\nshe gave forth that she would present a cheese to the first general\nofficer who should visit the neighborhood. \"One day, being summoned to\nthe door,\" writes one of her descendants, \"she was greatly surprised to\nfind a servant of General Washington, with a note from him claiming,\nunder conditions of the promise, the cheese. Of course it was sent, and\nthe General had opportunity to test her skill in that domestic art.\"[31]\n\nThe Taber family did not preserve that note; but in the Treasury\nDepartment of the United States, among Washington's memoranda of\nexpenditures, is the item under date of Nov. 6, 1778, \"To Cash paid\nservant for bringing cheese from Mr. Taber, 16 shillings.\" It would seem\nthat the fame of Anne Taber's cheeses had won her a market with the\nofficers at Headquarters, for sixteen shillings was payment \"for\nbringing cheese\" in large quantity, and the date is six weeks after the\narrival of Washington for his stay in the vicinity.\n\nIn the ledger of the Merritt store, under date of Nov. 6, 1772, Thomas\nTaber, Esq., is credited as follows: \"By 29 cheses wd. 484 lb. at 6d.,\nL12 2s.\" In that year Thomas Taber, Esq., satisfied his account with an\nox, L6 16s.; cash, L10; three pounds and nine ounces of old pewter, 4s.\n6d.; seven hogs, L20 11s. 6d., and the above 29 cheeses. So that\napproximately one-fourth of the \"money crop\" of this substantial farmer\nwas in the form of a dairy product. In the year 1895, the average Quaker\nHill farm was producing, as will be shown in Chapter III, Part III,\nninety per cent. of dairy product, namely milk.\n\nThe second phase of the industry proper to Quaker Hill was that of\nraising fat cattle. This culminated at the end of the period of the\nQuaker Community. In this industry were laid the foundations of some\nlarge fortunes. It brought in its day more money into the neighborhood\nthan any other occupation had ever brought. It disappeared with the\ncoming of the railroad into the valley, bringing, in refrigerator cars,\nmeat from western lands, and killed in Chicago. Then the cattle were\nfattened on these hills, in the rich grass, and driven to New York to be\nkilled and sold there.\n\nIn \"Some Glimpses of the Past,\" Miss Taber says: \"But the chief business\nof most farmers was the fatting of cattle. The cattle were generally\nbought when from two to three years old, usually in the fall, kept\nthrough the winter and the following summer fattened and sold. They were\nthe only things that did not have to go to the river to reach the\nmarket. From all over the country they were driven to New York on foot,\nand the road through the valley was the main thoroughfare for them.\nMonday was the market day in New York and all started in time to reach\nthe city by Saturday. From Pawling the cattle were started on Thursday,\nand those from greater distances planned to reach this part of their\njourney on that day. It used to be said that the dealers could tell what\nthe market would be in New York on the following Monday by watching the\ncattle that passed through Pawling on Thursday. The cattle were\ncollected and taken to the city by drovers; theirs was a great business\nin those days. Hotels or taverns were provided for their accommodation\nat frequent intervals along the road. Ira Griffin was a drover and Mr.\nArchibald Dodge remembers when a boy going to New York with him and his\ncattle, walking all the way. There were also droves of cattle other than\nfat ones, on the road, some called store cattle, and the books of Mr.\nBenjamin V. Haviland, who kept one of the taverns, show that in the year\n1847 there had been kept on his place 27,784 cattle, 30,000 sheep and\n700 mules, and it is said that occasionally there would be 2,000 head\nbetween his tavern and that of John Preston's in Dover. When Mr. Albert\nJ. Akin was a young man he was considered an expert judge and buyer of\nsteers for fattening, and generally had the finest herd of fat cattle.\"\n\nThis reference is to the business at its height and applies to the years\n1800-1850. In the books of John Toffey's store are frequent references\nto the business.\n\nInteresting material is furnished for the study of the period of\ntransition, in the records of the store kept by John Toffey at Site No.\n53. These old day-books and ledgers are incomplete, but they cover\nspaces of time in the years 1814, 1824, 1833; and their account of the\npurchases made by John Toffey's customers furnishes a record, we may\nsuppose, of the goods brought into the households on the Hill at that\ntime, from other communities; as well as the actual exchange of\ncommodities on the Hill, where at that time diversified industries were\ncarried on.\n\nThe growth of trade in these respects, from the period 1814-1816 to the\nperiod 1824-1833 will be considered in four lines, as it is exhibited in\nthe commodities: first of Costume, second of Food and Medicine, and\nthird of Tools and Material for Industry, fourth, of House-furnishings.\nIt is assumed that John Toffey kept a representative store, and that the\ngrowth in his trade corresponded to the growth in the commercial\ninterchange in the community.\n\nIn 1814-1816 the imported goods kept and sold by John Toffey are cloth\n(perhaps in part locally manufactured), indigo, thread, cambric,\npenknives, knitting needles, spelled \"nittenneedels,\" plaster, fine\nsalt, molasses, tea, apple-trees, nutmeg, shad and occasionally other\nfish. The list is brief, and its proportion to the other commodities\nsold in the store evidences the simplicity of a community dependent\nchiefly upon itself, and living a life of rudeness and content.\n\nAmong prices which change in the twenty years recorded in John Toffey's\nbooks are those of molasses which was in 1814-1816 $2.00 per gallon, and\nfell to $1.25 and in 1824 to 35c. per gallon. \"Tobago\" was sold in 1814\nat $2.75 per pound, and later for 62c. Flour was sold in 1814 for $18\nper barrel, or 9c. per pound; wool hats at $4; fine salt 10c. per pound;\nplaster $3.25 per hundredweight; boots at $9.00; tea at $2.75 per pound.\n\nA day's work for a man in 1814-1816 was from $1.00 per day for ordinary\nwork, to $1.25 for driving oxen, or $1.50 for \"digging a grave,\" or the\nsame amount \"for going after the thief.\"\n\nHouse-rent is recorded at the rate of thirty dollars a year.\n\nOne may explain the high rates of many of these commodities, and the\nrelatively high rate paid for labor by the prevalence of war prices at\nthe time. Commodities such as molasses would be expensive as a result of\nthe stoppage of sea-trade; and the labor market was exhausted to supply\nthe army with soldiers.\n\nIn 1824 Toffey imported, for Costuming, shawls, crepe at $1 per yard,\nsilk, skein-silk, twist, ribbon, velvet at 90c. per yard, drab-cloth,\nflannel, braid, handkerchiefs, buttons and button-moulds, gloves,\nsuspenders, calico, vest patterns, pins, chrome-yellow, \"bearskin\" at\n82c. per yard, dress handkerchiefs, beads, buckles, silk flags and\nmorocco skins.\n\nOf new foods he imported molasses at 35c. per gallon, oranges at 2c.\neach, which he seems to have sold only one by one, sugar at 6c., tobacco\nat 12c., alum, tea at 85c., salt at $1 per bushel, pepper, all-spice,\nraisins, salt-peter, pearlash, castile soap, hard soap, paregoric,\nginger, logwood, vitriol, cinnamon, snuff, sulphur, cloves, mustard,\nopium, coffee, loaf sugar, watermelons, and seeds for beets, lettuce,\nparsnips.\n\nOf House-furnishings, he had for sale, knives, forks--one set of knives\nand forks selling for $13, plates, bowls, pitchers, mugs, teacups,\nteapots, decanters, almanacs, brooms, oilcloth, glass and putty,\ninkstands, bedsteads, spoons in sets, sugar-bowls, tin pans.\n\nOf Tools and Materials for Industry he sold nails by the \"paper,\" by the\nhundred and by the pound, files, oil at 75c. a gallon, locks, slates,\npaper, pocket-books, pencils, turpentine, raw steel and iron, spectacles\nat 34c., sandpaper, shovels and spades, screws, gimlets.\n\nRum, brandy and gin appear also, with powder, shot and fishhooks, as\ntributes to the convivial and adventurous spirit. But the convivial\nspirits were the better patrons, for there was scarcely an entry in\ncertain years in which was not an item of alcoholic spirits. The\nsporting goods were only occasionally purchased.\n\nIn 1833 for Costuming, cotton-batting had appeared, and canton flannel,\ncanvas, blue jeans at 83c. per yard, brown Holland, cloth at $3.64 per\nyard, hats at 44c. each, hooks and eyes, pearl buttons at 10c. a dozen,\nside combs, bandanna handkerchiefs; while sole-leather was still sold in\nquantity, with buckskin mittens, which were scarcely made on the Hill.\n\nFor Industry, behold the arrival of pincers, gum arabic, \"Pittsburgh\ncord\" at 21c. per yard. In Housings, candles, frying pans, tin pails,\ndippers, tin basins, wash-tubs made their appearance; and in this year\nfor the first time window-blinds were sold, for 75c.\n\nFor Food and Medicines John Toffey offered at this time codfish, coffee,\nsouchong tea, crackers, castor oil, camphor gum, Epsom salts.\n\nMeantime, a day's wages had fallen from $1 and $1.50 to 65c. and 75c.\nper day.\n\nThe growth of trade in John Toffey's store is summarized in Table I. In\nthis table may be seen also the growth of economic demand. The increase\nof the number of kinds of commodities in each evidences the acquirement\nof varied tastes by this people of the Hill.\n\n\n            TABLE I. JOHN TOFFEY'S STORE.\n --------------------+---------+--------+---------\n Commodities         | 1814-16 |  1824  |  1833\n --------------------+---------+--------+---------\n Costume             |    5    |   25   |   38\n Food and Medicine   |    5    |   29   |   36\n Tools and Materials |    5    |   18   |   21\n House Furnishings   |         |   18   |   24\n --------------------+---------+--------+---------\n Daily Wage          |$1.-$1.50|        |65c.-75c.\n --------------------+---------+--------+---------\n\n\nThe above summary of the importations to the Hill in the years 1814-1833\ncasts light upon the social and religious history of the period in\nquestion; in which occurred the greatest social convulsion this\ncommunity has ever known. In the year 1828 the Religious Society of the\nFriends was divided, never to be united, the integrity of the community\nas a social and religious unit was ended, the ties of a century were\nsevered, and instead of the \"unity\" of which Quakers are always so\nconscious, came mutual criticism, recrimination, and excommunication of\none-half of the community by the majority of the Meeting. Thus ended the\ncommunal life of Quaker Hill, and began the disintegration of the\ncommunity which is now almost complete.\n\nIt is true that this schism was general throughout the denomination, in\nall the United States; and that it was shared in its doctrinal\ninfluences by the Congregational churches, the Unitarian Association\nhaving been formed in Boston in 1825. But nevertheless it had roots on\nQuaker Hill in an economic condition; and that economic condition may\nhave been general throughout the Eastern States.\n\nLet the doctrinal causes of this schism be considered elsewhere.[32]\nEconomic causes are hinted at in the above paragraphs. There came in\nmany embellishments of life which must have seemed to early Friends mere\nluxuries, and to the stricter few must have appeared instruments of sin,\nas \"beads,\" \"ribbons,\" velvet, silk, braid, crepe, shawls, dress\nhandkerchiefs, buckles, silk flags, pearl buttons--these are expressions\nof new states of mind. The economic change underlying the social\nconvulsion is seen in the increase of varied stuffs for costume,\narticles and materials for the food and medicine cupboards of the\nfarmhouses, and in more varied tools and materials both for industry and\nhouse furnishing.\n\nEven more influential than the exciting power of luxuries would be the\nquieter and more pervasive stimulus of comfort. Houses that are glazed\nand ceiled and furnished with well adapted implements in every room;\ntables set with all the wares of leisurely and pleasurable feeding speak\na new state of affairs. The people so clothed and so fed begin to\nproduce in every family some members of cultured tastes, some of\nindependent thought, who are restive under the denials of Quakerism.\n\nBusiness and industry too become more varied; and the effect of this\nprosperous and varied industry shows itself in active and critical\nminds. Importation from places beyond Poughkeepsie awakened imagination\nand invited reflection upon the state of the world.\n\nAll this time the daily wage continued to fall, from $1 and $1.50 in\n1814 to 50c., 65c. and 75c. in 1833. It is said that men bitterly\ncommented, in those days of the rapid development of the country, that a\nfarmer who paid a laborer fifty cents for a day's labor in the hay-field\nfrom daybreak to dark, would pay the same amount, fifty cents, for his\nsupper on the Hudson River boat, when he made his annual visit to the\ngreat city of New York.\n\nWe have, then, in John Toffey's daybook a reflection of conditions\nwhich had to do with the break-up of the community, as truly as did the\ntheological difference between Elias Hicks and the Orthodox. Comfortable\nliving, diversified and intensified industry, importation of expensive\nand stimulating comforts, leisure with its sources in wealth, and its\ntendencies toward reflection, and especially a differentiation of the\nhomogeneous community into diverse classes, owing to lowered wages and\nmultiplied embellishments of life, made up altogether the raw materials\nof discontent, criticism and division.\n\nThese factors go with a state of growing discontent and disintegration.\nThe men and women possessed of leisure cultivated a humanist state of\nmind, with which arose a critical spirit, a nicer taste and a cultured\ndiscrimination. They were offended by literalism, bored by crudeness\nhowever much in earnest, and disgusted with the illogical assertions of\npietists. The imperative mandate of the meeting awakened in them only\nopposition. They found many to sympathize with their state of mind.\n\nOn the other side there were those who seriously feared the incoming of\nluxurious ways. They distrusted books, remembering the values of one\nBook to the laborer who reads it alone; they believed in plainness, and\ntheir minds associated freedom of dress with freedom of thought. They\nresented also the new privileges conferred on some by wealth, because to\nmost had come only harder work with discontent.\n\nThe schism which rent the community was an economic heresy, the belief\nin the use of money for embellishment of life. All the Quakers regarded\nwith favor the making of money. The Liberals, however, saw ends beyond\nmoney, and processes of ultimate value beyond administration and\nbusiness. They looked for household comforts, books, travel, and the\nleisure with great souls who have written and have expressed the\ngreatest truths. They believed in a divinity such as could have made,\nand regarded with favor, the whole teeming world.\n\nThe Orthodox saw the values of prosperity only in plainness of life,\nrecognized no divinity in humanized manners, and sternly but\nineffectually called the community back to idealized commonplaceness,\nand to hear the utterances of rude ploughmen and cobblers in the name of\nDeity.\n\nOne ventures to believe, too, that there was a falling away from all\nreligious exercises at this time, and that the pious of both schools\nwere troubled about it, and accused one another. The poor were too hard\nworked and too poorly paid to feel anything but discontent; and the\nleaders of the community differed as to the solution of the religious\nproblem. Hence came division.\n\nThe Quakers are conscious of religious \"unity,\" but their mode of life\nis a true economic unity. The Quaker Community was re-arranging itself\neconomically, but the members felt a religious change. Class division\nwas coming upon them, and they felt it as a sectarian division. It was\nindeed the end of the old community ruled by religion, and the formation\nof a new neighborhood life; a new Quakerism, ruled by economic classes:\nthe persons of influence being invariably persons of means, and the\ndominating leaders rich. Doubtless the Quakers who led in the Division\nof 1828 hoped, in each party equally, to maintain the old religious\ndomination. The community has never granted that leadership to the\ndivided Meeting, neither to the Orthodox, nor to the Hicksites. The real\npower has, since a period antedating the division, been in the hands of\nthose who have owned farms centrally located; who in addition to owning\nland centrally located have been possessed of large means: the \"rich\nmen\" and \"wealthy women\" have possessed a monopoly of actual leadership.\nIf also, they have been religiously inclined, their leadership has been\nabsolute.\n\n\n[31] \"Thomas Taber and Edward Shove--a Reminiscence,\" by Rev.\nBenjamin Shove; Quaker Hill Series, 1903.\n\n[32] The matter is fully treated in \"Quaker Hill in the\nNineteenth Century,\" by Rev. Warren H. Wilson; Quaker Hill Series of\nLocal History No. IV.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nRELIGIOUS LIFE IN TRANSITION.\n\n\nIn religion the solidarity of this country place has been best shown in\nthe fact that, during most of its history, it has had but one church at\na time. For one hundred years there was the undivided meeting. From 1828\nto 1885 the Hicksite--Unitarian, branch of the Friends held the Old\nMeeting House, with diminishing numbers. The Orthodox had their smaller\nmeeting house around the corner, attended by decreasing gatherings. In\n1880 was organized Akin Hall, in which till 1892 were held religious\nservices in the summer only. Since that time religious services have\nbeen held there all the year round. The early united meeting had a\nmembership of probably two hundred, and audiences of three hundred were\nnot uncommon.\n\nThe church in Akin Hall, named \"Christ's Church, Quaker Hill,\" had in\n1898 a membership of sixty-five, and audiences of fifty to two hundred\nand fifty, according to the occasion and the time of year. In the past\nthe general attitude of the community toward religion has been reverent\nand sympathetic. It is no less so to-day.\n\nOf religious ceremonies the Quakers claim to have none. But they are\nfond of ceremoniousness beyond most men. The very processes by which\nthey abolish forms are made formal processes. They have ceremonies the\nintent of which is to free them from ceremony. The meeting is called to\norder by acts ever so simple, and dismissed by two old persons shaking\nhands; but these are invariable and formal as a doxology and a\nbenediction. They receive a stranger in their own way. A visiting\nminister is honored with fixed propriety. An expelled member is read out\nof meeting with stated excommunicatory maledictions.\n\nWorship has had on Quaker Hill a large place in characterizing the\nsocial complexion of the people. By this, I mean that the peculiarities\nof the Quaker worship, now a thing of the past, have engraved themselves\nupon character. Those peculiarities are four: the custom of silence; the\nnon-employment of music, or conspicuous color or form; the separate\nplace provided for women; the assertion and practice of individualism.\n\nThe silence of the Quaker meeting is far from negative. It is not a mere\nabsence of words. It is a discipline enforced upon the lower elements of\nhuman nature, and a reserve upon the intellectual elements, in order\nthat God may speak. I think that in this silence of the meeting we\ndiscover the working of the force that has moulded individual character\non Quaker Hill and organized the social life. For this silence is a\nvivid experience, \"a silence that may be felt.\" The presence and\ninfluence of men are upon one, even if that of God be not. The\nmotionless figures about one subtly penetrate one's consciousness,\nthough not through the senses. They testify to their belief in God when\nthey do not speak better than they could with rhetoric or eloquence. It\nis the influence of many, not of one; yet of certain leaders who are the\norgans of this impression, and of the human entity made of many who in\ncommunion become one. The self-control of it breathes power, and\nprinciple, and courage. One would expect a Quaker meeting to exert an\nimperious rule upon the community. It is an expression of the majesty of\nan ideal. I believe that the Quaker Hill meeting has been able to\naccomplish whatever it has put its hand to do. The only pity is that the\nmeeting tried to do so little.\n\nThe original religious influence of Quakerism, carried through all\nchanges and transformation, was a pure and relentless individualism. It\nwas the doctrine that the Spirit of God is in every heart of man,\nabsolutely every one; resisted indeed by some, but given to each and\nall. With honest consistency it must be said, the Quakers applied\nthis--and this it was they did apply--to the status of women, to the\nquestion of slavery, to the civic relations of men. This it was that\nmade Fox and Penn refuse to doff their hats before judge, or titled\nlord, or the king himself.\n\nThe character of the common mind of the community has been much\ninfluenced by the fact that the Quakers made no use of color, form and\nmusic either in worship or in private life; that they also idealized the\nabsence of these. They made it a matter of noble devotion. In nothing do\nlocal traditions abound more than in stories of the stern repression of\nthe aesthetic instincts. One ancient Quakeress, coming to the well-set\ntable at a wedding, in the old days, beheld there a bunch of flowers of\ngay colors, and would not sit down until they were removed. Nor could\nthe feast go on until the change was effected. So great was the power of\nauthority, working in the grooves of \"making believe,\" that those who\nmight have tolerated the bouquet in silence, as well as those who had\nsensations of pleasure in it, supported her opposition.\n\nI have spoken elsewhere of the effect of this century-long repression\nand ignoring of the aesthetic movements of the human spirit, in banking\nthe fires of literary culture in this population. The present\ngeneration, all inheriting the examples of ancestors ruled in such\nunflinching rigor, has in none of its social grouping any true sense of\ncolor or of the beauty of color. Neither in the garments of those who\nhave laid off the Quaker garb, nor in the decorations of the houses is\nthere a lively sense of the beauty of color. None of the women of Quaker\nextraction has a sense of color in dress; nor can any of them match or\nharmonize colors. I except, of course, those whose clothing is directly\nunder the control of the city tailor or milliner. The general effect of\ncostume and of the decorations of a room, in the population who get\ntheir living on the Hill, is that of gray tones, and drab effects; not\nmere severity is the effect, but poverty and want of color.\n\nIn forms of beauty they know and feel little more. I do not refer to the\nlack of appreciation of the elevations and slopes of this Hill itself--a\nconstant delight to the artistic eye. Farmers and laborers might fail to\nappreciate a scene known to them since childhood. But there is in the\nQuaker breeding, which gives on certain sides of character so true and\nfine a culture a conspicuous lack in this one particular.\n\nAs to music, even that of simplest melody, it has come to the Hill, but\nit \"knows not Joseph.\" An elderly son of Quakerism said: \"You will find\nno Quaker or son of the Quakers who can sing; if you do find one who can\nsing a little, it will be a limited talent, and you will unfailingly\ndiscover that he is partly descended from the world's people.\"\n\nThe effect of this aesthetic negation appears, it seems to the present\nwriter, in a certain rudeness or more precisely a certain lack in the\ndomain of manners, outside of the interests in which Quakerism has given\nso fine a culture. This appears to be keenly felt by the descendants of\nFriends. Not in business matters; for they are made directors of savings\nbanks and corporations, and trustees, and referees, and executors of\nestates, in all which places they find themselves at home. Nor is it a\nlack of dignity and composure in the parlor or at the table. Nor is it a\nlack of sense of propriety in meetings of worship. But it is in matters\nethical, civic and deliberate, and in the free and discursive meetings\nof men, in which new and intricate questions are to arise; in positions\nof trust, in which the highest considerations of social responsibility\nconstitute the trust; in these, the men and women trained in Quakerism\nare lacking throughout whole areas of the mind, and lacking, too, in\nethical standards, which can only appeal to those whose experience has\nfed on a rich diversity of sources and distinctions.\n\nIn this I speak only of the Quaker group and of those who have been\nunder its full influence. It does not apply to the Irish Catholics, nor\nto the incomers from the city. The Quakers and their children lack\nprecisely those elements of aesthetic breeding which would be\nlegitimately derived from contemplation and enjoyment of beauty aside\nfrom ethical values. Ethical beauty, divorced from pure beauty, a stern,\nbare, grim beauty they have, and their children and employees have. But\nthey have little sense of order in matters that do not proceed to the\nends of money-making, housekeeping and worship. They do not seem to\npossess instinctive fertility of moral resource. It may be due to other\nsources as well, but it seems to the present writer that the moral\ndensity shown by some of these birthright Quakers, upon matters outside\nof their wonted and trodden ethical territories, is due to their long\nrefusal to recognize aesthetic values, and to see discriminations in the\nfield in which ethics and aesthetics are interwoven.\n\nThey made red and purple to be morally wrong, idealizing the plainness\nof their uncultured ancestry, and sweet sounds they excluded from their\nears, declaring them to be evil noises, because they would set up the\nboorishness of simple folk of old time as something noble and exalted,\n\"making believe\" that such aesthetic lack was real self-denial and\nunworldliness. It is not surprising that in a riper age of the world,\nafter lifetimes of this idealization of peasant states of mind, their\nchildren find themselves morally and mentally unprepared for the\nresponsibilities of citizenship, of high ethical trust and of the varied\nways of a moral world, whose existence their fathers made believe to\nignore and deny.\n\nWomen have always occupied in Quakerism a place theoretically equal to\nthat of the men, in business and religious affairs. George Fox and his\nsuccessors declared men and women equal, inasmuch as the Divine Spirit\nis in every human soul.\n\nAfter the influence of the early Friends ceased, the place of woman\nbegan to be circumscribed by new rules, and crystallized in a reaction\nunder the influence of purely social forces; so that this most sensible\npeople made women equal to men in meetings and in religious legislation\nthrough a form of sexual taboo.\n\nFollowing the custom of many early English meeting houses, the men and\nwomen sat apart, the men on one side of the middle aisle, and the women\non the other, so that men and women were not equals in the individualist\nsense, as they are for instance, in the practice and theory of\nSocialism, but were equals in separate group-life; to each sex, grouped\napart from the other, equal functions were supposed to be delegated.\nOblong Meeting House, on Quaker Hill, had seats for two hundred and\nfifty people on the ground floor, and in the gallery for one hundred and\nfifty more. The men's side was separated from the women's, of equal size\nand extent, by wooden curtains, which could be raised or lowered; so\nthat the whole building could be one auditorium, with galleries; or the\ncurtains could be so lowered that no man on the ground floor could see\nany woman unless she be a speaker on the \"facing seats\"; nor could any\nyoung person in the gallery see any one of the opposite sex; yet a\nspeaker could be heard in all parts. The curtains could be so fixed,\nalso, that two independent meetings could be held, each in a separate\nauditorium, even the speakers being separated from one another.\n\nIt was the custom for women to have delegated to them certain religious\nfunctions, at Monthly Meeting and Quarterly and Yearly Meetings, on\nwhich they deliberated, before submitting them to the whole meeting.\nThis old Oblong Meeting House is a mute record and symbol of the\ncentury-old contest of the Puritan spirit among the old Quakers,\nstriving for an inflexibly right relation between the sexes. They\nattained their ends through the creation of a community, but not until\nthe community dissolved.\n\nThe position of woman among Friends is another eloquent tribute to the\ntwo-fold \"dealing\" of Quakerism with women. She is man's equal, but she\nis man's greatest source of danger. She must be on a par with him, but\nshe must be apart from him. The relations of men and women are therefore\nvery interesting. In doctrinal matters, in discussion, in preaching and\n\"testifying,\" men and women are equal, and the respect that a man has\nfor his wife or sister or neighbor woman, in these functions of a devout\nsort is like that he has for another man. Generally the men of the\nQuaker school of influence believe as a matter of course in the\nintellectual and juristic equality of women with men; and in the\nreligious equality of the individual woman with the individual man. But\nin the practical arts and in business a woman is a woman and a man is a\nman. Here the women are restricted by convention to housekeeping, which\non large farms is quite enough for them; and the men have the outdoor\nlife, the \"trading,\" and the gainful occupations--except the boarding of\ncity people. There is no especial respect for the \"managing woman\" who\n\"runs a farm\"; the community expects such a woman to fail.\n\nMoreover, between the sexes there is no camaraderie, no companionship of\nan intellectual sort between husband and wife, no free exchange of ideas\nexcept in circles made up of the members of one sex. In any public\nmeeting the men habitually sit apart from their wives and from the women\nmembers of their families, even though the audiences be not bilaterally\nhalved.\n\nThe orbits of man's and woman's lives are separate, though each ascribes\nto the individuals of the other sex an ethical and religious parity. The\neffect is seen in the diminishing of the numbers of men on the Hill, in\nthe group-life of the women, and in the type of woman. It may be well to\nconsider these in reverse order.\n\nThe individual Quaker Hill woman, so far as she differs from women\ngenerally, may be described as a woman almost perfectly conformed to\ntype, presenting fewer variations than elsewhere, either in the form of\nyouthful prettinesses and follies, or in the strenuous opinion of mature\nyears. She is neither a flirt as a girl, nor a radical as a woman. Color\nhas not yet come into her maidenly days, nor violence of opinion into\nher womanly years. She affects neither fashion nor intellectual\neccentricity. Yet she attains to a better average of reasonable,\nsensible action than she could otherwise do. She knows less of the\nimpulsive, emotional prettiness of adolescence than women of other\ncountry communities, and in later years gives herself less to\nintellectual vagaries. Women's rights are established on the Hill; it is\nimpossible to be strenuous about them.\n\nThe numerous groupings and associations of women are especially\ninteresting in view of the fact that the men of the Hill have no\nassociations whatever, now that the stores are closed; and are assembled\nin no fixed groupings. It has never been possible, so far as records go,\nto maintain a society of men on the Hill. In the early part of the\nperiod under study a literary and debating society was organized, with\nsocial attractions; but it was feeble and short-lived. There are not\nenough leaders among the men to make such group-life possible. They are\nrelated by ties of labor, rather than of class-fraternity; and they have\nnever acquired any interest common to their sex to assemble them in\ngroups and companies; the discipline of the religion known to the Hill\nhas discouraged and outlawed it.\n\nThis contrast may have something to do with the departure of men from\nthe Hill. So long as the stores were in operation, at Toffey's, Akin's,\nand Merritt's places, the men could meet there, and had in their\nassembling a natural group-life, which satisfied many with life in the\ncountry. But with the closing of the stores after the coming of the\nrailroad in 1849, this also failed, and the men having no capacity for\ngeneral association with one another, and few interests possessed in\ncommon with the women, have been the more impelled to leave the Hill.\nEconomic advantage had only to be as good elsewhere, and the man\nemigrated. I have not known those who have left the place, in my\nknowledge of it, to give as a reason inability to make a good living\nthere; but always they have spoken most emphatically of the bareness and\nlack of interest in the social life of the Hill as their reason for\nemigrating to the city or large town.\n\n\n\n\nPart III.\n\nThe Mixed Community, from 1880 to the Present.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nDEMOTIC COMPOSITION.\n\n\nThere are ninety-three dwellings on Quaker Hill, as defined above, and\nillustrated in Map II. The shaded area alone is referred to here as the\narea proper to the term \"Quaker Hill.\" In these dwellings live four\nhundred and five persons. This gives a density of population of 26.667\nper square mile. In the summer months of July and August there come to\nthe Hill at least five hundred and nineteen more, increasing the density\nof population to more than 61 per square mile.\n\nThere is a steady emigration from the Hill, due to the departure of\nworking-people and their families in search of better economic\nopportunities. This has in ten years removed thirty-nine persons. Death\nhas removed or occasioned the removal of twenty-seven more, while only\nthree have been removed by marriage.\n\nOver against this there has been an immigration in the years 1895-1905\nof thirty persons; of whom eleven have come in to labor, and nineteen\nfor residence on their own property.\n\nThere were resident in 1905 on Quaker Hill the following social-economic\nclasses: Professional men, three; one minister, two artists; wealthy\nbusiness men, three; farmers, thirty-eight; laborers, forty (heads of\nhouses).\n\nThere were fifty-three births in ten years, 1895-1905, of which fourteen\nwere in the families of property-owners, and thirty-nine in families of\ntenants. There were in these ten years thirty-one deaths, of which\ntwenty-five were in the families of property-owners, and only six in\nthose of tenants. Thus the tenant class, bound to the community by no\nties of property, contributed 73 per cent. of the births and only 20 per\ncent. of the deaths, while the property holders suffered 80 per cent. of\nthe deaths and were increased by only 26.4 per cent. of the births. The\nnumber of persons in the families of property holders in 1905 was 184,\nand in those of tenants 221. These are as one to one and one-fifth. This\ndifference is not enough to account for the great disparity in births\nand deaths between the two classes of families. For, allowing for this\ndifference, births are two and one-third times as numerous in the\nworking and landless class as among the landowners; and deaths are\nalmost three and a half times as many among the landholders as among\ntheir servants and tenants.\n\nThe present population of the Hill is of a composition which is\nexplainable by migration, and by the effect of the topography of the\nHill upon that population. There is every evidence that before the\ncoming of the railroad in 1849 the population was unified, and the\ncommunity freer of neighborhood groupings. The lists of customers who\ntraded at Daniel Merritt's store, given in Appendix B of this volume,\nindicates the centering on the Hill of a wide economic life. Every\nrecord and tradition of a religious sort indicates that the Oblong\nMeeting House was also the center of a religious community as\nwide-spread as the business of the stores. The Hill was one neighborhood\nuntil 1828, when the Division of the Meeting occurred; and 1849, when\nthe railroad came to Pawling. It is not now one neighborhood. Three\ngroupings of households may be discerned, roughly designated \"The North\nEnd,\" \"Quaker Hill Proper,\" and \"Wing's Corners.\" The second of these,\nbeing the territory most under scrutiny in Part III, might again be\ndivided into the territory \"up by the Meeting House,\" and that \"down by\nMizzen-Top.\" The difficulty one experiences in naming these groupings\nof houses is a token of the indefiniteness of these divisions. They are\naccentuated by events occurring in the more recent history of the Hill.\nThe older history which shapes the consciousness of the community does\nnot know these neighborhood divisions. Yet the change of the emphasis of\ntravel to the roads running east and west, from those north and south,\nhas separated these neighborhoods from one another. \"The North End,\"\ntherefore, is composed of those households between Sites 1 and 15, who\ngo to the village of Pawling for \"trading\" and \"to take the cars,\" along\nthe road which passes Sites 16 to 18. They include Hammersley Lake and\nHurd's Corners in their interests.\n\nThe \"Middle Distance,\" or as I would call it \"The Meeting House\nNeighborhood,\" is composed of those households from Sites 21 to 41; \"the\nHotel Neighborhood,\" of those from Site 42 to 95; and these all, whether\nregarded as one or as two sections, go habitually to the village by the\n\"Mizzen-Top road,\" past Sites 99 and 113.\n\n\"Wing's Corner\" is properly the name of Site 100, but it may serve for a\ntitle of the southern neighborhood from Site 122 to 104. From this\nneighborhood all travel to the valley by the road westward from the\n\"Corners.\"\n\nThe \"North End\" and \"Wing's Corners\" are settled almost entirely by\nAmericans, and until within the past two years, by families derived from\nthe original population. \"Quaker Hill Proper\" is the place of residence\nof the Irish-Americans. It has been also the place of residence of the\nlast of the Quakers during the period, just closed, of the Mixed\nCommunity. It is also the territory in which land has the highest value.\nHere also are the residences of all the persons of exceptional wealth.\n\nThe community most cherishes the central territory, lying upon the two\nmiles of road between the Mizzen-Top Hotel and the Meeting House, and\nextending beyond these points and on either hand one-half mile. Within\nthis area land is nominally held at a thousand dollars an acre.\n\n\"The proximate causes of demotic composition,\" says Professor\nGiddings,[33] \"are organic variation and migration. The ultimate causes\nare to be looked for in the characteristics of the physical\nenvironment.\" The Quaker Hill population, drawn originally from a common\nsource, was in 1828 perfectly homogeneous. The very intensity of the\ncommunal life had effected the elimination of strange and other\nelements, and preserved only the Quakers, and those who could live with\nthe Quakers. Since 1849 this population has become increasingly\nheterogeneous. It is not yet a blended stock. There is but little vital\nmixture of the elements entering into social and economic union here.\nThey do not generally intermarry. They are related only by economic\nfacts and by religious sympathies, so that the effect of organic\nvariation does not yet appear among them. But in this chapter the effect\nof immigration will be indicated.\n\nThe influence of the physical environment is worthy of brief notice.\nBetween one and another of the three neighborhoods lie stretches of\nland, nearly a mile wide, valued less highly than that on which the\nclusters of houses stand. In the days before the railroad, the\npopulation passed over this territory to the centers of the community in\nthe three stores at Toffey's, Akin's and Muritt's places, and to the\nMeeting House. But with the necessity of driving westward to the\nrailway, the stretches of road passing poorer land had diminished use,\nand the clusters of households, once closely related, ceased to\ninterchange reactions and services; so a segregation of neighborhoods\nbegan, which is increasing with time.\n\nThe list of members of the Meeting in Appendix A, and that of customers\nof one of the stores in Appendix B, will serve to show the extent of the\ncommunity, religious and economic, in the eighteenth century. A steady\nshrinkage has drawn in the margins of this communal life. At this date\nQuaker Hill receives no tribute from any outer territory; and might be\nconfined to the limits of \"Quaker Hill Proper,\" as some indeed call the\n\"Middle Distance.\" The present writer, while not so limiting the Hill,\nhas omitted both Burch Hill to the south and the stretches toward\nWebatuck to the north, which lie in other towns.\n\nJust a word about neighborhood character. There is no especial character\nlocalized in the Wing's Corners neighborhood. The central territory has\nbeen fully described in this book, and especially in the chapters on\n\"The Common Mind,\" and \"Practical Differences and Resemblances.\" \"The\nNorth End\" is the most isolated of any neighborhood included within the\nHill population. Its families are less directly derived from Quaker\nstock. The older Quaker families once living there have disappeared. It\nis a genial, kindly, chatty neighborhood, without the exalted sense of\npast importance or of present day prestige which affects the manners of\n\"Quaker Hill Proper.\" It has, moreover, none of the Irish-American\nresidents, and until recently no New York families. The seven family\ngroups resident in these fifteen houses have been long acquainted, and\nhave become used to one another. A kindly, tolerant feeling prevails.\nGossip is not forbidden. Standards of conduct are not stretched upon\nhigh ideals, and a preference for enjoyments shows itself in a greater\nleisure and a laxer industry than in the central portion of the Hill.\n\nThe greater distance from the railway also forbids some of the\nactivities of \"Quaker Hill Proper.\" The milk wagon which in 1893-1899\nwas driven each day from Site 1 to the railway, gathering up the milk\ncans on the successive farms, has been discontinued, and in winter the\nroad between Sites 15 and 21 is often blocked with snow for weeks. The\nresident at Site 3 has for about twenty years maintained a\nslaughter-house and a wagon for the sale of meat, using his land for\nfatting cattle and sheep, and selling the meat along two routes. The\nresident at Site 15 maintains a fish-wagon, buying his fish at the\nrailways and selling at the houses along selected routes, through the\nsummer. The other residents follow the diversified farming, based on\ngrazing, which in this country includes fatting of calves and pigs,\nraising of poultry and other small agricultural industries. One family\nonly in this neighborhood takes boarders in the summer.\n\nThe peculiar religious character of Quaker Hill had by 1880 drawn in its\nmargins to \"Quaker Hill Proper,\" though the population in these outlying\nneighborhoods had a passive acquiescence in it. They still respond to\nthe activities which are centered in the focal neighborhood. Of\nthemselves, none of these neighborhoods originates any religious\nactivity.\n\nIn this connection mention should be made of the Connecticut\nneighborhood known as Coburn, in which a certain relation to Quaker Hill\nhas always been maintained. It is not here regarded as a Quaker Hill\nneighborhood. Its characteristics are those of Connecticut, and its\ntraditions are not Quaker, in a pure sense; but Quaker Hill has\ninfluenced it not a little, religiously. In Coburn remains a measurable\ndeposit of Quaker Hill population.\n\nAmong the changes wrought by the railroad was the introduction of new\nsocial elements into the community. The Quaker population had become\ndivided into rich and poor, but all were of the same general stock. The\nparents of all had the same experience to relate. Their fathers had come\nto Quaker Hill in the early or middle part of the eighteenth century,\nhad endured together the hardships of pioneer days, had known the\n\"unity\" of Quaker discipline for one hundred years, and had held loyally\nto the ideas and standards of Quakerism.\n\nWith the approach of the railroad came Irish laborers, who settled first\nin the valley below, generally in the limits of Pawling village, and\nlater came on the Hill as workers on the farms in the new forms of dairy\nindustry to which the farmers were stimulated by the railroad. This\nimmigration continued from 1840 until 1860. In that time, a period of\nabout twenty years, there came laborers for almost all the farmers on\nthe Hill. I am informed that in the decade following the Civil War the\nwork on all the farms, \"from Wing's corner to the North End,\" was done\nby young Irishmen.\n\nThe first Irishmen of this immigration whose names appear upon the\ntax-lists of the town of Pawling are Owen and Patrick Denany, who are\nassessed upon one hundred acres in 1845, the land upon which they first\nsettled being in the western part of the town. These two brothers came\nbefore the railroad was extended to Pawling, in 1840. In 1867 Patrick\nmoved to Quaker Hill and bought a place, midway between Sites 128 and\n131. Thomas Guilshan in 1858 and years following was taxed upon nine\nacres, the land upon which his widow still lives, at Site 93. John Brady\nlived for years at Site 71, and in a house now removed except for traces\nof a cellar, about fifty feet southeast of the Akin Free Library, lived\nCharles Kiernan. Among the earliest Irish Catholics came James Cullom\nand Margaret, his wife, who acquired land at Site 34. Other names of the\nearlier Irish generations are Hugh Clark, who acquired land at Site 116,\nJames Rooney, Fergus Fahey, James Doyle, Kate Leary, James Hopper, who\nsettled in Pawling or Hurd's Corner, and David Burns, who became a\nlandowner at Site 117.\n\nThe Irish Catholics early differentiated into two classes, only one of\nwhich, with their children, remains to the present day. There were the\n\"loose-footed fellows,\" who followed the railroad, worked for seasons on\nthe farms, drifted on with the renewal of demand for railroad laborers,\nand disappeared from the Hill. Their places were taken, in the years\nfollowing 1880, by American laborers, and a very few other foreigners,\nof whom I will speak below. The other class of Irish Catholics sought to\nown land. The details given above indicate their promptness in acquiring\ninterest in the soil. From them has been recruited almost all the\npresent Catholic population of the Hill, which in 1905 amounted in all\nto twenty-five households and one hundred persons.\n\nWhereas the early immigration of Irish worked in all the dairies from\none end of the Hill to the other, the land owned by Irish-Americans now\nis all in the central portion of the Hill, within a radius of one mile\nfrom Mizzen-Top Hotel. Within this mile also all the Irish laborers\nemployed on the Hill are at work. They are employed about the Hotel, on\nthe places of the wealthier landowners of the Hill, and in such\nindependent trades as stone-mason, blacksmith or wheelwright. Only an\noccasional Irish-American is found among the hired hands on the dairy\nfarms.\n\nIn contrast to the indifference of the original population of the town\nto education, it is worthy of note that the grandson of an\nIrish-American named above promises at this writing to be the first\nyouth born in the town to graduate from a higher institution of\nlearning, being in his last year at West Point.\n\nThe Irish population who have remained on the Hill are singularly\nhomogeneous, and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the place. In the\nchapter on \"The Ideals of the New Quakerism,\" I have commented on Irish\nacquisition of a character like that of the Quakers. The gentleness of\nmanner, the quickness of social sympathy and the industrious quietness\nof the Quakers have come to be theirs. Yet they are loyal Catholics, and\nwith very few exceptions support their Church in the village regularly.\nMany of them who have not conveyances have for years employed a\nstage-driver to transport them on Sunday morning to St. Bernard's\nChurch. This church has been built by the Irish and Irish-Americans. At\nthe time of their coming in 1840-1850, there was no Catholic church, and\n\"if you wanted to hear mass said, you had to drive to Poughkeepsie.\"\nLater, a tent was erected for a time, for the Catholic services, then a\nBaptist church building was purchased. This building was destroyed by\nfire about 1875, and the present structure in the village was erected.\n\nThe Catholic population of the Hill is now equal to the Quaker\npopulation, there being of each twenty-five households; the old and the\nnew. But each has gone through striking changes since the Catholics\ncame, sixty years ago. \"When I was a boy,\" says a prominent\nIrish-American, \"you could hardly see the road here for the carriages\nand the dust, all of them Quakers going to the Old Meeting House, on\nSunday, or to Quarterly Meeting. But now they are all gone.\" The\nreligious faithfulness of those Friends of two generations ago has\ndescended upon no part of the population more fully than upon the\nhandful of Catholic families, who now drive to Pawling every Sunday in\ngreat wagon-loads, while the members of the Quaker households have\nclosed their meeting houses forever.\n\nOf the Irish-Catholic population here described only eleven are Irish\nborn. The rest, about ninety in number, are American born of Irish\nparents.\n\nThe other elements who have been adopted into the Quaker Hill population\nare small in number in comparison with the Irish. They are among the\nworking people, one Swiss, two Poles, who have bought small places at\nSites 42 and 75, respectively; and two New York ladies who about 1890\npurchased places at Sites 41 and 35, who have become a strong influence,\nbeing socially and religiously in sympathy with the original Quaker\npopulation. Their influence is described in the chapter upon \"The Common\nMind of the Mixed Community.\" Purchases of land have been made in the\nyears 1905-1907, more than in the preceding decade, by persons coming\nfrom outside the Quaker Hill population, all of the buyers being from\nNew York City. These purchases are all upon the outer fringes of the\nHill territory, at Sites 107, 108, 111, 118, in the southwestern part,\nand Sites 6 and 10 in the \"North End,\" and in the Coburn neighborhood,\nSites 88 and others near the Meeting House, Site 139. The land in the\ncentral section has changed hands, in the years 1890-1907, only through\nthe increase in the holdings of those who owned large estates before the\nperiod of the Mixed Community.\n\n\n[33] Descriptive and Historical Sociology, p. 118.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE ECONOMY OF HOUSE AND FIELD.\n\n\nThe hospitality of the Quakers is worthy of a treatise, not of the\ncritical order, but poetic and imaginative. It cannot be described in\nmere social analysis. It has grown out of their whole order of life, and\nexpresses their religious view, as well as their economic habits. I\nshowed in Chapter VII, Part I, that the hospitality of the Friends\nacquired religious importance from their belief that in every man is the\nSpirit of God. With the simplicity, and direct adherence to a few\ntruths, which characterized the early Friends this belief was practiced,\nand became one of the religious customs of the Society. They entertained\ntravellers, \"especially such as were of the household of faith.\" They\nmade it a religious tenet to house and welcome \"Friends travelling on\ntruth's account.\"\n\nWith equal directness they proceeded further to welcome every traveller,\nand to endure often the intrusions of those who would not be desired as\nguests, because they believed that such might be acting by the divine\nimpulse.\n\nThe hospitality, therefore, of such a community is very beautiful. For\nthey have their ways of asserting themselves, in spite of\nnon-resistance. They open their doors, they set their table, with a\nreligious spirit. A thoroughness characterizes all their household\narrangements, a grace is given to all their housekeeping, which infuses\nan indescribable content into the experiences of a guest in these homes.\nTheir hospitality to one another has been therefore a powerful enginery\nfor continuing and for extending the domains of Quakerism.\n\nOn Quaker Hill the living generations have known this hospitality in two\nnotable ways only, in the Quarterly Meetings, and in the transformed\nhospitality of the boarding-house. The Quarterly Meeting is now gone\nfrom the Hill. Both the Hicksite Meeting, which was \"laid down\" in 1885,\nand the Orthodox Meeting, which ceased to meet in 1905, brought in their\nday to the Hill, once in the year, an inundation of guests, who stayed\nthrough the latter days of a week, and then went their way, to meet\nquarterly throughout the year, but in other places, until the season\ncame again for Quaker Hill.\n\nThe Quaker Hill Quarterly was in August, and \"after haying.\" \"The roads\nwere full of the Quakers going up to the Meeting House.\" In every Quaker\nhome they were welcomed, whether they had written to announce their\ncoming, or whether they had not. All through the days of the Meeting,\nthey would renew the old ties, and discuss the passing of the Society,\nthe interests of the Kingdom, as they saw it, \"the things of the\nspirit.\"\n\nThey meet no more. In the Quarterly Meeting, which comprises the Monthly\nMeetings of an area comparable to Dutchess County, there are still some\nFriends, and some meetings which are not \"laid down.\" But they come no\nmore, at \"Quarterly Meeting time\" to Quaker Hill. Many of the older\nmembers are dead. Of the younger members many have only a passive\nadherence to Quakerism, only sufficient to excuse them from undesirable\nworldliness, and from irksome responsibility in other religious bodies.\n\nThe hospitality of the old Quaker assemblings has passed over into the\nbusiness of boarding city people. The same table is set, the same\nwelcome given; but to the paid guest.\n\nThe passing of the old hospitality of the Friends was illustrated in the\nyears of the writer's residence on the Hill, in the person of an old\npeddler, known as Charles Eagle. It had been the ancient custom to\nentertain any and every wayfarer; and Eagle journeyed from South to\nNorth about once a month in the warmer seasons, for many years. He had\nenjoyed the entertainment of the Quakers, following the ancient line of\ntheir settlements along the Oblong, and stopping overnight in their\nample, kindly households. He carried a pack on his back and another\nlarge bundle in his hand. His pace was slow, like that of an ox, but\nuntiring and unresting, hour after hour. His person, sturdy and short,\nwas clothed in overall stuff, elaborately patched and mended. At first\nsight it seemed to be patched from use and age; but closer inspection\nshowed that the patches were deliberately sewed on the new material. He\nwore a straw hat in summer, decorated with a bright ribbon, in which\nwere flowers in season. He wore also a red wig, tied under his chin with\na ribbon. His face was like that of an Indian, with broad cheek-bones\nand small shifting eyes.\n\nEagle was French, and professed to be a refugee, a person of interest to\nforeign monarchs. On the inner wrapping of his pack was written large,\n\"Vive le Napoleon! Vive la France! Vive!\" He had little hesitation about\nspeaking of himself, though always with stilted courtesy, and always\nfurtively.\n\nHe made a study of astronomy, and every night would ask his hostess,\nwith much apology but firm insistence, for a pitcher of water, and for\nthe privilege that he might retire early to his room, open the window\nand view the stars. Strange to say, in this he was not merely eccentric;\nfor his reading was of the latest books on the science, and he exchanged\nwith Akin Hall Library a Young's Astronomy for a Newcomb's, in 1898. He\naccompanied the presentation of the later book, in which was the\nauthor's name inscribed with a note to Mr. Eagle, with a demonstration\nof a theory of the Aurora Borealis.\n\nEagle never tried to sell his goods on the Hill, and indeed it is\ndoubtful if he carried them for any other purpose than to conceal his\nreal commodities, which were watches. Of these he carried a good\nselection of the better and of the cheaper sorts, all concealed in the\ncenter of his pack, among impossible dry goods and varied fancy wares.\n\nAn attempt was made to rob him, or at least to annoy him, by some young\nmen; and he shot one of his assailants. For this offence he was, after\ntrial, sent to the Asylum for the Criminal Insane.\n\nHis earlier journeys over the Hill found him a welcome guest at the\nQuaker homes. But the substitution of boarding for the ancient\nhospitality made the peddler unwelcome; and he passed through without\nstopping in his later years.\n\nThe Quarterly Meeting of the Society of Friends was the annual\nculmination of the hospitality of the Hill population. Coming in August,\n\"after haying,\" it was for a century and a half the great assembly of\nthe people of the Hill, and of their kindred and friends; and until the\nOrthodox Meeting ceased to meet, in 1905, there was Quarterly Meeting in\nthe smaller Meeting House. The old hospitality was never diminished by\nthe Quakers as long as their meetings continued. Even though the same\nhouse were filled with paying boarders, the family retreated to the\nattic, the best rooms were devoted to the \"Friends travelling on truth's\naccount;\" and the same house saw hospitality of the old sort extended\nfor one week to the religious guests, and of the new sort faithfully set\nforth for the guests who paid for it by the week.\n\nThe Quakeress and daughter of Quakers has produced the summer\nboarding-house; which is no more than the ample Quaker home, organized\nto extend the thrifty hospitality continuously for four months, for good\npayment in return, which has always been extended to Friends and\nvisiting relatives for longer or shorter periods in the past, as an act\nof household grace.\n\nThe Quaker Hill woman is a good housekeeper. The substantial farmhouses\non the Hill are outward signs of excellent homes within. The table is\nwell spread, with a measured abundance, which satisfies but does not\nwaste. The rooms are each furnished forth in spare and righteous\ndaintiness, over which nowadays is poured, in occasional instances, a\npretty modern color, timidly laid on, which does not remove the prim\nQuakerness. Ventures in the use of decoration, however, have been crude\nin most cases, and the results, so far as they have been effected by the\ntaste of the woman of the Hill, are incongruous in color, and\nill-assorted in design. It is in house-furnishing that the tendency of\nthe daughter of the Quakers shows the most frequent variation.\nOccasionally one sees the outcropping of a really artistic\nspirit--peculiarly refreshing because so rare--which has only in a\nwoman's mature years ventured to indulge in a bit of happy color; but\nthe venture if successful is always reserved and simple; and the most of\nsuch ventures are of unhappy result.\n\nThe housekeeping arts have reached a high degree of perfection on the\nHill. Cooking is there done with a precision, economy and tastefulness\nin sharp contrast to the non-aesthetic manner in which the Quakers\nconduct most occupations. It is, moreover, a kind of cooking after the\nQuaker manner, at once frugal and abundant. For of all people, the\nQuakers have learned to manage generously and economically.\n\nThe outcome of this housekeeping is the diversion of much of the\nbusiness energy of the Hill to the \"keeping of boarders.\" Seven of the\nold Quaker families, and one Irish Catholic household are devoted to the\nkeeping of boarders; five of them being supported in the main by this\nbusiness. Of these five families, however, four reside upon farms of\nmore than one hundred and fifty acres apiece. These families sell at\ncertain times in the year, a certain quantity of milk, or make butter,\nor fatten calves, but not as their central means of support.\n\nTo these farmhouses come year after year the same paying guests, each\nhouse having its own constituency, built up through thirty years of\npatient and unbroken service. The charm of the Quaker character, the\nexcellence of the cooking and the enjoyable character of the other\nfactors of the household, bring patrons back; while the benefits of the\nelevation and pure air are, to city dwellers, material returns for the\nmoneys expended. For this board, the price charged is, in the Irish\nCatholic household, five dollars per week; in one of the oldtime Quaker\nhouses, six dollars, and in the others from eight to ten or twelve\ndollars per week.\n\nThe season in which boarders can be secured in paying numbers is a\nperiod extending from June fifteenth to October first, with the houses\nfilled only in the months of July and August. For this period, which is\none continued strain upon the housekeepers and their aids, preparation\nbegins as early as the month of March. The housework is generally done\nby the women of the family, with some employed help, of an inferior\nsort. The horses and carriages on the farm must be used for the\ntransportation of guests, and for hire to those who drive for pleasure.\nOn one farm sheep are kept; though most of the boarding-houses buy their\nmeat supplies of the dealers mentioned below.\n\nOf late years the help employed in these boarding-houses, in addition to\nmembers of the family, has come to be negroes from Culpepper County,\nVirginia. These employees come each spring and return in the fall.\n\nThe one Irish Catholic boarding-house is for the entertainment of the\nhired men on the lower part of the Hill, near the Hotel. It is\nmaintained throughout the year, with a varying number of guests, by a\nwoman ninety years of age, who in addition to the management, does much\nof the hard work herself.\n\nThe conservatism of the Hill families is shown in the fact that the\nboarding-house business has never been extended. No house has ever been\nerected for that purpose alone; but the present business of that sort\nis carried on in the old Quaker homes, each receiving only as many paid\nguests as it was used to receive of its hospitable duty, when the\nQuarterly Meeting brought Friends from afar, once in the year.\n\nMizzen-Top Hotel is perhaps an exception, if, indeed, a large hotel,\nwith quarters for two hundred and fifty guests, and at prices ranging\nfrom three dollars per day up, be an exception. It has grown out of the\nsame conditions which transformed the farmhouses into boarding-houses,\nsave that it has never been managed at a profit, and they never at a\nloss. It is, however, an institution by itself, and will be treated in\nanother place.\n\nThe Mizzen-Top Hotel has always been a sober institution, influenced\nthereto by the pleasureless spirit of the Hill. Baseball, tennis, and\ngolf in their times have had vogue there, but under every management it\nhas been hard to arouse and maintain active interest in outdoor or\nindoor sports. The direct road to Hammersley Lake, formerly called\nQuaker Hill Pond, has made possible a moderate indulgence in\ncarriage-driving. The laying out of the golf links in 1897 set going\nthat dignified sport, just as the Wayside Path in 1880 occasioned some\nmild pedestrianism. But the Hotel diminishes rather than increases in\nits play-activities; and only games of cards retain a hold upon the\nguests, who prefer the piazza, the croquet ground, the tennis court, and\nthe golf links in rapidly diminishing proportion.\n\nIntemperance was common in earlier times, and drinking was universal.\nEvery household made and stored for winter many barrels of cider. Rum\nand wine were freely bought at the store. Their use in the harvest field\nwas essential to the habits of agriculture which preceded the times of\nthe mower and reaper. This free use of cider, with accompanying\nintemperance, survives in only two houses on Quaker Hill.\n\nMiss Taber's account, in \"Some Glimpses of the Past,\" describes the\ndrinking habits of the older period: \"It was customary to have cider on\nthe table at every meal, the ladies would have their tea, but most of\nthe men drank cider largely, many to excess, consequently there were\ngreat quantities made in the fall and stored in the cellars during the\nwinter. A large farmer would lay out a great deal of work, gathering\nfrom ten to twenty cartloads of apples, hooping and cleaning barrels,\nand many ground and pressed their own cider, then the large casks were\ndrawn to and placed in the cellars. This usually occupied a large part\nof the month of October. In the spring a portion of the hard cider would\nbe taken to a distiller, and made into cider brandy to be used in the\nhaying and harvest field, at sheep washings, butchering, raisings,\nshearings and on many occasions. Some was always on the sideboard and\noften on the table. In most households there were sideboards well\nfurnished with spirits, brandy, homemade wine, metheglin, etc., which\nwere offered to guests. It was a fashion or custom to offer a drink of\nsome kind whenever a neighbor called.\n\n\"My grandfather being obliged to have so many men at least two months\neach year became disgusted with the custom of furnishing so much cider\nand spirits to the men in the field, as many of them would come to the\nhouse at supper time without any appetite and in a quarrelsome mood.\nThere would be wrestlings and fighting during the evening and the chain\nin the well could be heard rattling all night long. So one year,\nprobably about 1835 or '36, he decided that he would do it no longer.\nHis brother and many of his neighbors tried to dissuade him and\nprophesied that he would not be able to get sufficient help to secure\nhis crops, but he declared he would give up farming before he would\nendure it any longer, and announced when securing his extra help for\nthat summer that he would furnish no cider or spirits in the field, but\nthat coffee and other drinks would be carried out and that every man\nshould have a ration of spirits at each meal. Most of the men he had had\nin past years came back and seemed to be glad to be out of the way of\ntemptation. The next year he dispensed with the ration at meal times,\nand the custom grew among his neighbors with surprising rapidity; it was\nbut a few years when it became general, with a few exceptions, where the\nfarmer himself was fond of it, until to-day such a thing is not heard\nof, and in fact, the farmer, like the railroads and other large\ncorporations, do not care to employ a man that is in the habit of using\nspirits at all.\"\n\nIn the years 1890-1905 there were only two families on the Hill which\nfollowed primitive custom in \"putting in cider\" into the cellar in\nquantity for the winter. In five more a very small quantity was kept. In\nthe other cases it was regarded as immoral to use the beverage. The\nwriter was only once offered a drink of alcoholic beverage in six years'\nresidence on the Hill.\n\nIn respect to the standard of living which is regarded as necessary to\nthe maintenance of respect and social position, the Hill exhibits two\nstrata of the population. The city people, and the farmers and laborers.\nThe former class, besides the Hotel and its cottages, comprise seven\nhouseholds, who have formed their ways of living upon the city standard.\nThe others, resident all the year round upon the Hill, live after a\nstandard common to American country-people generally of the better\nclass.\n\nThe economic ideas and habits are in no way peculiar to the Hill. There\nsurvive in a few old persons some primitive industrial habits. One old\nlady, now about ninety, amuses herself with spinning, knitting and\nweaving; keeping alive all the primitive processes from the shearing of\nsheep in her son's field to the completed garment. Axe-helves are still\nmade by hand in the neighborhood.\n\nThe practical arts of the community are agriculture, especially the\ncultivation of grass for hay, cooking and general housekeeping, and the\nentertainment of paid guests, as \"boarders\" in farmhouse and hotel.\nThere is in addition on one farm, at Site No. 3, a slaughter-house, at\nwhich beef and mutton and pork are prepared for market, the animals\nbeing bought, pastured, fattened and killed on the place, and the meat\ndelivered to customers, especially in the summer months, by means of a\nwagon, which makes its journey twice a week, over the length of the Hill\nand in the country eastward.\n\nThere is also a fish-wagon owned and maintained by the resident at Site\nNo. 15, which buys fish during the year and maintains by means of a\nwagon a similar trade. These two are the only food supply businesses\nmaintained on the Hill.\n\nEconomic opportunity has always appealed strongly to the Quaker Hill man\nand woman. In 1740 John Toffey settled at the crossing of ways which is\ncalled \"Toffey's Corners,\" and began to make hats. Other industries\nfollowed.\n\nIn recent years, in almost every Quaker house boarders have been taken,\nand a better profit has been made than from the sale of milk. For\ntwenty-five years the Mizzen-Top Hotel, accommodating two hundred and\nfifty guests, has represented notably this response to opportunity. The\nbeautiful scenery, which the Quaker himself does not appreciate, because\nhe has educated himself out of the appreciation of color and form, has\noffered him an opportunity of profit which he has been prompt and\ndiligent to seize. All through the summer every one of the six largest\nQuaker homesteads is filled with guests. The fact cited above that in\nthe summer there comes to the Hill a greater transient population than\ndwells there through the year, a population of guests, illustrates this\nlively economic alertness.\n\nThe emigration from the Hill since 1840 of so many persons, notably the\nyounger and more ambitious, is in itself a token of this response. The\nrailroad brought the opportunity; the ambitious accepted it; many whole\nfamilies have disappeared. Their strong members emigrated; the weaker\nstock died out. The Merritt, Vanderburgh, Irish, Wing, Sherman, Akin,\nand other families offer examples. In the place of those who departed\nhave come others, to fill the total population. There were in 1905 on\nthe Hill twenty-five old families with seventy-five persons, and\ntwenty-five Irish Catholic families with one hundred persons.\n\nThe response to economic opportunity has often been too keen, and the\nattempt too grasping. In 1891 wealthy New Yorkers offered for certain\nfarms so located as to command beautiful views, prices almost double\nwhat they are worth for farming. The reply was a demand in every case of\none thousand dollars more than was offered; and the result was--no sale.\n\nLand is valued, though few sales are made, at $1,000 per acre, near the\nHotel. The acre numbered 42, one mile from Mizzen-Top, on Map II, was\nsold in 1893 to a laboring man for $250. At 53, land was sold in 1903\nfor $700 per acre. At 52, three acres were sold by sisters to a brother\nin 1895, the asking-price being $1,000 per acre, and the price paid $800\nper acre. For farming, this land is worth $50 and $75 per acre. Four\nmiles further inland as good recently sold for $10 per acre. Quaker Hill\nhas not neglected its economic opportunities.\n\nNearness to the soil has, under the influences of Quaker ethics and\neconomic ambition, cultivated in this population a patient and steadfast\nindustry, which expresses itself in the milk dairy, a form of farming by\nits nature requiring early hours and late, with all the day between\nfilled by various duties. I have shown above that this industry is\nlosing its hold on the farmers of the Hill, but for two generations it\nhas been the distinctive type of labor on the Hill. To rise at four or\neven earlier in the morning and to prepare the milk, to deliver it at\nthe station, four to eight miles away, to attend to the wants of cows\nfrom twenty to one hundred in number; to prepare the various\nfood-products, either by raising from the soil, or by carting from the\nrailroad,--these activities filled, ten years ago, the lives of one\nhundred and four of the adult males of the community; and these\nactivities at present fill the time of sixty of the adult males of the\ncommunity.[34]\n\nWhile \"the milk business\" is a declining industry, other things are not\nless engrossing. The land must be tilled, and is tilled. Hay is the\ngreatest crop, and the mere round of the seasons brings for a community\nused to agriculture a discipline and a course of labor, which make life\nregular and industrious.\n\nFarming, as stated above, is carried on with a view to the production of\nmilk for the city market. It is a laborious and exacting occupation. The\ndairy cow, generally of the Holstein stock, or with a strain of Holstein\nin her blood, is the most common variety; though the grass of the Hill\nis so good that very rich milk is produced by \"red cow, just plain\nfarmer's cow,\" as the local description runs; and the demands of the\nmiddlemen have brought in some Jersey cattle, which are desired, because\nof the greater proportion of cream they produce. The largest profit from\nthe \"making of milk\" is secured by those farmers who keep as many cows\nas can be fed from the land owned by them. But the more ambitious\nfarmers rent land, and in a few cases on a small farm keep so many\ncattle that they have to buy even hay and corn. It is necessary for the\nfarmer, in order to meet the demands of the city market, to feed his\ncattle on grains not raised on the Hill. One hundred years ago the lands\nof the Hill were planted in wheat, rye, corn and other grains, but\nto-day the farmers buy all grains, except corn, of which an increasing\nquantity is being raised, and oats, of which they do not raise enough\nfor the use of their horses. There are no silos used on the Hill, the\ncity milkmen having a standing objection to the milk of cows fed on\nensilage.\n\nThe labor problem created by the milk business is an acute one. One man\ncan milk not more than twenty cows, and he is a stout farm-hand who can\ndaily milk more than twelve or fifteen. As a farmer must keep between\ntwenty and forty cows to do justice to his acreage, on the average Hill\nfarm, there must be at least two men, and often there must be five or\nsix men employed on the farm. To secure this number of capable men, to\nkeep them, and to pay them are hard problems. Their wages have risen in\nthe past twelve years, from fourteen dollars a month and board to\ntwenty-three dollars and board; or for a married man, who has house\nrent, wood, and time to cut it, garden and time to tend it, and a quart\nof milk a day, the wages have risen from twenty-eight to thirty-five\ndollars a month.\n\nThese men are recruited from a class born in the country, and of a\ndrifting, nomadic spirit; and from the city, the latter a sinister,\ndangerous element, whom the farmers fear and suspect. On a large farm,\nwith five men in employ, the farmer may expect to replace one man each\nmonth; and to replace his whole force at least once a year. So\nchangeable are the minds of this class of laborers.\n\nThose who are married are somewhat more stable; but of the others it is\nasserted by the farmers that out of their wages they save nothing.\n\nThere has been a rise in the price secured by the farmers for their milk\nin the past ten years, but it has been only for limited periods. The\nvariation was from 1.9 cents and 2 cents, the price in 1895-98, to 3\ncents, the price paid in the winter of 1907. In the summer the price is\nalways lower. The farmers have no control over the price paid them for\nmilk, nor have they control over the prices to be paid for labor,\nthough of course in this matter, there is room for a certain skill in\nbargaining and for the lowering of the total wages paid on the farm\nthrough the skillful employment of the cheaper kinds of hands.\n\nThere is also a difference in the price paid for milk by \"the Milk\nFactory,\" a plant established at the railway in the past ten years, in\neach dairy-town. This establishment takes milk from the poorer dairies\nunder conditions less exacting than are laid down by some buyers, and in\nconsequence pays a price correspondingly lower than the market rates for\nmilk and the higher prices secured by the better farmers.\n\nOne energetic farmer, who has in the past five years had large farms to\nmanage, on hire, or on shares, has prepared milk for hospital use in the\ncity, meeting the exactions of inspection, and the prescribed care of\nstables, animals, workmen and receptacles in a way intolerable to the\naverage farmer. He receives in return a price twenty per cent above the\nmarket rate.\n\nThe effect of the above conditions is seen in the fact that in the\ntwelve years under study nine owners of large farms have \"given up the\nmilk business,\" have sold their cows, or keeping them have made butter\nand fatted calves for market. The profits to be made in dairy-farming\nare so small, unless the farmer conduct his dairy in an exceptional\nmanner, or on a very large scale, that the average man on the Hill\ncannot continue it. Indeed, the average farmer on the Hill is unable\nthrough lack of vitality or incapacity for application, to conduct any\nbusiness, successfully, against competition. The state of mind of such\nmen, in the worst cases, is illustrated by the remark of one of them who\napproached a successful dairyman, saying: \"I am going to cease to make\nmilk for the city market, and I thought I would come to you and find out\nsomething about the way to make butter--not the best butter, such as you\nmake, but a sort of second-class butter.\"\n\n\n[34] Mr. E. I. Hurd is my authority for the following\nstatement. \"In the total income of the farmers of Pawling, nine dollars\nare paid them for milk for every dollar in payment for other products.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nNEW IDEALS OF QUAKERISM: ASSIMILATION OF STRANGERS.\n\n\nQuaker Hill has always been a community with great powers of\nassimilation. The losses suffered by emigration have been repaired by\nthe genius of the community for socializing. Whoever comes becomes a\nloyal learner of the Quaker Hill ways. I think this is a matter of\nimitation. Personality has here made a solemn effort to perfect itself\nfor a century and a half; and the characters of Richard Osborn, James J.\nVanderburgh, Anne Hayes, David Irish and his daughter, Phoebe Irish\nWanzer, ripened into possession of at least amazing power of example. I\nmust be sparing of illustration here, where too rich a store is at hand.\nI will offer only this striking fact, observed by all who know the Hill:\nthe Irish emigrant and his American-born children, of whom there are now\nas many as remain of the original Quakers, have come to be as good\nQuakers in character--though still loyal Catholics in dogma--as if they\nsaid \"thee and thou,\" and wore drab. They are peaceable, gentle folk,\nsober and inoffensive; and the transforming influence of Quaker\ncharacter is seen in certain of them in a marked degree.\n\nThe same statement may be made of the pervasive example of the Quaker\ncharacter upon other areas of population; servants who come from the\ncity, summer guests, artistic people who love the Hill for its beauty\nand suggestiveness, ministers and other public teachers who come hither.\n\nThe area to the southeast, called \"Coburn,\" settled to a degree by those\nwho have worked on the Hill in times past as employees, is touched with\nthe same manner. Its meeting house, erected over sixty years ago, even\nretains the Quaker way of seating the men and women apart.\n\nThe Quaker Hill Conference, now in its ninth year, is another\nillustration of the charm and reach of the gentle influence of the\nQuaker Hill ideal upon personal character.\n\nSuggestion also explains much. In such a social whole, manners and\ncustoms are fixed. The newcomer is often fresh, ingenuous, and sometimes\nintrusive. Little by little he becomes socialized. Ways of action are\nfixed for him, and a range of performance comes to be his. In harmony\nwith this range, suggestion is very fertile; but one learns after a time\nthat there is a limit to its force beyond which individuals will not go.\nSuggestion, to be effective upon the many, must come from the sources\nwhich embody the community's religious and economic ideal.\n\nIdeas, once broached, are usually, if they contemplate action, opposed,\nat least by inertness; but after a time they reappear as if native to\nthe minds which would have none of them by reasonable approaches. This\nprocess is accelerated if the suggestion begins to travel from mind to\nmind. Some individuals are less slow than others; and the leaders of\nQuaker Hill thinking have always been able to work by the plan of\nacademic proposal--to avoid rejection--followed by incitement of popular\naction in particular quarters. Quaker Hill cannot bear to be divided;\nand that which comes to be successful in one quarter soon comes to be\nuniversal. Things can be done by social suggestion which could never be\naccomplished by appeal or rational discussion.\n\nThe word that has formed the social mind of Quaker Hill has been, not\n\"the Spirit,\" not \"the inner light,\" but \"orthodoxy\" or \"plainness.\" For\nthis community, it must be remembered, had no great thinkers. It\ndiscouraged study, stiffened reason in formulas and dissolved thinking\nin vision. To its formulas the Hill has been exceedingly devoted. He\nwho upheld them was accepted, and he who rejected them, as well as he\nwho ignored them, was to the early Quaker Hill as if he did not exist.\n\nThis shibboleth has indeed always been religious. Even to-day the way of\ndirect access to the common heart is a religious one. Catholic as well\nas Protestant, Quaker no more and no less than \"the world's people,\"\nwelcome religious approaches, respect confessions, and believe\nexperiences. Nothing can assemble them all which does not originate in\nreligion and clothe itself in religious sanction. History is religious\nhistory. Business prosperity is approved when the prosperity has\nfollowed religious profession.\n\nI do not mean to say that there are not other symbols than those of\nreligion. Prosperity has spoken its shibboleths as well as orthodoxy.\n\"Business is business\" on Quaker Hill. Not \"to save money\" is an\nunforgiven sin--and a rare one!\n\nMuch has been done in forming the common mind of Quaker Hill by\nantipathies and sympathies, chiefly again of a religious order modified\nby the economic. The community is markedly divided into rich and poor,\nand into orthodox and not-orthodox. These have no inclination one to\nanother. Each group has its symbols and pass-words, and while\nneighborly, and answering to certain appeals to which the community has\nalways responded, each resident of the Hill lives and dwells in his own\ngroup and has no expectation of moving out of it. So long as a man stays\nin his group he is, by a balancing of antipathy and sympathy, respected\nand valued. If he venture to be other than what he was born to be, he\nsuffers all the social penalties of a highly organized community.\n\nAuthority, working along the lines of belief and dogma, has almost\nirresistible force for the Quaker Hill social mind. A visitor to the\nHill said \"These are an obedient people.\" Any barrenness of the Hill is\nto be attributed rather to the lack of leaders who could speak to the\nbeliefs and in harmony with the dogmas, than to lack of willingness to\nobey authority. From the past the families on the Hill inherit their\nwillingness respectively to command and to obey. This is true socially\nof certain families and religiously of others. That to-day some are not\nled is due solely to the decadence of initiative in the households\nwhich, by reason of wealth or dogmatic rectitude, inherit and claim the\nfirst place.\n\nIt was said above that Quaker Hill has shown great power of assimilating\nforeign material, and of causing newcomers to be possessed of the\ncommunal spirit. The agency which from the first accomplished this was\nreligious idealization, embodied in the meeting, the dress, language and\nmanners of Friends. Generally the Meeting was recruited from births, and\nmembers were such by birthright. In former times the community and the\nMeeting were one. This assimilating of foreign material by social\nimitation to the Quaker type, and into organic subjection to the Quaker\nHill community, was wrought by six agencies. They were language,\nmanners, costume, amusements, worship, and morals. In each of these the\nQuakers were peculiar. In the use of the \"plain language\" the Quakers\nhad a machinery of amazing and subtle fascination for holding the\nattention, purifying the speech, and disciplining the whole deportment\nof the young and the newcomer. No one has ever been addressed with the\nuse of his first name by grave, sweet ladies and elderly saints, without\nits beginning an influence and exerting a charm he could not resist; the\nmore so that the Quaker in so doing is guarding his own soul, rather\nthan seeking to save his hearer.\n\nThe grave manners of the Quakers, both in meeting and without, are\nframed upon their belief that all days are holy, and all places sacred.\nTheir long and triumphant fight against amusements is a tribute to the\ngravity of life. The contest to which I have elsewhere referred for pure\nmorals, in matters of sex, of property and of speech, was a victorious\nbattle.\n\nIn all these matters Quaker Hill was a population socialized by\nreligion. Central to it all was the worship of the Meeting on First Day,\nand on other occasions; and the great solemnity of the annual Quarterly\nMeeting. Fascinated by that \"silence that can be felt,\" men came from\nfar. They would come as readily to-day. They went away under the\ndomination of that idea of pure and spiritual faith, which kept a whole\nhouseful of men silent for an hour in communion.\n\nAs I have looked into this matter it has seemed to me that the induction\nto be drawn from the history of Quaker Hill is this: Religion was a true\norganizing power for this social population. Whatever the meeting\ndeterminedly strove to do it accomplished. If it had tried to do more it\nwould have succeeded.\n\nThis was a gain, moreover, without corresponding losses; a total net\ngain in all the moralities. The whole area on which this meeting exerted\nits influence was by it elevated to a higher moral and social tone, and\norganized into a communal whole, characterized by a loftier and cleaner\nstandard than that of surrounding populations.\n\nWhy, then, did it die out? First, because of the bareness of its\nworship, the lack of music, color and form; through which it lost in the\nnineteenth century some of its best families. Then through dogmatic\ndifferences, of no interest to human beings, it lost its primacy in the\ncommunity and so its authority.\n\nIn the chapter on \"Ideals of the Quakers,\" I have dwelt upon their\ndramatization of life. They \"made believe\" that \"plainness\" was\nsanctity. They fixed their minds upon the commonplace as the ideal. It\nis probable that the early population were men and women of no such\ntalents as to disturb this conviction; and the variations from plainness\nin the direction of gayety were sternly denounced as immoral. Also the\nstruggle with the wilderness occupied and exhausted the powers of the\nexceptional as well as of the average man. But when with wealth came\nleisure, there were born sons of the Quakers who rebelled against the\ndiscipline of life that repressed variation, who demanded\nself-expression in dress, in language, in tastes, and in pleasures.\nGradually but surely, as the outside world was brought nearer, these\npersons were influenced in their restiveness by books and examples, by\nimitation and other stimuli from new sources, until they cast off in\ntheir minds the Quaker ideal of plainness. To be ordinary no longer\nseemed to them a way of goodness. They were oppressed and stifled by the\nban of the meeting upon variation. And though the ideal of plainness has\nsubtly ruled them even in their rebellion and freedom, it has done so by\nits negative power, in that the community has never furnished\nexceptional education. The positive dominion of the meeting broken, the\nnegative \"plainness\" of the community rules all the children of the Hill\nto this day. So few are the sources of individual variation furnished,\nin the form of books, music, education, art, that no son or daughter of\nQuaker Hill has attained a place of note even in New York State. The\nideal of \"plainness\" has been an effectual restraint.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE COMMON MIND.\n\n\nThe common mind has been formed to a great degree by strong\npersonalities; for the common mind has held an ideal of perfection in a\nperson. The force which at the beginning assembled its elements was\npersonal. The type represented by George Fox, as interpreted by Barclay,\nembodied this influence. In all the history of the place response to\nstrong personality has been immediate and general. The past is a history\nof names. William Russell led the community in erecting a Meeting House,\nand then a second one--which still stands. Ferriss, the early settler,\nlocated the meeting house on his land, as later Osborn located the\nOrthodox Meeting House, at the Division, on his land. Judge Daniel Akin,\nin the early Nineteenth Century, was a leader of the economic activities\nof this Quaker community, then differentiating themselves from the\nreligious. So, too, his nephew, Albert Akin, in the last half of that\ncentury was a leader, gathering up the money of the wealthy farmers to\ninvest in railroads, founding the Pawling Bank, the Mizzen-Top Hotel,\nand launching Akin Hall, with its literary and religious basis.\n\nDavid Irish, the preacher of the Hicksite Meeting in the middle of the\nnineteenth century was leader and exponent of the most representative\nphases of Quakerism, for at that time it was still possible for the\nbusiness and the religion of Quakerism to be united in the minds of the\nmajority; Unitarian Quakerism was the result, and of this David Irish\nwas the ideal embodiment.\n\nThe respect paid by the community to leadership is shown in the place\nassigned to Admiral John L. Worden, commander of the \"Monitor,\" who\nmarried a Quaker Hill woman, Olive Toffey, spent the summers of his\nlife on the Hill, and is buried in the Pawling Cemetery. There was\nuniversal pride in his charming personality, interest in his sayings,\nand no pious condemnation of his warlike deeds. His nautical names of\nthe high points on the Hill have been generally accepted; so that the\nHill rides high above all surrounding lands, her heights labelled like\nthe masts of a gallant ship: \"Mizzen-Top,\" \"Main-Top,\" \"Tip-Top.\"\n\nThere is indeed by contrast a corresponding unwillingness to be\nimpressed by great personality. The residence of Washington with his\ntroops in the neighborhood left no impression on the records of the\nMeeting, though he turned out the worshippers and filled the place with\nsick soldiers; no impression upon the devout tradition, except the story\nof his being seen once in the woods alone on his knees in prayer; and no\nimpression upon the social tradition, except the cherished claim of one\nfamily that he used their residence as his headquarters. Washington was\nthe embodiment of all that this community opposed, and he was ignored.\n\nAnother instance of grudging allegiance was the following given to a New\nYork broker, who set out to build a modern schoolhouse, and was\npermitted only by a packed school-meeting, and by paying two-thirds of\nthe expense himself, to build in 1892 the comely structure at 43, with\nwhich Quaker Hill is content.\n\nThe same resident was discouraged from further acts of public service,\nin 1894, by the declining of his offer made to the town of Pawling, to\nbuild one mile of macadam for every mile built by the town. He had\nconstructed in 1893, at 113, a sample piece of such road, covering at\nhis own expense an ancient sink-hole in the highway, through which\nduring two months in every year for a century and a half Quaker Hill had\nwallowed; and he desired with this object-lesson to convince the\ntown,--to win the support of at least his neighbors,--to the proposal\nto transform the highways into good roads. But there was never a\nresponse, and even his neighbors on the Hill, who cheerfully enjoy his\nsmooth stretch of stone road over the ancient wallow of their fathers,\nmanifested no active appreciation of his generosity. The generous\nresident had purchased a stone-crusher and other necessaries for the\nwork; but they have been used only on private grounds.\n\nThe most conspicuous instance of following leadership in recent times\nhas been the measured devotion given by the community to the activities\nwhich have centered in Akin Hall and in the institution known as Hill\nHope, on Site 35. The leaders in this activity have been themselves\nunder the influence of New York city ideas. Two of the three most\nconspicuous persons are of this neighborhood, but have resided in New\nYork for years, returning to the Hill for the summers. The third is a\nNew Yorker by birth, and trained in Presbyterian religious experience\nand especially in charitable activity.\n\nAkin Hall has in the years 1892-1905 expressed the leadership in\nreligious confession and worship, after the forms of the Reformed\nChristian order, and has embodied this leadership in the conventional\nactivities of a vigorous country parish.\n\nFor ten years Hill Hope, supported personally by the third member of\nthis group of leaders, was, until it was closed in 1904, a country home\nfor working girls. By a liberal policy it became also a center of much\ninterest and of a pervasive influence to the neighborhood. Meetings of a\nsocial and devotional character were held there, to which the residents\nwere pleased to come, and in which the young women from the city met and\nmingled with the Protestant residents of the Hill, especially with those\nof the Quaker stock. The influence of Hill Hope was very marked, and its\npower in representing to people of a narrow experience the ideals of a\nricher and broader life was obvious to any one who saw the place it held\nin the interests of the whole resident community.\n\nThese influences, thus compounded of the humanitarian, the\nliberal-orthodox and the devotional, but in all things confessedly\nreligious, exerted themselves for the ten years named, unbroken. The\ndeath of one member of this group of leaders, the head of one of the\nthree households peculiarly identified with its work, appreciably\nweakened the group. But in the thirteen years of its influence, it\nunited the whole community in the formation of a church, to some of\nwhose services came all the Protestant population; in whose membership\nwere representatives of all groups of the Protestant residents; and\nwhich was able at least once a year to call the Catholics also together\nat Christmas festivities.\n\nTo this group of leaders a guarded, though at times cordial following\nwas given by Orthodox Friends, the Hicksite group, the farmer class,\nlaborers, Catholics and Protestants, and summer people. It was generally\ninert and negative in spirit, seldom actively loyal. At its best it was\nwilling that leaders should lead and pay the price, and be more admired\nthan upheld. At its worst it was alert to private and blind to public\ninterests, peevish of change, incapable of foresight.\n\nI do not think that Quaker Hill people have much expectation of benefit\nfrom social life. They are habitually skeptical of its advantages,\nthough eager to avail themselves of those advantages when proven. Almost\nevery person on the Hill, however, is a member of some secret society,\nto which he is drawn by anticipations of economic advantage, or of moral\nculture.\n\nNor can I say that there is prompt or general reaction to wrongdoing,\neither of one or of many. I might illustrate with two cases. In one a\nrich man perverted a public trust, openly, to his own advantage; and a\nconspiracy of silence hedged his wrong about. In the other, a youth\nentered in one winter every house on the Hill in succession, and there\nwas no one to detect or to punish him.\n\nThe Hill does not exhibit the highest type of social response in the\nrecognition of impersonal evil, in the quest of knowledge, or in free\ndiscussion. Almost two centuries of dogma-worship, with its\ncontemplation of selected facts, has made it now impossible to secure\nfrom one thoroughly socialized in the spirit of the place the exact\ntruth upon any matter. It seems to be reserve which conceals it, but it\nis rather the effect of continued perversion of the sense of right and\nwrong, and indifference to knowledge for its own sake.\n\nThe ideal of the common mind of Quaker Hill is the practice of inner and\nimmaterial religion. It looks for the effects of certain dogmas, effects\nexpressed in emotions, convictions, experiences. The ideal contains no\nthought of the community or of its welfare. It is purely individual,\ninternal and emotional.\n\nIt was expressed in the comment of one excellent representative citizen\nupon another, \"He does not seem to me to be the man he once was. He does\nnot say in meetings the things he used to say. He used to be very\nhelpful in his remarks.\" This was said at a time when the citizen\ncommented on was laboring heroically for a public improvement by which\nthe citizen speaking would chiefly be benefited.\n\nThe Quaker Hill man and woman desire to make money. They instinctively\nlove money, though not for any other purpose than saving. They cherish\nno illusions of an unworldly sort about it. This is true of Quaker and\nCatholic, laborer and summer resident. It is true of the small class of\ncultivated intellectual-aesthetes, who might be expected to be less\nmercenary. They all value money; but not for display, not for luxury,\nscarcely for travel; not for books or the education of children. Quaker\nHill men and women would accumulate money, invest and manage it wisely\nand live in respectable \"plainness.\" This characteristic is written\nlargely over the whole social area. It is an instinct.\n\nThe emotional nature of this population has been by long-continued\napplication of an accepted discipline, economic and religious,\nrestrained and schooled. More beautiful personalities than some of the\nQuaker and Irish women of the Hill, schooled in a discipline which\nproduces the most charming manners, the gentlest kindness, one may never\nsee. There is no cloud in the sky of these women's justice,\ntruthfulness, goodness. One may remember, even with them, a day of\nanger, of indignation; but it was a storm restrained; the lightnings\nwere held in sure hands, and the attack was eminently just.\n\nBut this very discipline has resulted, in other persons, in an explosive\nemotionality. One person suffers this explosion in a periodic lawsuit--a\nrare action for the Hill; another in an almost insane family quarrel,\nanother in an occasional fury of futile violence, another in periods,\nincreasing in frequency as he grows older, of causeless and uncontrolled\nanger, or extravagant grief; and when weightier occasion is lacking, in\ntorrents of language poured forth from the treasuries of an exhaustless\nmemory. The very serenity and placidity which Quaker worship and\nindustry produce in the true Quaker have resulted in the emotional ruin\nof some, and in the subconscious volcanic state in others.\n\nStrange to say, the immigrants, Irish and American, have in this\nconformed to the better type; so that gentle manners, placidity of\ncharacter and restraint of emotion may be said to prevail among them.\n\nAs for judgment, on economic questions and matters of benevolence the\njudgment of Quaker Hill people is sound. They use money sanely and with\nwisdom. They act wisely in matters of poverty and need, or appeal on\nbehalf of the dependent. On other matters, outside the range of the\nsocial discipline in which the community has been to school, not so much\ncan be said.\n\nThe judgment of the community is not determined by evidence in any other\nmatters than economic. The Quaker Hill mind works subjectively on the\nlines of instincts and habits inherited and inbred. Auto-suggestion has\nbeen a great force in this community. Men and women have had an\nimpression, \"a leading,\" believed to come from the Divine Spirit, and\nhave acted upon it and have led others with them. So that the prevailing\ndetermination of the social judgment has been by personal suggestion,\nand the appeal of inner convictions, fortified by alleged divine\ninfluence. It must be said that this is a disappearing habit. Even those\nborn Quakers, now that the Hicksite Meeting has been discontinued since\n1885, and the Orthodox since 1903, and the Quarterly Meetings of both\nsocieties have ceased to come to the Hill, do not so often see visions\nor act upon \"leadings.\" The influence of non-Quakers in the place has\nbeen of late to quarantine such \"leadings\" and prevent social contagion.\n\nFrugality is universal. Almost every resident laboring man has a bank\naccount. Indeed, these laborers have done more in saving than have the\nfarmers. But the tastes of all are simple. Clothing is never showy or\nexpensive, and housekeeping is carried on with the most sparing use of\npurchased articles.\n\nCleanly most of the people of the Hill are, in person and in their care\nof house and grounds, of carriages, horses and other properties. The\nhouses and barns are always freshly painted, and an appearance of\nneatness pervades the community.\n\nFor reasons which I will mention in a later paragraph the men and women\ntrained under Quakerism are not orderly, either in the use of their time\nor in the management of their labor, or in anything, save in the\ndiscipline of their religion and in the economic system to which they\ngive themselves.\n\nThe community has grown in compassion since the days when Surgeon\nFallon's soldiers were starved and neglected in the Meeting House.\nTo-day I am sure no class of men in real need could appeal to the\ncommunity, or to any constituent group of it, in vain. The growth has\nbeen along lines which, beginning in a group-compassion that has from\nearliest days recompensed any poor member of the Meeting in his sudden\nlosses of property, have widened first to Quakers of other places, then\nto other Christians, then to other men, and last of all to Quakers of\nthe other Quaker sect; and from Protestant to Catholic and Catholic to\nProtestant.\n\nProperty seems to be sacred. Doors of houses and barns do not require\nlocks, but one winter there was a series of house-breakings, in which\nalmost every summer residence on the Hill was entered. Contents were\ninspected, but nothing was stolen. But the honesty here is a passive\nhonesty. It is not the aggressively just fulfilment of obligation which\none finds in New England.\n\nThe Hill is a community with a high level of chastity. This may be said\nof all classes, though not uniformly of all. Yet it was not always so.\nThe first century of the life of the Quakers here is recorded in the\nminutes of Oblong Meeting as one long struggle of Quaker discipline\nagainst unchastity. There is an amazing frankness about these records,\nand a persistence in the exercise of discipline, a frequency of\naccusation, proof, conviction, expulsion from the Meeting, which is\nastonishing to the twentieth century reader. The best families furnished\nthe culprits almost as often as they supplied the accusers and\nprosecuting committees. So many are the cases and so frequent the\nexpulsions, often for matters which might better have been ignored, but\ngenerally for substantial offences, that one wonders who was left in the\nMeeting. But men often confessed and were received again, and the\nMeeting held its ground. In general it may be said that often in the\neighteenth century there were more cases of unchastity dealt with in a\nyear by the Meeting, in a population no larger than the present, than\nhave come to public knowledge in the past ten years in this community.\nThe change shows also in a reserve of speech upon these matters.\n\nThe characteristic pleasures of the community, as a whole, are few.\nThere is a group of women of leisure, of course, devoted to\nbridge-whist, who come in the summer and do not go far from the Hotel.\nYoung men go hunting, and a few grown men are fond of fishing. The\ntypical person provides himself with no pleasures outside of his family\nand home. Men and women are too busy to play, and the Quakers educated\nthemselves out of a playful mind.\n\nThere are a few pleasures which are native and general. One of these is\npublic assembly, with an entertaining speaker as a central pleasure.\nQuaker Hill audiences are alert and keen hearers, and indulgent critics\nof a public speaker. There are only two other forms of public\nentertainment more pleasing to them. The first is a dramatic\npresentation. Many of the Quakers are excellent actors, and the Irish\nare quite their equals, while the other newcomers are equally\nappreciative. The Christmas play in Akin Hall is a great annual event,\nassembling all the people on the Hill of all classes and groups, for it\nembodies very many of the appeals to characteristic pleasure. Only one\nother attraction is more generally responded to; I refer to a dinner.\nSomething good to eat, in common with one's neighbors, in a place\nhallowed by historic associations, under religious auspices--here you\nhave the call that brings Quaker Hill all together. On such a day there\nwill be none left behind.\n\nOf all these sorts is the attraction the Quaker Hill Conference has for\nthe people of the neighborhood. It is a universal appeal to the capacity\nfor pleasure in the community. It presents famous and eloquent speakers\nthrough the days of the week. Matters of religion, farming, morals,\nliterature, are discussed, by men of taste and culture; and the\nclosing day is Quaker Hill Day. On this day, after an assembly in the\nold Oblong Meeting House, erected in 1764, at which the neighborhood has\nlistened to papers descriptive of the past of the Hill, all adjourn for\na generous dinner under the trees of Akin Hall, or latterly under a tent\nbeside the Meeting House, partaken of by four hundred people, of all\ngroups and classes, and followed by brisk, happy speeches by visitors\npresent. This, after almost two centuries of keen interest in the\nquestion of amusements, is the last and most perfect expression of the\ncapacity for amusement in the community.\n\n\n[Illustration: OBLONG MEETING HOUSE]\n\n\n[Illustration: MEMORIAL STONE]\n\n\nOf active pleasure-taking, Quaker Hill, purely considered, is incapable.\n\nIt should be said that the Roman Catholic Church in Pawling provides its\npeople with a yearly feast, parallel with the Conference, which was for\nyears held in a grove on the borders of Quaker Hill.\n\nTraits of character which are general or even common among Quaker Hill\npeople are worthy of mention under the heads of regular industry,\nfrugality, cleanliness, temperance, chastity, honesty as to property,\nand compassion.\n\nPolitically the Hill was until the year 1896 inclined to be Democratic.\nFor years a number of the Protestants on the Hill have been\nProhibitionists.\n\nPrimitive notions of morals survive in spite of what has been said\nearlier, in isolated instances, or tend to recur in certain families.\nUntil twelve years ago members of certain families maintained the right\nto catch fish with a net in Hammersley Lake. Over the line in\nConnecticut this practice, and that of taking fish with a spear, survive\nin spite of law. But this primitive method was forcibly ended by the\nattempt to arrest the chief offender. He made his escape from the\nofficers, but has never returned, and the practice has not till this\ndate, 1905, been resumed on Quaker Hill.\n\nPrimitive moralities of sex appear in certain families, in which in each\ngeneration there appears one illegitimate child, at least; as it were a\nreminder of their disorderly past. The chari-vari survives among the\nbetter class of working people, a strange, noisy outbreak for a Quaker\ncommunity, with which a newly married pair are usually serenaded.\n\nI find also no animistic ideas, or practices; no folk-lore and no magic.\nThe Quaker Hill imagination has been disciplined.\n\nThe preferred attainment in this community is neither power, splendor,\npleasure, nor ceremonial purity; nor yet justice, liberty or\nenlightenment; but rather, first of all, prosperity, a well-being in\nwhich one's good fortune sheds its favors on others; secondly,\nrighteousness, to be enjoyed in religious complacency; and thirdly,\nequality. This last is one of the few elements of a social ideal\nactually realized. Even among the women of the place there is a simple\nand unaffected democracy in the religious and communal societies, which\nis quite unusual in such a place.\n\nOf sacred places there are avowedly none. But the historic sense of the\ncommunity is reverent, almost religious, in its regard for the past; so\nthat the Oblong Meeting House, cradle of the community, and for over a\ncentury its home and house of government, is chief in the affections of\nall. In the summer of 1904 this place was marked for all time by the\nplacing there of a boulder of white feldspar, bearing a bronze tablet\ninscribed with the important facts of the history of that spot.\n\nQuaker Hill does not desire to expand. The type of community preferred\nis the simple, small, and exclusive. In this all agree, whether they\nconfess it or not. No expansion will ever come by native forces or\nconscious purpose.\n\nQuaker Hill reveres leaders, not heroes; and not saints, for men have\nbeen cherished for their leadership in dogmatic activities, rather than\nfor their abstract goodness or human value. The type of the social mind\nthat has been most esteemed is the dogmatic-emotional. Even Albert J.\nAkin, whose dogma was the union of all Christians, had no patience with\nany divergence in religious experience from this, his dogma.\n\nThe forms of complex activity that are chiefly cherished are, first, the\neconomic arts; second, religion; third, morals; and fourth, things\npertaining to costume. The institutions chiefly prized are the family\nand marriage, the economic system and the cultural system, especially\nthe church.\n\nSocial welfare is conceived of under forms of peace, the increase and\ndiffusion of wealth, industry, and by a minority, culture. High morality\nis most valued as an element in the social personality. Next after it is\na highly developed sociality. Social policies would be favored on the\nHill as they represented authority and individualism. Conversion is the\naccepted means of modifying type.\n\nPractical politics may be said to be foreign to Quaker Hill, for reasons\ndrawn from its isolation and religious offishness. An exception was in\nthe early part of the nineteenth century, when Daniel Akin, apparently\nin consequence of mercantile position, was elected County Judge. After\nhim, his brother Albro was appointed to the office.\n\nThe consciousness of kind on Quaker Hill is stronger in the group than\nin the community. Yet the general sense of \"unity\" is very strong and it\noften comes into play.\n\nThe chief social bonds which unite the whole community are, first of\nall, imitation, in which process it seems to me the Quakers are a\npeculiarly subtle people. Second, a good-will which pervades the Hill\nlike a genial atmosphere. Third, kindness, which on certain occasions\ndraws the whole community together in unusual acts of helpfulness to\nsome member in need.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nPRACTICAL DIFFERENCES AND RESEMBLANCES.\n\n\nThe prevailing type of mind among Quaker Hill folk is the\nIdeo-Emotional; for these folk are a gentle, social sort of persons,\nready of affection, imaginative and analogical in mental process, weak\nand complacent in emotionality, with motor reaction rather inconstant,\nand of slow response. Of these I find thirty-seven families.\n\nThe next category is that of the Dogmatic-Emotional, in which I observe\ntwenty-two families. These are composed of persons in whom austere and\ndomineering character proceeds from a dogmatic fixity of mind, and\nexpresses itself in the same inconstant application shown by the former\nclass.\n\nA few of the more notable of the personalities produced by Quaker birth\nand breeding belong, I think, in the Ideo-Motor class. I find only seven\nfamilies of that type, but the forceful character, of aggressive bent,\nmoderate intellect and strong but well-controlled emotion, is distinctly\npresent; and this class has furnished some of the most successful of the\nsons of Quaker Hill.\n\nI have known only six persons resident on the Hill in the twelve years\nunder study who could be described as Critically-Intellectual. Of these,\nfour have been bred in the larger school of the city, and only two have\nlived their lives upon the Hill. Of these six, five are women.\n\nThere is, of course, only one language spoken in Quaker Hill. Indeed\nonly one or two persons have any other than English as their native\ntongue.[35] And very few have acquired any other as a matter of culture.\nThe vocabulary used is limited. An intelligent observer says: \"The\nvocabulary of the native community is the meagerest I have ever known,\nexcept that of the immigrant.\" There are, however, very few\nilliterates; none, indeed, in the literal meaning of the term.\n\nManners on the whole are uniform for the resident population. Of course\nthe summer people have the conventional manners, or lack of manners, of\nthe city. So far as religion has shaped the manners of the old Quaker\ngroup, they are often gentle and refined; but as often blunt and\nimperious. The Irish have the best manners, I observe, and the more\ntransient summer people and farm-hands the worst. In both the last two\nclasses there is too often a pride in rudeness and vulgarity which the\nnative of mature years never exhibits. The Quaker and the Catholic are\nequally ceremonious in inclination. The latter always desires to please.\nThe Quaker, when he desires to please, is capable of very fine courtesy;\nbut he does not always desire, and he has less insight into the essence\nof a social situation.\n\nThe community has had a history, of course, in the matter of costume.\nThe Meeting House law made costume a matter of ethics for a century. But\nto-day there is great diversity. Probably this is a sign of the\ntransition from the Quaker to the broader human order. But all one can\nsay upon costume is that there is now no dress prescribed for any\noccasion. At one extreme there are a few, in 1905 only three, in 1907\nonly one, who wear the Quaker garb. At the other extreme are outsiders\nwho dress as the city tailor and milliner clothe them. And between these\nthere is liberty.\n\nThe dispositions again are varied. One finds the aggressiveness of five\nstirring men and three capable women sufficient to give character to the\nplace. Many functions of the community are still vigorously upheld, yet\nthe number of aggressive spirits is diminishing. The instigative type is\npresent in three, and its processes give pleasure to all who behold. The\ndomineering type is present in eight members, especially in those\nfamilies which claim by right of inheritance either social or religious\nleadership. And, as to others, as I quoted an observer above, \"They are\nan obedient people.\" I do not know any creative minds, much less any\nclass with original initiative. If there had been any such, Quaker Hill\nwould have produced artists, great and small, and writers, not a few.\nThere is a consciousness of material for creation, and in certain\nfamilies the culture which creation presupposes; but something in\nQuakerism has quieted the muse and banked the fires.\n\nAs to types of character, there are forceful persons, a very few, nine\nat the utmost being of this type. Austere persons, who have in the past\ngiven to the Hill much of its character, have almost disappeared, not\nmore than four being within that category, among the population under\nstudy in this part of the book.\n\nThe number of the rationally conscientious is as small as is that of the\nconvivial. The Meeting, which was for over a century the organ of\nconscience for the community, denied to the convivial their license, and\nreleased the conscientious from any obligation to be rational. The\nMeeting has now but recently passed away, and its standards of character\nspeak as loudly as ever. I find three women who may be called rationally\nconscientious, one a Quakeress, one a New Yorker, and one of Quaker\nbirth and worldly breeding. I find also three who are truly convivial in\ntype, one a son of Quakers, and two who are Irish Catholics; while\nto these might be added two whose designation ought to be\nIndustrious-Convivial, hard-working men who are fond of social pleasure\nas an end of life.\n\nA few in certain households, three in number, are intellectually\naesthetic in a passive way, fond of art and books, but creating nothing.\nTwo artists of note have in the past twelve years come to the Hill,\nbought places and made it at least a summer home.\n\nIt must not be inferred from the foregoing that there is not a wide\nrange of mental difference among Quaker Hill men and women. In the\nmatter of quickness and slowness of action this variation appears even\namong the members of any one group. In the same family are two brothers,\nboth farmers, both tenants. One is able to farm a thousand acres more\nsuccessfully than the other can cultivate two hundred. The one is\ninstant in judgment, swift in action, able to compress into an hour\nheavy physical labor and also the control of many other men. The other\nis leisurely, indolent in movement, though a diligent man, and is as\nmuch burdened by increase of responsibilities as the former is\nstimulated. These two men are not exceptional, but typical. The extreme\nof slowness is indeed represented in one man whose tortoise pace in all\nmatters dependent on the mind and will is oddly contrasted with his\nvigor and energy of manner. His movements are a provocation of delighted\ncomments by his neighbors; I think partly because they are felt to be\nrepresentative of what is latent in other men, and partly because he is\nsurrounded by others more alert. Such men are the outcropping of a vein\nof degenerate will. It is not immoral degeneracy, but its weakness is\nincapacity for action of any kind, inability to see and do the specific\ntask. This degenerate will does not extend to traditional morals, and\ndoes not always affect whole families. But its pervasive effects are\nseen in almost all the representatives of three large families of the\nold Quaker stock. Contrasted to these are some of the old stock, who\nthough slow of thought and barren of mental initiative, are swift of\naction, sure in synthesis of a situation, and instant in performance of\nprecisely the requisite deed.\n\nOne finds on the Hill many examples of native administrative ability of\na high order--for a farm is as complicated a property as a railway is.\nThere are fully as many others who would be burdened with the cares of a\nticket-chopper.\n\nNot a few on the Hill are like the farmer who, sent on an errand to\nbring some guests from a train to a certain house, spent half an hour\nafter meeting the guests in conversation with them in the railway\nstation before mentioning his errand; and would have made it an hour had\nthey not inquired of him for a conveyance. Yet a neighbor of his, in the\nsame social group, closely related, has unusual capacity for affairs.\n\nThe instincts of the people of the Hill are not, I think, so varied.\nThey involuntarily respect religion, when expressed with sincerity, and\nincarnated in strength of character. It must have the authority,\nhowever, of strength, at least passive strength, to appeal to local\ninstinct.\n\n\n[35] In 1905-7 six Swedes and Poles also have come, as laborers.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION.\n\n\nThe members of the community have organized themselves into associations\nfor the carrying on of special forms of activity to a degree which is\nworthy of record. As one might expect, the societies of most vigor are\nthose maintained by the women, since the men have never been able\nspontaneously to organize, or to maintain, any society on the Hill.\n\nCentral to all this organization, through the period of the Mixed\nCommunity, has been Akin Hall Association, created by one man, and\nendowed by him. Under its shelter a church and library live, and a\nyearly Conference is maintained for five days in the month of September.\nIn this chapter we will consider first the incorporated, then the\nunincorporated societies.\n\nThe chief incorporated institution on Quaker Hill is Akin Hall\nAssociation, founded in 1880 by Albert J. Akin. It was his intention to\ncreate an institution of the broadest purpose, through which could be\ncarried on activities of a religious, literary, educational, benevolent\nand generally helpful order. \"Albert Akin endowed,\" said a visitor, \"not\na college or a hospital, but a community!\" The charter of the\nAssociation, which was from time to time, on advice, amended, up to the\ntime of Mr. Akin's death in 1903, provided for the most catholic\nendowment of Quaker Hill, in every possible need of its population.\n\nThe particular directions in which this endowment has been used are two.\nA library and a church are in active use by the neighborhood, the former\nsince 1883, and the latter since 1895, of which I will speak in detail\nhereafter.\n\nAkin Hall Association is a corporation consisting of five trustees, a\nself-perpetuating body, and eleven other \"members.\" The number of\ntrustees was originally sixteen, but Mr. Akin early yielded to legal\nadvice in concentrating authority in five persons; while continuing the\nremaining eleven as a quasi-public to whom the five report their doings,\nand with whom they regularly confer. The annual meeting of the\nAssociation is upon the birthday of the founder, August 14th. At that\ntime the trustees assemble at two p. m. for the transaction of business,\nelection of members and of officers; and at 3 p. m. the members' meeting\nis called to order, the officers of the trustees being officers of the\nwhole body. Members are permitted and expected to inquire as to\nactivities of the Association, its funds and its work in general, and to\nvote on all matters coming before the body for its action. Only no\naction involving the expenditure of money, or the election of trustees,\nshall be valid without the concurrence in majority opinion of a majority\nof the trustees.\n\nThe chief interest of the trustees has always been the care of the\nproperty of the Association, which includes invested funds, and the\nfollowing buildings, with about thirty acres of land: a hotel, having\nrooms for two hundred guests, a stone library, a chapel, and seven\ncottages. The hotel is usually rented to a \"proprietor,\" and the duties\nof the library and church are laid upon a minister, the earliest of\nwhom, Mr. Chas. Ryder, was called the \"Agent.\"\n\nThe Akin Free Library, consisting of about three thousand books,\nselected with uncommon wisdom by committees of ladies through about\ntwenty-five years, was originally established by the ladies of the Hill,\nin the early eighties, through a popular fund. It has ever since been\nfunded by the Akin Hall Association, who have also given it quarters,\nand care, in the Chapel known as Akin Hall. It will soon be moved into\nthe stone Library, erected in 1898, but only finished in 1906, and it is\nreasonable to suppose that it will there have a wider scope and an\nincreasing use.\n\nThe Library has been managed primarily for the use of \"the Summer\npeople,\" and the books have the excellence of their selection, as well\nas the proportion of certain kinds of books, determined by the\npreferences of the Summer residents. No adequate records are kept of the\nbooks used; so that it is impossible to give statistics of the specific\nutility of the library. But it occupies a real place in the community,\nand is drawn upon by families from every section of the population.\n\nThe fact that it was originally assembled by popular subscription, and\nonly later sustained by the Akin endowment is a token of the exceptional\nlatent interest in literature, and the passive culture, to which tribute\nhas been paid in this study of the Quaker Hill population. It is fair to\nsay, however, that such interest has been confined to a small group of\nthe population, now fast disappearing.\n\nThere is a small corporation, formed for the purpose of holding and\ncaring for the \"Old Meeting House.\" It is known as Oblong Meeting House,\nIncorporated. To this corporation, consisting of three trustees, a\nself-perpetuating body, the Yearly Meeting of Friends[36] handed over in\n1902 the building and grounds known as the \"Old Meeting House,\" at Site\n28. This ancient building, erected in 1764, is probably the oldest\nedifice on the Hill, and is the embodiment of the religious and\nhistorical traditions of the community. These trustees attend to the\nrepair of the Meeting House, which is maintained in exactly the\ncondition in which it was used for over a century. No meeting of worship\nis held now in this building, the \"monthly meeting\" having been \"laid\ndown\" in 1885. The building is, however, the center of frequent\npilgrimages during the summer, by the visitors to the Hill and boarders,\nwho delight in its quaint interior. It is used for occasional \"sales\"\nfor the \"benefit\" of some public interest. Once a year at the close of\nQuaker Hill Conference, it is the place of \"Quaker Hill Day\" exercises,\nat which addresses and papers are presented, in celebration and\ncommemoration of the past history of the community.\n\nThe Hill has record of few revivals. Quaker ways preclude surprises, and\nrevivals usually arise from new things. There was, however, during five\nyears, 1892-1897, a religious awakening, prolonged month after month,\nfor five years with undiminished force. The cause of it seems to have\nbeen the study of the Bible in the historic method; a new mode of\nawakening traditional religious interest. During that time the whole\ncommunity was keenly alive, old and young; and in certain cases a change\nof life became permanent. In many young persons a definite religious\nimpulse was the result.\n\nThis quickened religious interest involved all the Quaker influence,\nboth Orthodox and Hicksite, and it was reinforced by several strong\npersonalities from outside the Hill, persons trained in church work in\nNew York and elsewhere. It crystallized in the organization of \"Christ's\nChurch, Quaker Hill,\" in the Spring of 1895, which received at the\nbeginning adherents of all the religious groups represented on the Hill.\nWithin three years it had grown to a membership of sixty-five, among\nwhom were members or adherents of the following religious bodies,\nProtestant Episcopal Church, Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches,\nQuakers, Hicksite and Orthodox, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist\nEpiscopal, Congregational, Disciples and Lutheran.\n\nThis church is served by the minister employed in Akin Hall, and it has\ntherefore a peculiar place. Its membership is drawn from the population\nresident on the Hill. Its doctrinal truths are simple, namely the\nApostles' Creed. Its ordinances are elastic, baptism being waived in the\ncase of those who, being trained as Quakers, do not believe in water\nbaptism; and by the conditions affixed to Mr. Akin's endowment, that no\ndenominational use should ever be made of Akin Hall, it is without\nsectarian connections.\n\nThe religious services in Akin Hall have in Summer been attended since\n1880 by numbers of \"summer people,\" from Mizzen-Top Hotel and the\nboarding-houses. A Sunday School was maintained from 1890 to 1905, a\nChristian Endeavor Society from 1894 to 1903. Both have been\ndiscontinued, owing to lack of members.\n\nThe church has also a diminished membership, especially since 1903,\nowing in part to mere removal of population; and even more to the death\nand removal from the Hill of persons of forceful, aggressive type, and\nthe impoverishment of the population in respect of initiative and\ncoherence.\n\nThe other agency carried on under the patronage of Akin Hall Association\nis the Quaker Hill Conference. Founded in 1899 by Mr. Akin, entertained\nby Miss Monahan, this assembly has made September of each year a focal\npoint in local interest. For five days of public meetings, Bible study,\naddresses upon religion, social and economic topics, culminating in a\ngreat dinner, of which four hundred partake, it is the modern successor\nof the now extinct Quaker Quarterly meetings. It expended in 1907 about\n$1,400, of which about half was contributed by Akin Hall Association,\nand the remainder by individuals.\n\nThe groups in which the women of the Hill are associated are of great\ninterest. The Roman Catholic women have only their kinship associations,\nand no voluntary associations, being generally in the employ of\nProtestants, and having their church center away from the Hill in\nPawling village.\n\nThe King's Daughters is the largest association, and most representative\nof the Hill, both in its numbers, frequency of meetings and variety of\ninterests; though it is not the oldest. It has a membership of forty,\nand is actively devotional, charitable and benevolent. It serves also a\nuseful purpose in providing social meetings, bazaars, sales and other\noccasions throughout the year which bring neighbors together; and uses\ntheir assembling for the assisting of the poor, ignorant or needy.\n\nThis society, as well as the one to be mentioned next, exemplifies the\nreal democracy in which the women of the Hill meet and plan for common\nlocal interests; a fine spirit and practical efficiency characterizing\ntheir meetings, and each woman, however, humble, having a part with the\nbest in the general result.\n\nThe Wayside Path Association is smaller in number of members, as well as\nolder than the King's Daughters; indeed, it has perhaps no fixed\nmembership, but is an assembling of the women of the place about a small\ngroup as a working center for a yearly duty. Its purpose is to maintain\na dirt sidewalk, over three miles in length, which follows the road\nnorthward and southward, from the Glen to the Post Office, with\nbranches. Once a year the Association meets, gathers funds by a \"sale\"\nor by subscription, hires a laborer to repair the Wayside Path; then for\na year lies dormant. In 1898 there was a general effort made to\ntransform this association into a general Village Improvement Society,\nwith diversified interests, into which men would come, but it failed,\nand no such society exists.\n\nThe West Mountain Mission is an association of ladies of the Hill, who\nthrough sales and bazaars, supplemented by gifts, contribute to the\nsupport of a chapel of the Protestant Episcopal Church, two miles west\nof Pawling. This association draws its membership from the hotel guests\nand from residents in the cottages; and but little from the essential\nQuaker Hill households.\n\nThe same may be said of whist clubs maintained in the summer at the\nhotel and cottages.\n\n\n[Illustration: ROBY OSBORN RICHARD OSBORN]\n\n\n[36] The Hicksite or Unitarian body held possession of the\nMeeting House in 1828, and until the above action.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE SOCIAL WELFARE.\n\n\nQuaker Hill is an example of the working of a religious and economic\nsystem toward its inevitable results in social welfare. The results\nconsciously sought were mainly personal. They were not seeking culture\nor security or equity, and not attempting to create a community, those\nearly Quakers; but they sought with all their heart and mind after\nprosperity, individual and communal; after vitality, morality and that\nself-expression which is in the form of self-sacrifice or altruism in\n\"the service of others.\" The conscious mind of the Quaker fathers of\nthis community was other-worldly, except in the matters of business--of\nwhich more later. That \"spiritual\" state of mind was intensely\nindividual. All the interests it regarded were of the self, conceived as\nan inner, immaterial duplicate of the body, destined for heaven after\ndeath, and now enjoying interchanges of experience, especially of\nemotion and intelligence, with the Deity, during life.\n\nIt was a mind consciously framed to serve personal development, with no\nthought of public or common interests. Yet subconsciously the Quaker was\nacutely aware of common interests. A Quaker frequently uses the\nexpression \"I feel myself in unity with them.\" Their doctrine of the\nindwelling of the divine in every man made them quick to feel common\nemotion. Their group-sympathy was lively and strong. They felt the\ncommunity, though they never thought upon it. Subconsciously, though not\nconsciously, they were public-spirited. They acted upon a fine social\nspirit, thought they taught no social gospel.\n\n\"The supreme result of efficient organization,\"[37] says Professor F.\nH. Giddings, \"and the supreme test of efficiency is the development of\nthe personality of the social man. If the man himself becomes less\nsocial, less rational, less manly; if he falls from the highest type,\nwhich seeks self-realization through a critical intelligence and\nemotional control, to one of those lower types which manifest only the\nprimitive virtues of power; if he becomes unsocial, the social\norganization, whatever its apparent merits, is failing to achieve its\nsupreme object. If, on the contrary, the man is becoming ever better as\na human being, more rational, more sympathetic, with an ever broadening\nconsciousness of kind, then, whatever its apparent defects, the social\norganization is sound and efficient.\" Let us consider whether Quaker\nHill has met this test. It has been well organized. It has had definite\npurposes. What has been the type of welfare enjoyed as a result? What\nkind of man has emerged from almost two centuries of cultivation of a\nreligious and economic ideal?\n\nIn economic operations the Quakers dwelt in this world. They sought a\nliving and they sought wealth--not for the services wealth can render in\nculture and education, but to accumulate it, possess it, invest and\nmanage it, and to live \"in plainness.\"\n\nYet they subconsciously did also seek after a prosperity that should be\ngeneral. Not closely, not in any declarations or definite teachings of\ntheir code, but still in a real way, as a by-product of their code of\nlife, they acted so that none in their community should be in want. This\nthey did with profound wisdom--for they taught no communal doctrine--and\nthe details of their action toward weaker members of the neighborhood\nwere uncommonly shrewd and sensible. I will show later the effects of\nthis in the fact that the population under our study shows the absence\nof defective classes in a significant degree. There are no idiots, no\ndefective, no criminal, no pauper classes among the Quaker Hill\npopulation.\n\nThe mind of the community had, indeed, an active interest in liberty and\nthe contribution noted above (see Ch. IV. Part I) in the agitation for\nthe abolition of slavery in this state was an act of public spirit along\nthe lines of a great national experience. The fact that the meeting of\nFriends in 1767 was held on Quaker Hill, which initiated effective\naction against slave-holding, is much cherished on the Hill, and is\ncommemorated in a stone and bronze memorial at the Meeting House.\n\nEquality of suffrage and universal suffrage are jealously believed in,\nowing to the Quaker teaching as to woman's parity with man. Yet in the\nschool-meeting, in which women have the same right to vote that men\nhave, there are seldom any women present. Indeed, except for a packed\nmeeting once in a decade, to decide some agitated question, few women\nattend school-meetings.\n\nThe size of the holdings of land on the Hill, and the curve of increase\nand decrease for seventy years, are exhibited in Table II.\n\n\nTABLE II.\n\n_Land-Holdings on Quaker Hill: Acreages on which Owners are taxed._\n\n\n Years            1835    1845    1865    1875    1890    1900    1906\n ------------------------------------------------------------------------\n No. Owners         31      26      39      51      48      53      42\n ------------------------------------------------------------------------\n Highest Acreage   610     540     445     420     540     540     540\n Higher Quartile   378     260     225     225     183.5   222.5   265\n Average           222     206     150.5   147.8   137.8   154     184.2\n Median            187     150     131     120     104     120     155.5\n Lower Quartile     80     100      59      52      43.5    57      90\n Lowest Acreage      1      42       3       6       5       1       6\n\n\nThe above table gives in a graphic manner the tendency of wealth to\nincrease, on the Hill, so far as wealth is represented in land. It is to\nbe noted that these figures, taken from the Tax-Lists of the town of\nPawling, are not precisely accurate, especially in the lower ranges.\nThere is an evident inaccuracy in the reporting of the smaller places.\nYet from them the following may be inferred: First, that from the\nbeginning of the reports, which was about the end of the period of the\nQuaker Community, there was a shrinkage in the size of the land-holdings\non the Hill; and from the beginning of the period of the Mixed Community\na rise in the general averages. The lowest of the curve is about 1890,\nin the Median, the average and in each of the quartiles. Second, the\nincoming of the Irish immigrants, who began to be land-holders about\n1850, multiplied the number of small holdings of land.\n\nJust what cause has operated in the years 1890-1906 to increase the size\nof the holdings of land it is hard to say, unless it be the expectation\nthat land would have a value, which is aroused by the presence on the\nHill every summer of visitors to a number equal to the numbers of the\nresident population. It is evident at the present time, when the \"milk\nbusiness\" has been reduced to half in the past five years, that the\nfarmers are holding their lands with a hope of selling.\n\nIt is worthy of remark that the tax-list of the town furnish no other\ndata of reliable value, or even of suggestion, being obviously\ninaccurate and uneven in their reports of the values of land, and of the\nholdings of personal property.\n\nThe fact that is not recorded in the above statistics is this: that\ncertain owners, associated in close family ties, own all the land of\ngreatest value. Seven family groups possess, in the names of eleven of\nthe above owners, all the land near the Hotel, all the land for which\nany one has ever thought of charging more than fifty dollars an acre.\nThese eleven owners of all the land of greatest value possess probably\nnine-tenths of the personal property.\n\nHoldings of property on Quaker Hill are very unequal. The smallest owner\nof real estate has an acre, and the largest about six hundred acres.\nContrasts here are sharp and permanent. The same families have possessed\ncertain properties for many decades, often for two centuries; and\ngenerally Quaker Hill families do not sell till they all die or move\naway.\n\nWealth is increasing on Quaker Hill in the slow course of years, and\nprobably along the lines of present growth, will increase. It is\ndistributed with marked inequality. The tendency, especially in central\nterritory, is toward increasing inequality. There is \"a small group at a\nhigh degree.\"\n\nYet the community is generally prosperous and well-to-do. There are none\npoor. Indeed, the wealthy women who began to come to Mizzen-Top Hotel in\n1880, looking about for some poor to assist, were obliged to go off the\nHill to the south, and lay hold of a lonely female with a curious\nnervous malady but self-respecting withal, and deliberately pauperize\nher. To this process, after some initial struggles, she has submitted\nthrough these intervening years. She has now for years been pensioned by\nthe church in Akin Hall through the year, visited in summer by people in\ncarriages, has maintained an extensive begging correspondence through\nthe mails all winter, and has been generally despised by her neighbors.\nBut she has represented to interested clergymen and charity workers on\ntheir summer vacations the fascinating and mysterious problem of\npoverty.[38]\n\nVery few indeed have been the defectives. I know of none in ten years.\nThe prevailing vitality of the community is high. There were living two\nyears ago five persons past ninety; and one of them died in his\nhundredth year. Octogenarians drive the roads every day, and manage\ntheir estates with ripe discretion and unabated interest in affairs. The\nreligious revival referred to (see Chapter VI) brought into the church\nan active man of great wealth of ninety-five years of age.\n\nThere are no blind persons. One old man, who suffered from cataract,\nlost an eye in an operation at eighty-five years of age; and refused to\nsubmit the other eye-ball to the surgeon. There are no deaf and dumb.\n\nPeople on Quaker Hill are well-born. I suppose this may be in part due\nto the high morality of their fathers. I attribute it, in view of the\ncontrast in this respect to the contiguous population in Sherman, Conn.,\nto the highly organic communal life of Quaker Hill. Connecticut people,\nsome of them of the same original Quaker stock, have settled on small\nholdings of lands, and held them till isolation and poverty have driven\nthem to suicide, insanity or other miseries. Quaker Hill was from the\nbeginning differentiated into a healthier diversity, and it has been the\nbetter for her people.\n\nThere are few mentally abnormal persons in the community. One may\ndesignate three persons as unbalanced, two of them unmarried women; and\nanother such as probably insane, though residing at home. But even the\naged do not die first in the head. There are no idiotic persons.\n\nThe prevailing morality is high. Very few would be classified as\nimmoral, by the public disapproval of their conduct. Individuals have\ncommitted theft, or an act of cruelty, or adultery, in the years\n1895-1905. They do not constitute classes.\n\nThe sociality of Quaker Hill seems to the writer relatively high.\nResponse to a case of real need is prompt, wise and abundant; and common\naction for others is heartily begun and completed. There are no\nunsocialized persons; neither paupers, criminals, nor degraded, in the\ncommunity; at least no class or classes of such. There is a man who\nperhaps drinks too much and too often; but even he is too far from the\nsaloon to attain to the dignity of neighborhood drunkard.\n\nQuaker Hill has not been of a mind to contribute institutions or\nresources to the public. Toward war hostile, toward the state always\nimpassive, sometimes actively disloyal in times of war, Quaker Hill has\nlived a life apart.\n\nCommon school privileges are offered to all in the three school houses\nat Sites 12, 43 and 101 (school districts No. 1, 3, 4) and the\nadvantages offered are generally studiously appropriated by the young.\nIn the ten years under study two families alone have been unwilling to\ntake full advantage of the school opportunities.\n\nIn the school at Site 43, for which alone an improved, modern building\nhas been erected, there was, beginning in 1893, a determined effort made\nto provide a school better than the ordinary country school. By the\nco-operation of certain farmers with children in school, and through\ncontributions of citizens of means who had no children, better teachers\nwere employed, at increased expense, for the space of twelve years.\nDuring two years the school was graded, employing two teachers. But the\neffort in this direction seems to have ceased with the close of the year\n1905-1906. This school has had, for the years 1904-6, only one\nProtestant child, in an enrollment of twenty to thirty.\n\nThe other school-districts are maintained \"in the old back-country way,\"\ntheir attendance is small and no effort is made to raise the standard of\nteaching.\n\nIt has been accepted for generations among the authoritative leaders on\nQuaker Hill that \"higher education was not good for the poor.\" Of this\ndoctrine, Albert Akin, generally progressive, was a firm believer. He\ninsisted, and other representatives of the leading families have done\nthe same, that \"to offer them higher education only makes them\ndiscontented\"; \"they won't work if you get them to studying--and\nsomebody must do the work.\"\n\nIt seems in strict harmony with this opinion, which I never heard\nopposed on the Hill, that Quaker Hill has never until 1904 sent a young\nman or woman through the college or university. Albert J. Akin, 2d, was\na member of class of 1904 of Columbia University, but he was not born on\nthe Hill, and never long resided there. Indeed, the town of Pawling has\nnot another college graduate among its sons. There have been, however, a\nfew who have gone to school to the grade of high school and no normal\nschools. In the past ten years ten young men and women have done so. One\nyouth all but completed a college course in 1906. Two young women are\njust completing courses as nurses.\n\nPersonality is the field in which the conscious purpose cherished on\nQuaker Hill would have wrought its best efforts. But personality was\nalways on Quaker Hill inhibited, restrained and schooled into\nmediocrity. Variation was repressed. Spontaneity was forbidden.\nIngenuous spirits were firmly and effectively directed into channels\nbelieved to be harmless.\n\nThe result has been that mediocre people have both lived on the Hill,\nand gone away from it, in voluntary exile from its beautiful scenes, but\nnot in exile from its spirit of plainness. No person of brilliant mind\nor of uncommon talents has ever come of the Quaker Hill population.\nThere is not among the sons or daughters of this place one whose name is\nof lasting interest to any beyond the limits of Pawling. No artist or\npoet has ever ventured to express the intense feeling of the aesthetic\nwhich pervades the place, but has always been hushed from singing,\nrestrained from picturing.\n\nI think the end for which the Quaker Hill population have lived could be\ncalled Individual-Social. They are consciously individual, and\nunconsciously, inevitably social. These people have sought generation\nafter generation for personal salvation and personal gain. \"And that,\"\nsays a resident, \"that is why the place is dying.\" Yet the common\ninterest was a logical corollary of the Quaker doctrine of God in every\nman, and therefore a community was formed, a community indeed which was\nno one's conscious care. In the chapter upon \"The Common Mind,\" above,\nI have showed that all the leaders of the community as a whole, save\none, have been outsiders, who came to see the integrity of the community\nwith eyes of \"the world's people,\" and these leaders in communal service\nhave been grudgingly followed.\n\nThat one, Albert J. Akin, who founded Akin Hall Association, lived away\nfrom Quaker Hill, in New York City, the most of the months of fifty\nyears, 1830-1880, and fell under the influence of outsiders.[39]\n\nIndeed, a rare beauty characterizes these children of the old Quaker\nCommunity; and a fine harmony blends the members of the Mixed Community\ninto one another. The type of country gentleman and lady was perfectly\nembodied in James J. Vanderburgh, who died about 1889, in his residence\nat Site 30. He was a good man, hospitable, large-minded, well read,\nhumane; he was sufficiently reverent to be good neighbor to the\nOrthodox; and he was sufficiently wealthy to express the Quaker economic\nideal. He had the Quaker genius of thrift expressing itself in bounty.\n\nMrs. Zayde Akin Bancroft, resident at Site 32, who died in 1896, was an\nexample of the ideal Quaker Hill lady. A woman of leisure and culture,\naccustomed to the possession of wealth, and enjoying it in books and\ntravel, she surrounded herself for several of her last years with an\natmosphere, and secured for herself enjoyment, of the highest\naspirations of the Quaker Hill economic ideal.\n\nNo one quite so much embodied that ideal as Albert J. Akin, who died in\nhis hundredth year, in January, 1903. His fortune, which amounted at his\ndeath to more than two million dollars, was the culmination of the\nwealth of his family, acquired since his great-great-grandfather, David\nAkin, the pioneer, came to Quaker Hill about 1730. He was a far-seeing\nand brilliant investor, and through his long business life, which lasted\nuntil 1901, he followed the growth of railroads in the United States\nwith steady optimism, and almost unvarying profit. After the year 1880\nhe came to live on Quaker Hill, in the interest of his health, more\nconstantly than he had in the preceding fifty years. He at once\ninterested himself in local enterprises, and Akin Hall Association and\nMizzen-Top Hotel were at that time founded by him and others. Until his\ndeath, twenty-three years later, he was the leading citizen and the most\ninteresting personality among this social population. Such was his place\nand so masterful as well as constructive his influence that it was a\ntrue expression of the feeling of all which one resident wrote at that\ntime to another: \"The king is dead, the man on whom we unconsciously\nleaned and whom none of us thought of disobeying, though only his\npersonality held us to allegiance, is gone from us. And I for one feel\nthat I have lost a dear friend.\"\n\n\n[Illustration: ALBERT JOHN AKIN BORN 1803, DIED 1903]\n\n\nThese three illustrations will serve to indicate both the kind of\npersons who have come of the Quaker Hill community, and one of its\ntendencies. They illustrate also the spirit of the community toward its\nleaders.\n\nPersonalities of the austere type, men and women of the devotional side\nof Quakerism, may be cited in the cases of [40]David Irish and\n[41]Richard T. Osborn. The former was the last minister of the Hicksite\nSociety of Friends on the Hill. His preaching covered the years of its\nseparate existence, for he was made a minister in 1831, three years\nafter the Division, and he died in 1884, at the age of ninety-two. One\nyear after his death the Meeting was formally \"laid down,\" in Oblong\nMeeting House, and from a place of worship it became a house of\nmemories.\n\nDavid Irish was austere. Believing that slavery was wrong, \"he made his\nprotest against slavery by abstaining, so far as possible, from the use\nof slave-products ... made maple to take the place of cane sugar, and\nused nothing but linen and woolen clothing (largely home-spun). This\nabstaining he continued for himself and family until slavery was\nabolished.\" Yet \"he never felt free,\" continues his daughter and\nbiographer, \"to join with anti-slavery societies outside his own,\nbelieving that by so doing he might compromise some of his testimonies.\"\nHe welcomed in his home the fugitive slave fleeing from the South, and\n\"there must never be any distinction made in the family on account of\nhis color; he sat at the same table and was treated as an equal.\"\n\nDavid Irish was equally opposed to war, and to capital punishment. He\nwrote, \"testified\" and \"suffered\" for these principles. \"In the time of\nthe Civil War he allowed his cattle to be sold by the tax-collector, not\nfeeling free to pay the direct war-tax.\" His biographer enumerates\nfurther his hospitality, his fondness for books, his humor, and mentions\nwith a pride characteristic of the Quaker that he \"was often entrusted\nwith the settlement of estates, showing the esteem in which his business\ncapacity and integrity were held by the community.\"\n\nRichard T. Osborn was the Elder of the Orthodox branch of the Friends\nduring the same period, subsequent to the Division, as that covered by\nDavid Irish's life. Born in 1816, he was conversant as a child with the\nperiod of the Division. The seceding members of the Meeting met in his\nfather's house and barn until the Orthodox Meeting House could be\nerected on the land upon which, at his marriage in 1842, he erected his\nhouse. Richard Osborn was \"the head of his family.\" Strong of will,\naustere, convinced, he lived in the world of Robert Barclay and William\nPenn, and for years never hesitated to rebuke young or old Quakers or\n\"world's people,\" whom he found violating \"the principles of truth.\" A\nsummer boarder who played a violin upon his premises was silenced, and\nthe singing of a hymn in the Meeting House of which he was Clerk was\nonce sternly \"testified against.\"\n\nBut Richard Osborn was kindly. He had a gentle and appreciative humor;\nand about 1890 there come influences in the presence of neighbors to\nwhom he was strongly drawn, as well as the constant presence in his\nhouse of boarders from New York; so that his later years were spent in a\nmellower interest in dogma, and an ever keener interest in the history\nof Quakerism and of the community in which he lived. His wife, Roby, was\na Quakeress of rare sweetness and exquisite gentleness of character.\nTogether this strong, dominating man and his gentle wife constituted an\ninfluence, while they lived, which held the community together, and\ndisseminated their principles more successfully than if he had been\neloquent, instead of terse, and she an evangelist instead of a meek and\ndemure Quakeress.\n\nThese persons were conspicuous examples of the best social product of\nQuaker Hill. They were not famous, nor great. Their philosophy was one\nof self-repression and required them to reduce their lives and those of\nother men to mediocrity. Quaker Hill taught and practiced the prevention\nof pauperism--and the prevention of genius! The ideals of the place\ndiscouraged higher education. The leading personages distinctly opposed\nthe offer of higher education to the young.\n\nTherefore this community, which has been exceptionally wealthy for one\nhundred and fifty years, has done nothing for general education; and has\nnot educated its own sons. As noted above, no person born on Quaker Hill\never completed the courses for a degree in college or university, and\nthough the community has had for a century families with aesthetic and\nliterary tastes, no member of the community has painted a picture,\nwritten a song, or published a book.\n\nThe personages briefly described above are named for another reason.\nTheir deaths, with the deaths of certain others whom they represent,\nhave brought to an end the period of Quaker Hill's history which I have\ncalled \"The Mixed Community.\" The others who with them made up this\ngroup were Jedediah and Phoebe Irish Wanzer, Anne Hayes, Olive Toffey\nWorden, and six other persons still living, of whom four are past eighty\nyears and two are very near one hundred years of age. This group of\npersons were the center of that Mixed Community. They possessed the\nactual authority which this population always has required in its\nleaders. The piety, the austerity, the forcefulness, the ownership of\nthe land of greatest value, and even the available wealth of the\ncommunity, were so largely possessed by this group that in the years\n1890-1900, in which this group was still intact, its leadership was such\nas to unite the community and consolidate the whole population for\nwhatever interests the leaders of this group approved. Of that period it\nwas said: \"Everybody on Quaker Hill goes to everything!\"\n\nWith the death of those who have passed away in the latter part of the\nperiod under study the power of initiative has gone. New proposals are\nhushed. Variation is discouraged; the rut of custom and convention is\npreferred. And a subtle stifling air of the impossibility of all active\npurposes pervades social and religious and business activity on the\nHill.\n\nReligiously speaking, attendance upon public services have decreased by\ntwenty per cent., while the Protestant population has only decreased\nfive per cent.\n\nIn business activity reference is made above to the fact that the number\nof milk dairies has decreased from eighteen to nine, a decrease of fifty\nper cent. At the same time the largest dairy on the Hill which in the\ndecade 1890-1900 \"was milking one hundred cows,\" has for the years\n1903-1907 \"made milk\" from only forty and fifty cows, although the owner\nhas more land than his predecessor.\n\nThe population which now remains on Quaker Hill contains only a few\npersons of force and leadership, and they are no longer so grouped as to\ncommand. The majority have no ability to follow unless authority be an\nelement in the leadership; and authority to command the whole community\nhas not existed since 1903. \"The king is dead.\"\n\n\n[37] Descriptive and Historical Sociology, p. 541.\n\n[38] S. P. died 1906.\n\n[39] An analysis of the sources of Mr. Akin's leadership,\nwritten for the Memorial Service after his death in 1903, is of interest\nhere, as showing the influence of persons upon him who were not of\nQuaker Hill ancestry or of Quaker breeding:\n\n\"In all the years he lived on the Hill he had to do with every movement\nand was in touch with every person on the Hill. He made himself a party\nto every public interest. When the building of the Hotel was suggested,\nhe put himself at the head of the movement, invested the most money in\nit, and later obtaining entire control, deeded it to his Akin Hall\nfoundation. When the library enterprise was broached, which has grown\ninto Akin Free Library, he organized and incorporated the institution\nrequired, endowed it generously; later reorganized it, upon legal\nadvice; thus accepting ideas from Admiral Worden, William B. Wheeler,\nCyrus Swan, Judge Barnard, and others of his neighbors, and contributing\nhis own patient and unflagging executive faculty. When it was thought\nbest, in 1892, to continue the church services throughout the winter\nunder the leadership of Mrs. Wheeler and of Miss Monahan, and the growth\nof the Sunday school and permanent congregation seemed to require the\nemployment of a resident pastor, Mr. Akin acquiesced; at first as a\nfollower, but steadily and increasingly as a leader, he identified\nhimself more and more every year until his death, with the religious\nlife of Akin Hall and Christ's Church. He was a good leader, for he\nconfessed himself a follower in the enterprise which he was in a\nposition absolutely to control. He eagerly availed himself of the\nsuggestions of others, took a quiet and lowly place with entire dignity,\nand exerted without arbitrariness a determining influence.\n\n\"When Mr. Akin was about sixty years of age, he bought a residence in\nNew York, and went there to live in the winters. He had as a neighbor a\nQuaker preacher named Wright, who was accustomed to come to Oblong\nMeeting in the course of the year. With him Mr. Akin had many\nconversations on matters of duty and worship.\n\n\"He began also to attend the Oblong Meeting in the summer, though the\nSunday meetings were not at that time largely attended.\n\n\"Later when his residence was at Fifty-sixth Street he became the fast\nfriend and devoted admirer of Dr. John Hall, who used often to call upon\nhim. For years Mr. Akin was carried into Dr. Hall's Church; but after\nDr. Hall died, and even before, he had ceased from that custom.\n\n\"The growth of the church on Quaker Hill, under the leadership of Mr.\nand Mrs. William B. Wheeler and Miss Margaret B. Monahan took strong\nhold on Mr. Akin's heart, and exerted over no one a more vital influence\nthan on this old man.\"--Albert J. Akin--A Tribute, by Rev. Warren H.\nWilson, Quaker Hill Conference, 1903.\n\n[40] David Irish--A Memoir, by Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer, Quaker\nHill Conference, 1902.\n\n[41] Richard Osborn--A Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan,\nQuaker Hill Conference, 1902.\n\n\n\n\nPart IV.\n\nAppendices: Original Family and Church Records.\n\nAPPENDIX A.\n\n\nA List of the Heads of Families in the Verge of our Monthly Meeting held\non the Oblong and in the Nine-Partners Circularly taken in the 3 mo.\n1760. (This date should be 1761. The Monthly Meeting directed the list\nto be made 4, 16, 1761.[42])\n\n\n 1st          At New Milford\n Dobson Wheeler and his Wife\n Aaron Benedick and his Wife\n Joseph Ferriss\n Gaius Talcott\n James McKenney\n Lydia Norton\n Anna Philips\n\n 2d           At Oblong\n John Bull and his Wife\n Wing Kelley and his Wife\n Oliver Tyron and his Wife\n John Wing and his Wife\n John Hoag ye 2d and Wife\n Benjam Hoag and his Wife\n Abner Hoag and Wife\n Philip Allen and Wife\n Moses Hoag and Wife\n George Soule and Wife\n Wm. Russell and Wife\n David Hoag and Wife\n Ebenezer Peaslee and Wife\n Nehemiah Merritt and Wife\n Nehemiah Merritt Junr. and Wife\n Elijah Doty and Wife\n Henry Chase and Wife\n Abraham Chase and Wife\n Benjam Ferriss and Wife\n Timothy Dakin and Wife\n Elisha Akin's Children\n Reed Ferriss and Wife\n Zebulon Ferriss and Wife\n John Hoag, Senr. and Wife\n John Hoag, Junr. and Wife\n Jedidiah Wing and Wife\n Josiah Akin and Wife\n Stephen Hoag and Wife\n James Hunt and Wife\n Prince Howland and Wife\n Isaac Haviland and Wife\n Nathn. Birdsall and Wife\n Nathn. Birdsall, Junr. and Wife\n Daniel Chase and Wife\n Edward Wing and Wife\n Abraham Wing and Wife\n Israel Howland and Wife\n David Akin and Wife\n Jonathan Akin and Wife\n Joseph Jinnins and Wife\n Robert Whitely and Wife\n Nathanael Stevenson\n Joseph Hoag\n Abraham Thomas\n Isaac Bull\n Patience Akin\n Desire Chase\n Mary Allen, Widow\n Mersey Fish\n Margaret Akin\n Margery Woolman\n Dinah Gifford, Widow\n Elizab Hunt, Widow\n Abigail Gifford\n Phebe Boudy\n Ann Hepbern\n Sarah Davis\n Ann Corban\n Hannah Birdsall\n\n 3dly  At Nine Partners\n Peter Hallock and Wife\n Moses Haight and Wife\n Aaron Haight and Wife\n Joshua Haight and Wife\n George Soule and Wife\n William Palmer and Wife\n Reuben Palmer and Wife\n Nehemiah Reynolds and Wife\n Peter Palmer and Wife\n Aaron Vail and Wife\n Joseph Haight and Wife\n John Lapham and Wife\n Jonathan Holmes and Wife\n Jonathan Hoag and Wife\n Israel Devil and his Wife\n John Kees and Wife\n Nathaniel Brown and Wife\n Anthony Arnold and Wife\n Caleb Norton and Wife\n Micah Griffin and Wife\n Jacob Haight and Wife\n John Haight and Wife\n Stephen Haight and Wife\n Micah Palmer and Wife\n Andrew White and Wife\n Stephen Hicks and Wife\n Daniel Tobias and Wife\n Ezekiel Hoag and Wife\n William Haight\n Joseph Reynolds\n Obadiah Griffin\n Solomon Haight\n Benjam White\n John Hallock\n David Arnold\n Nathan Bull\n Hannah Thorn\n Hannah Tripp\n Margaret Allen\n Rose Barton\n Sarah Collins\n Bersheba Southerlin\n Sarah Jacocks\n Ruth Mabbit\n Patience Green\n\n 4thly        At Oswegoe\n Samuel Dorland and Wife\n Richard Smith and Wife\n Joseph Smith and Wife\n Samuel Hall and Wife\n Allen Moore and Wife\n John Thomas and Wife\n Lot Tripp and Wife\n Ebenezer Shearman and Wife\n Joshua Sherman and Wife\n Daniel Shepherd and Wife\n John Thomas and Wife\n Josiah Bull\n Zebulon Hoxsie\n Ichabod Bowerman\n David Irish\n Andrew Moore\n Joseph Waters\n Eliah Youmans\n Othniel Allen\n John Carman\n Jesse Irish\n Deborah Reed\n Martha Gifford\n Abigail Adams\n Mary Moore\n Catharine Leaven\n Mary Youman\n Mehetable Devil\n\n 5thly  At Peach Ponds\n Samuel Field and Wife\n Elias Palmer and Wife\n David Palmer and Wife\n Samuel Coe and Wife\n Stephen Field and Wife\n Solomon Field and Wife\n\n\nAdditional names which occur in the minutes of Oblong Meeting, in the\nyears 1742-1780 (obviously an incomplete list of members):\n\n\n Akin, Nathan Fields\n Akin, James\n Akin, Timothy\n Birdsall, Timothy\n Briggs, Zebedy\n Brundige, Edward\n Bunker, Annie\n Chase, Johnan\n Chase, Phynehas\n Clement, James\n Comstock, Thomas\n Dakin, Preserved\n Dickerson, Isaac\n Dickerson, Henry\n Mehitable Devil, Devill, Duvall or Deuell\n Franklin, Thomas\n Falyer, Abraham\n Haviland, Daniel\n Haviland, Benjamin\n Hoag, Enoch\n Hoag, Samuel\n Hall, Joseph\n Hunt, Josiah\n Irish, Joseph\n Irish, Jessee\n Jenkns, Volunteer\n Lancester, Aaron\n Lester, Murray\n Laurelson, Aaron\n Mosher, Wm.\n Moore, Allen\n Norton, Robert\n Osborn, Paul\n Osborn, Isaac\n Peckham, Jos.\n Sherman, Joshua\n Smith, Denten\n Shove, Edward\n Stedwell, Roger\n Sweet, Elnathan\n Benony Sweet\n Taber, Jeremiah, married Delilah Russell\n Wanzer, Moses\n Wing, William\n Wing, Elisabeth\n Wing, Daniel\n Whiteley, Pardon\n Wood, Drusilla, married Israel Howland of Purchase.\n\n\n[42] Correction of date is by John Cox, Jr., the Librarian of\nthe Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends, 315 Rutherford Place; in\nwhose charge is the original.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX B.\n\n\nThe following are the names of those who had accounts at the store of\nDaniel Merritt, on Quaker Hill, in 1771, as the names appear in his\nLedger:\n\n\n Akin, John, Esq.\n Akin, David, Jr.\n Akin, Thomas\n Allen, Mary, George's mother\n Akin, James\n Akin, Josiah\n Akin, Elisha\n Akin, Stephen\n Akin, Jonathan\n Akin, Abraham\n Akin, Timothy\n Allen, Ephraim\n Allen, Alexander\n Allen, Moses\n Allen, Samuel\n Allen, Thomas\n Allen, George\n Allen, Daniel\n Allen John, Elisha's son\n Allen, John Taylor\n Allen, Elizabeth, widow\n Allen, Mary, Elisha's mother\n Allen, Mary, Elisha's daughter\n Allen, Elisha\n Allen, Sarah, George's wife\n Ashby, Anthony\n Arnold, Joseph\n Arle, Nath., II\n Ackley, David\n Arle, Rebecca\n Andras, Thaddeus\n Alderman, Elisha\n Arnold, Nathaniel\n Briggs, Edward\n Briggs, Jeremiah\n Briggs, William\n Briggs, Henry\n Briggs, Elkanah\n Briggs, Phoebe, widow\n Briggs, Zepheniah\n Briggs, Edward, Junr.\n Briggs, Jeremiah\n Briggs, Thomas, Senr.\n Briggs, Prince\n Briggs, Thoms, Junr.\n Briggs, Anthony\n Briggs, John\n Birdsall, Nathan\n Birdsall, Nathan, Junr.\n Birdsall, James\n Birdsall, Thomas\n Birdsall, Benjamin\n Birdsall, Lemuel\n Bennet, Benj., of Patent\n Brownson, Libe\n Bostwick, Daniel.\n Boult, John, Senr.\n Barnum, Timothy\n Benedic, Aron\n Bowdish, Nathaniel\n Buck, Lydeal, Junr.\n Bostwick, Daniel, Junr.\n Brown, John\n Bennet, Benjamin\n Barnum, David\n Buck, David\n Betts, William\n Birdsley, Johiel.\n Beardsley, Josiah\n Barnum, Zadoc\n Burret, Daniel\n Barley, Abigail\n Boult, John, Junr.\n Billings, Increase\n Brush, Thos., Esq.\n Bosworth, Nathanael\n Beach, David\n Bump, Stephen\n Bowdy, Nathanael\n Bennet, Henry\n Brush, Thomas, Junr.\n Beardsley, Nehemiah\n Boom, Sarah\n Burdick, Ephraim\n Brown, Joseph\n Burtch, Nathanael\n Bull, Abraham\n Brownell, William\n Barlow, David\n Bass, Thomas\n Burrett, Israel\n Burtch, Increase\n Birchard, Jonathan\n Beers, James\n Brayton, Gideon\n Burdick, Nathan\n Brady, William\n Bostwick, Ichabod\n Botheford, Joel\n Bowdy, Moses, Junr.\n Bennet, Richard\n Bush, John Newfair\n Bostwick, Amos\n Benson, Benj.\n Bull, Isaac, Junr.\n Barley, Daniel\n Brownson, Peter\n Bennet, Amos\n Birdsall, Lemuel\n Brown, Wm., schoolmaster\n Burdick, Jessee\n Brownin, Benj.\n Benedic, Abner\n Bracket, John\n Bull, Thomas\n Butler, Nathanael\n Butler, Truelove\n Buck, John.\n Bacon, Wm.\n Bradshaw, James H.\n Beardsley, Elihu\n Brownen, Wm.\n Batchford, Jonathan\n Batchford, Joel\n Brown, Wm. (Dover)\n Buck, Isaac\n Buck, Lydeal\n Burten, Oliver\n Bump, George\n Bowdy, Moses, Junr.\n Barnes, James\n Burteh, Jonathan\n Bennet, David\n Beemus, Thomas\n Brownson, Sarah\n Burtch, Jonathan, 2nd constable\n Burtch, Isaiah\n Bostwick, Robert\n Burdick, Robert\n Burdick, Ephraim\n Bangs, John\n Bruce, James\n Chase, Daniel, Senr.\n Chase, Daniel, Junr.\n Calkin, Elijah\n Close, Reuben, Senr.\n Close, Reuben, Junr.\n Church, Ebenezer, hat maker\n Congo, Joseph\n Chase, Henry\n Chase, Benjamin\n Corbin, Peter\n Covel, Micajah\n Cook, Thomas, laborer\n Camp, Enos\n Croch, Widow\n Campbell, Archabel\n Chase, Joseph\n Chase, John\n Chase, Nathan\n Caswell, John\n Clarke, Richard\n Conger, Jessee\n Conger, Joel\n Campbell, Dunkin\n Corbin, Sarah\n Conger, Joel\n Close, Gideon\n Corbin, Thomas, Junr.\n Cary, Rhoda\n Chase, Benj., Junr.\n Caswell, Reuben\n Collins, Amos\n Covel, Zacheus\n Caswell, Amey\n Carey, Lucy\n Caswell, Robert, Senr.\n Caswell, Robert, Junr.\n Cary, Nathan\n Cary, Rhoda\n Crowfoot, Gideon\n Covel, Seth\n Chase, Stephen\n Coller, Elisha\n Calkin, David\n Chase, Phinehas, Junr.\n Curtis, John\n Cook, Abial\n Chamberlin, John\n Chase, Elizabeth, widow\n Cummins, Isaac\n Calkin, John Doet, doctor\n Canfield, Zarobabel\n Crouch, William\n Churchel, Joseph\n Collins, Caleb\n Calkin, Simon\n Calkin, Nathaniel\n Cary, Lemuel\n Corbin, Thomas, Senr.\n Corbin, Sarah, widow\n Cummins, John\n Caswell, Robert\n Crane, Daniel\n Caswell, Nathan\n Coon, Matthew\n Chase, Abner\n Cummins, John, Ten Mile Hills\n Calkin, James\n Dakin, Thomas\n Deaveal, Joseph\n Dakin, Ruth\n Dakin, Timothy\n Dakin, Preserved\n Dakin, Wooster\n Dakin, Mercy\n Dakin, Simon\n Deaveal, Phillip\n Deaveal, George\n Deaveal, Hannah\n Deaveal, Benj., Junr.\n Deavil, Jonathan\n Deaveal, Abigail\n Deaveal, Michael\n Deaveal, Benj., Senr.\n Deaveal, John\n Deaveal, Abraham\n Doty, Elijah\n Dunk, Thomas\n Darling, Ebenezer, Junr.\n Dutton, Joel\n Dowglass, Thomas, Senr.\n Dowglass, Thomas, Junr.\n Dowglass, Jonathan\n Daviss, Paul\n Dowgleess, Dominy\n Daviss, Henry\n Daviss, Deliverance\n Daviss, Wm.\n Daviss, Benjamin\n Deen, Samuel\n Drinkwater, George\n Dolph, Edward\n Dwalfe, Ezra\n Dubois, Matthew\n Evens, John\n Elliott, David, Senr.\n Elliott, David, Newfairfield\n Elliott, Benj., Senr.\n Elliott, Benj., Junr.\n Elliott, John\n Elliott, David, Junr.\n Elliott, Jonathan\n Elliott, Daniel\n Edwards, Talmage\n Eastman, Joseph\n Eastman, Benjamin\n Eastman, Azariah\n Eastman, Azariah\n Eldeston, Joseph\n Eastman, Hezekiah\n Evens, Thomas\n Eady, Joshua\n Ellwell, Sam. Sen\n Eldridge, Elisha\n Ferriss, Benj., Senr.\n Ferriss, Benj., Junr.\n Ferriss, Benj., 3rd\n Ferriss, Zebulon\n Ferriss, Joseph, Junr.\n Ferriss, Matthew\n Ferriss, Zachariah\n Ferriss, Zebulon\n Ferriss, Gilbert\n Ferriss, Reed\n Ferriss, David\n Field, John\n Field, Samuel\n Finch, Reed\n Finch, Ebenezer\n Flint, Asa\n Franklin, Walter\n Franklin, John\n Fisher, Nathaniel\n Foster, Josiah\n Fuller, Jonathan\n Fairchild, Eleazer\n Fairchild, Alexander\n Giddings, Joseph\n Giddings, Jonathan\n Giddings, Zebulon\n Gregory, Samuel\n Gregory, Ralph\n Gregory, Rivevias\n Gregory, Jeremiah\n Graves, Jedediah\n Graves, Russell\n Gifford, Benj., Senr.\n Gifford, Benj., Junr.\n Gifford, Gideon\n Gifford, Joseph\n Gaylord, Ebenezer\n Gaylord, Benjamin\n Gaylard, William\n Gaylard, Aaron\n Gaylard, Phebe\n Griffin, Phillip\n Gillet, Hezekiah\n Gourham, Ichabod\n Garlick, Reed\n Gray, William\n Garrett, Thomas\n Green, David\n Halaway, John\n Halaway, William\n Howland, Azariah\n Howland, William\n Howland, Israel\n Howland, Prince\n Howland, Nathaniel\n Howland, Sarah\n Howland, Charles\n Howland, Cook\n Howland, Nathaniel, Junr.\n Howland, Peleg\n Howland, Samuel\n Howland, John\n Howland, Silvey\n Howland, Anne\n Hunt, William\n Hunt, Samuel, farmer\n Hunt, Stephen\n Hunt, Elizabeth\n Hunt, Abel\n Hunt, Daniel, Junr.\n Hunt, Timothy\n Hunt, Daniel, Senr.\n Hall, James\n Hall, Lewis\n Hitchcock, John\n Herrington, Moses\n Hatch, Maltier\n Hatch, Benj.\n Holister, Nathaniel\n Holister, Abel\n Holister, Jonathan\n Howard, Edward\n Howard, Edward, Junr.\n Howard, Stephen\n Howard, John\n Hoag, Lydia, Benj. daughter\n Hoag, Amos\n Hoag, David, Junr., carter\n Hoag, Abner, 2\n Hoag, Samuel\n Hoag, John, merchant\n Hoag, Abner, 1\n Hoag, William, carter\n Hoag, Timothy\n Hoag, Elijah\n Hoag, Abigail\n Hoag, Stephen\n Hoag, Joseph\n Hoag, John, merchant\n Hoag, John, 1st\n Hoag, John, 2nd\n Hoag, John, 5th\n Hoag, Ruth S., daughter\n Hoag, Enoch\n Hoag, Peter\n Hoag, Elisha\n Hoag, Sarah N., Benj. daughter\n Hoag, Ebenezer\n Hoag, Abbigail\n Hoag, Wm., Joseph's son\n Hoag, David, Senr.\n Hoag, John, D. son\n Hoag, Daniel\n Hoag, Paul\n Hoag, Tabithy\n Hammond, Jonathan\n Hammond, William\n Hammond, Samuel\n Hammond, Jonathan, Junr.\n Hammond, Benj., cooper\n Hammond, Mary\n Hammond, Elizabeth\n Happern, Anne\n Happern, George\n Hubbell, Gaylard\n Hubbell, Dennis\n Hubbell, Shadrick\n Hubbell, John\n Hubbell, Ephraim\n Hubbell, Eleazer\n Hubbell, Gideon\n Holdridge, Thomas\n Hungerford, Josiah\n Hungerford, Thomas\n Hungerford, Samuel\n Hungerford, Miriam\n Hurd, David, tailor\n Hurd, George, doctor\n Hurd, William\n Howard, Ruth\n Hill, Anne\n Hill, George\n Hill, Henry\n Hill, John\n Hill, Stephen\n Haviland, Dan\n Hill, Caleb, carter\n Haviland, Isaac\n Haviland, Susannah\n Haviland, Solomon\n Haviland, Mary\n Haviland, Joseph\n Haviland, John\n Haviland, Stephen\n Haviland, James\n Holaway, Joseph\n Haviland, Roger\n Haviland, Benj.\n Haviland, Jacob\n Hull, Daniel\n Hains, Solomon\n Hadden, Bartholemew\n Hendrick, John\n Haws, Edmund\n Hilks, Edmund\n Holmes, Thadford\n Hollister, Joseph\n Halms, Thadford\n Hart, Lydia\n Hatfield, Barns\n Hicks, John\n Hicks, Benjamin\n Hawley, Isaac\n Hillerd, Nathan\n Handy, Jude\n Irish, Joseph, farmer\n Irish, Isaac\n Irish, John\n Irish, Jedediah, Senr.\n Irish, Jedediah, Junr.\n Ingersol, Daniel\n Ingersoll, Josiah\n Jewett, Jedediah\n Jewit, Aaron\n Jewit, Isaac\n Johnson, John\n Johnson, Sabin\n Jeffers, Robert\n John, June, Jr.\n Joyce, John\n Kelly, Wing\n Keeler, Ezra, carter\n Kaysson, James, wheelwright\n Kane, John, merchant\n Ketcham, Elihu\n Kent, Seth\n Knapp, Moses\n Knapp, Moses\n Lake, Thomas\n Lake, Judah\n Lake, Thomas, Junr.\n Loveless, Joseph\n Lee, John\n Lee, Asahel\n Lee, John, Jr.\n Leach, Ebenezer\n Leach, Ephraim\n Leach, John\n Leach, James\n Leach, Ichabod\n Leach, Miriam\n Lee, Catherine\n Leach, Simeon\n Leach, Amos\n Leonard, Moses\n Leonard, Isaac\n Leonard, David\n Luddington, Henry\n Langdon, John\n Lester, Murray\n Lewis, Sam.\n Lamphire, Jessee\n Lamphire, Elisha\n Lamphere, John\n Lowrey, John\n Lancaster, Aaron\n Lum, Samuel\n Lacey, Seth\n Loveless, Joseph\n Martin, Aggrippa\n Martin, Ephraim\n Marten, Manasah\n Martin, James\n Mosher, Benj.\n Mosher, Daniel\n Mosher, Lavinia\n Mosher, Jonathan\n Mosher, Hannah\n Mosher, Mary\n Millerd, Phebe\n Millerd, Joshua\n Millerd, Joshua\n Millerd, Jonathan\n Millerd, John Phillips\n Millerd, Robert, Jr.\n Millerd, Jacob\n Menzies, Thomas\n Morgan, Joseph\n Menzies, Alexander\n Menzies, Thomas\n Morgan, Consider\n Miles, Sam.\n Marsh, John\n Marsh, Elihu\n Marsh, Eunice\n Morison, Malcum\n Marsh, Samuel\n Munroe, Sam., Jr\n Munroe, Nathan\n Mead, Daniel, Jr.\n Mead, Jessee\n Man, Sam.\n Man, Dependence\n Merritt, Nehemiah, Jr.\n Millerd, Benajah\n Munroe, Daniel\n Morehouse, John\n Mead, Daniel, Senr.\n Malary, Caleb\n McHerty, Mancey\n Marsey, Ebenezer\n Milk, Job\n McMan, Cornelius\n Noble, Asahel\n Northrop, Amos\n Northrop, Abraham\n Northrop, Salmon\n Northrop, Amos, Jr.\n Northrop, Johannah\n Northrop, Moses\n Northrop, Thomas\n Northrop, David\n Noble, Zadoc\n Noble, Thaddeus\n Noble, Stephen\n Noble, Morgan\n Noble, David\n Noble, Gideon\n Negro, Sip, slave\n Negro, Tone, slave\n Negro, Kajah, slave\n Negro, Jethro, slave\n Nicholas, Rowland\n Nicholas, John\n Nicherson, Seth\n Nickerson, Seth, Jr.\n Norton, Rowland\n Norton, Lydia\n Neerings, John\n Odle, Daniel\n Osborn, Jonathan, Senr.\n Osborn, Paul, potter\n Osborn, Isaac\n Osborn, Jonathan, Jr.\n Osborn, Amos, potter\n Osborn, Aaron\n Osborn, Stephen\n Price, John\n Peasely, Ebenezer\n Picket, Benjamin\n Pickett, Ebenezer\n Peasely, John\n Peasely, Isaac\n Potter, James\n Potter, William\n Potter, Judah\n Pepper, Stephen\n Parce, Jonathan\n Perce, Wm.\n Pepper, John, Jr.\n Pepper, John\n Page, Jonathan, Senr.\n Page, John\n Page, William\n Page, Lydia\n Page, Sarah\n Prindle, Aaron\n Prindle, David\n Prindle, John\n Prindle, Gideon\n Prince, Job\n Parks, Whiten\n Parks, Richard\n Pendegrass, William\n Perry, Sam.\n Perry, Rowland\n Prindle, Dan, Jr.\n Peasely, John\n Prindle, Samuel\n Pourham, John\n Perry, John\n Perry, George\n Parks, Daniel\n Penfield, Peter\n Platt, Samuel\n Penny, Ammial\n Phillips, Samuel\n Patterson, James\n Patterson, Andrew\n Penny, William\n Phillips, Mifford, Jr.\n Pennen, Wright\n Patterson, Alexander\n Palmer, Phinehas\n Putnicholos, Nathan\n Porter, Joshua\n Phelps, Barney\n Phelps, William\n Peek, Phinehas\n Peek, Samuel\n Prosper, Ichabod\n Palmeter, Silvenus\n Pearce, Nathan, Esq.\n Precinct by Andrew Morehouse\n Quinby, Ephraim\n Russell, Elihu\n Russell, William\n Russell, Margaret\n Russell, Samuel\n Russell, Elizabeth\n Ross, Zebulon\n Ross, Daniel\n Ross, Zebulon, Jr.\n Ross, Matthias\n Ross, Hugh\n Richardson, William\n Rennolds, Jeremiah\n Ruggals, Lois\n Ruggals, Joseph\n Rundle, Joseph, Senr.\n Stephens, Thomas\n Stevens, Benj.\n Stephens, Joseph\n Shaw, Phallice\n Shaw, Joseph\n Shaw, Benannuel, farmer\n Shaw, Benj.\n Stewart, Lemuel\n Stewart, James, Jr.\n Stewart, James, Senr.\n Stewart, Alexander\n Stewart, Alexander, 2nd\n Stewart, Samuel\n Stewart, Nathaniel\n Sweet, Ezekiel\n Sweet, Charles\n Sweet, Benedic\n Scribner, Abel\n Scribner, Abraham\n Springer, Richard\n Springer, John\n Scribner, Zadoc\n Springer, Elizabeth\n Sherwood, Daniel\n Stephens, William\n Sherwood, Nathan\n Stevens, William, Jr., carter\n Stillson, Nathan\n Stillson, Enoch\n Stillson, Moses\n Stillson, John\n Smith, Mary\n Smith, John\n Smith, Daniel\n Sprague, John\n Stevens, Peter\n Smith, Richard\n Soule, George\n Soule, Nathan, Jr.\n Soule, John\n Soule, Elizabeth\n Soule, Nathan\n Soule, Joseph\n Shearman, Benj., farmer\n Shearman, Jabez\n Shearman, Justin\n Shearman, Mary W.\n Shearman, Job\n Shearman, Joshua\n Stephenson, Nathaniel\n Stephenson, Nathaniel, Jr.\n Shelden, Isaac\n Shelden, George\n Shelden, John\n Shelden, Joseph\n Shelden, Gideon\n Shelden, Benj.\n Sheldon, Thomas\n Sheldon, Potter\n Sheldon, Sarah\n Seelye, Nathaniel\n Seelye, Benj., Senr.\n Seelye, Ebenezer\n Seelye, Eleanor\n Seelye, Abel\n Seelye, Bradley\n Seelye, Elizabeth\n Spaulden, Nathan\n Spalden, Samuel\n Spaulding, Abijah\n Sill, Elijah\n Starke, William\n Shannon, George\n Slocum, Abraham\n Sill, Uriah\n Slocum, Elizabeth\n Sill, & Bangs\n Slocum, Benj.\n Stephenson, James\n Shove, Edward\n Sturdevant, Jonathan\n Sturdevant, Nathan\n Sturdevant, John\n Sturdevant Esther\n Smith, Noah\n Smith, Gaius\n Starke, James\n Starke, Christopher, Jr.\n Slone, Sam.\n Salsbury, Sarah\n Salmon, Hannah\n Storker, Seth\n Seamen, Stephen\n Stedwell, James\n Stedwell, Gilbert\n Salmon, John\n Sweet, Benedic\n Sabin, Jeremiah, blacksmith\n Seaman, Moses\n Stone, Eathael\n Starke, Aaron\n Shed, Martha\n Sabin, Jeremiah, Senr.\n Shapparoon, Peter\n Stone, Ebenezer\n Thomas, John\n Thomas, Benj.\n Thomas, Abraham\n Thomas, Lewis\n Tripp, John\n Tripp, Experience\n Tallcott, Gaius\n Tripp, Lott\n Towner, Dan\n Towner, David\n Towner, Lois\n Towner, Sam, Senr.\n Towner, Mary\n Towner, Zacheus\n Thatcher, Partridge\n Taber, Job\n Taber, Hannah\n Taber, Thomas, Esq.\n Tuttle, Ebenezer\n Truman, Jonathan\n Tryon, James\n Tryon, Asahel\n Trowbridge, Seth\n Trowbridge, Billey\n Trowbridge, Caleb\n Towner, Sam, Jr.\n Trim, Moses\n Thornton, John\n Tayler, Nathaniel\n Tyler, Bezaleel\n Tryon, Elisabeth\n Ter Boss, Daniel\n Toffey, John, hat maker\n Terry, Peter\n Vaughn, William\n Vaughn, Joseph, weaver\n Vaughn, Benjamin\n Veal, Michael\n Wing, Elisabeth\n Wing, Elihu\n Wing, Thomas\n Wing, Gershom\n Wing, Edward\n Wing, Elisha\n Wing, John\n Wing, William\n Wing, Abram Thomas\n Wing, Prince\n Wing, Russell\n Wing, Daniel\n Willcox, Louis, laborer\n Willcox, Thomas\n Willcox, Eunice\n Willcox, Joshua\n Willcox, Stephen\n Willcox, Rebecca\n Willcox, Rebecca\n Willcox, Jeffrey\n Willcox, Handy\n Willcox, Isaac\n West, Mary\n West, Elijah\n West, Delight\n West, Aaron\n West, Clement\n West, Sarah, Clement's wife\n West, Benajah\n Welch, Paul\n Willcox, Mary\n Willcox, Antras\n Willcox, Sarah\n Willcox, Amos\n Wheeler, Enoch\n Wheeler, Joseph\n Wheeler, Samuel\n Wright, Samuel\n Wright, Kent\n Wright, Dennis\n Wright, Deborah\n Wright, Mary\n Wright, Uriah\n Wright, Abigail\n Wright, Samuel, Jr.\n Weed, Jacob\n Weed, Judah\n Wanzar, Moses\n Wanzar, Abraham\n Wanzar, Anthony\n Wanzar, Abigail\n Wanzar, Abraham, Jr.\n Wanzer, Chester\n Wanzer, Darkis\n Wanzer, Elizabeth\n Warner, Lemuel\n Warner, Oliver\n Warner, Orange\n Wood, Wilber\n Wickham, David\n Wickham, Phebe\n Wilkinson, Ebenezer\n Wickham, Gideon\n Whitely, Robert\n Wickham, John, weaver\n Woodward, Jonathan\n Whitely, Martha\n Weed, Jacob\n Woodard, Joseph\n Woodard, John\n Woodard, Elisabeth\n Woodard, Ephraim\n Williams, Daviss\n Wallace, Nathaniel\n Walsworth, William\n Wade, Jonathan\n Wallups, Jonathan\n Wheeler, Hezekiah\n Washburn, Joseph\n Woolman, Hannah\n Waldo, Jonathan\n Welch, John\n Wilkerson, Robert\n Williams, Marke\n Willmut, Lemuel\n Yates, Paul\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX C.\n\nPACKAGE OF DEEDS OF OBLONG M. M. PROPERTIES.\n\nDiscovered 1906 by WILLIAM RYDER, of Brewster, N. Y.\n\n\nDEED.\n\nZebulon Ferriss, of Oblong, to Benjamin Ferriss, David Akin, Ebenezer\nPeaslee, David Hoag, Joseph Irish, Nehemiah Merritt and Abraham Wing,\nall of Beekman's Precinct, Dutchess County, 5280 square feet, being 132\nfeet frontage on north side of road, and 40 feet deep, east of Zebulon\nFerriss' acre lot. Consideration four (4) pounds. Dated, 4.16.1764.\n\"Recorded in the First Book of Friends' Records for Dutchess County in\nthe Province of New York, the 24th of ye 4th Mo. 1764, in Folio 89, 90.\"\n\n\nDEED.\n\nWilliam Russell of Oblong, to same grantees, 40 square rods, being 5\nrods frontage on north side of road, opposite Friends' old meeting\nhouse, and 8 rods deep. Consideration 8 pounds. (These two deeds seem to\nconflict as to direction and area.)\n\nRecorded 4.24.1764 in same volume, page 87 and 88.\n\n\nWARRANTY DEED.\n\nJoseph Ferriss and Nathan Gaylor, both of Town of New Milford,\nLitchfield Co., Conn., to Dobson Wheeler, and Gaius Talcott of same\ntown, Benjamin Ferriss, David Akins, Henry Chase, Timothy Dakins, George\nSoule, Abraham Wing, Reed Ferriss and Zebulon Ferriss, of York\nGovernment, land in New Milford \"in the Common Field, by the side of the\nGreat River at the south end of the Indian Field lots, a top of the hill\nEast of the road, as goes to Danbury. The Meeting House of the People\ncalled Quakers' Stands, on the said land. We had it of Benjamin Ferriss\nand David Noble the quantity to be seen on the records and it all the\nLand we are possessed of on the East Side of that Road bounded North and\nWest on the road that goes to Danbury, East on the River.\" Dated July\n6th, 1762.\n\n\nCONSIDERATION RECEIVED.\n\nAcknowledged before John Hitchcock, J. P. Recorded July 7, 1762, in New\nMilford, 9th Book of Records, page 667.\n\n\nDEED.\n\nNicholas Wanzer of New Fairfield, Fairfield Co., Conn., to \"the society\nof people called Quakers,\" one acre in New Milford, with Meeting House,\netc. thereon. Consideration 2 pounds, 10 shillings. Dated 11.21.1788.\nRecorded in New Milford, 16th Book of Records, page 484. This does not\nseem to be the property described in above deed of Joseph Ferriss, this\nbeing on the \"west side of the Grate Rode that goes north and south\nthrough the plain.\"\n\nDaniel Haviland of Southeast precinct, Dutchess County, to Joseph Irish,\nEdward Shove, Reed Ferriss and Wing Kelley, of Pawling's precinct and\nElnathan Sweet and Joseph Lancaster, of Beekman's precinct and Benjamin\nFerriss of New Milford, Conn., for the people called \"Quakers,\" one acre\nand 70 rods, in South East precinct. Consideration, love of the Society.\nDated 8.12.1782. Not recorded.\n\n\nDEED.\n\nRoger Haviland, of New Fairfield, Conn., to same grantees, one acre and\n30 rods in South East precinct. Consideration, love of the Society.\nDated 8.12.1782. Not recorded. This would seem to join the property\ngiven by Daniel Haviland.\n\n\nDEED.\n\nJohn Hoag, of Pawling's precinct, to Nathan Soule, Edward Shove and\nThomas Haight, of Pawling's, 42 rods, on East Side of the highway in\nnorth end of Lot 38 of the Oblong. Consideration, love of the Society.\nDated, 2.12.1784. Recorded in Oblong M. M. minutes for 2nd month, 1784.\n\n\nDEED.\n\nIsaiah Hoag, of Pawling's precinct to Nathan Soule, Edward Shove, Abner\nHoag, Thomas Haight, Azariah Howland and Isaac Osborn, of Pawling's\nprecinct, 1-1/2 acres in Pawling's precinct, for pasturing Friends'\nhorses, etc. Consideration 10 pounds. Dated 7.30.1786. Not recorded.\n(Branch Meeting House.)\n\n\nDEED.\n\nDaniel Wing, of Pawling's precinct, to same grantees as above, 45 rods,\nfor building a meeting house, etc. Consideration 5 pounds. Dated\n9.18.1786. Not recorded. (Branch Meeting House.)\n\n\nDEED.\n\nAbner Hoag of Town of Dover, Dutchess Co., to M. M. of Oblong, 27 rods,\nadjoining the meeting house lot, \"now called Branch Meeting.\"\nConsideration $7.50. Dated 5.21.1811. Not recorded.\n\nList of Deeds belonging to Oblong M. M. 5th Mo., 1788.\n\n\n\n\nVITA.\n\n\nThe author of this dissertation was born May 1, 1867. He received from\nOberlin College the degree of A. B. in 1890, and that of A. M. in 1894.\nHe graduated from Union Theological Seminary in 1894, and has since\nserved as an active pastor at Quaker Hill and in Brooklyn, New York.\nWhile in the Seminary and also during the years 1903-1905 he was a\ngraduate student in Columbia University, having especial interest in the\nlectures of Professor Franklin H. Giddings; to whom as to his associates\non the Faculty of Political Science, he owes a debt of gratitude for a\nconception of the common life of men on the earth.","title":"Quaker Hill: A Sociological Study","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":52603}