QUAKER HILL A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY

 BY WARREN H. WILSON, A. M. 

 SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

 IN THE

 FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

 NEW YORK 1907

 COPYRIGHT 1907, BY WARREN H. WILSON. 

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I. 

THE QUAKER COMMUNITY:

FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF QUAKER HILL, 1728, TO THEDIVISION OF THE MEETING, 1828. 

 PAGE

CHAPTER I. 

Sources 5

CHAPTER II. 

The Locality 8

CHAPTER III. 

The Assembling of the Quakers 16

CHAPTER IV. 

Economic Activities of the Quaker Community 20

CHAPTER V. 

Amusements 28

CHAPTER VI. 

The Ideals of the Quakers 32

CHAPTER VII. 

Morals of the Quaker Community 38

CHAPTER VIII. 

Toleration of Hostile Forces 50

PART II. 

THE TRANSITION

FROM THE DIVISION OF THE MEETING TO THE FOUNDINGOF AKIN HALL, 1828 TO 1880. 

CHAPTER I. 

Communication, --The Roads 63

CHAPTER II. 

Economic Changes 69

CHAPTER III. 

Religious Life in Transition 79

PART III. 

THE MIXED COMMUNITY

FROM THE FOUNDING OF AKIN HALL TO THE PRESENTTIME, 1880 TO 1907. 

CHAPTER I. 

Demotic Composition 88

CHAPTER II. 

The Economy of House and Field 98

CHAPTER III. 

New Ideals of Quakerism, Assimilation of Strangers 112

CHAPTER IV. 

The Common Mind 118

CHAPTER V. 

Practical Differences and Resemblances 130

CHAPTER VI. 

The Social Organization 135

CHAPTER VII. 

The Social Welfare 141

PART IV. 

ORIGINAL APPENDICES

FAMILY AND CHURCH RECORDS. 

Appendix A:--Heads of Families in Oblong Meeting, 1760 155

Appendix B:--Names of Customers of Daniel Merritt, 1771 158

Appendix C:--Deeds of Meeting-House Lands 167

INTRODUCTION. 

Fourteen years ago the author came to Quaker Hill as a resident, and hasspent at least a part of each of the intervening years in interestedstudy of the locality. For ten of those years the fascination of thesocial life peculiar to the place was upon him. Yet all the time, andincreasingly of late, the disillusionment which affects every residentin communities of this sort was awakening questions and causing regrets. Why does not the place grow? Why do the residents leave? What is theillusive unity which holds all the residents of the place in affection, even in a sort of passion for the locality, yet robs them of fullsatisfaction in it, and drives the young and ambitious forth to liveelsewhere?

The answer to these questions is not easily to be had. It is evidentthat on Quaker Hill life is closely organized, and that for eighteendecades a continuous vital principle has given character to thepopulation. The author has attempted, by use of the analysis of thematerial, according to the "Inductive Sociology" of Professor FranklinH. Giddings, to study patiently in detail each factor which has playedits part in the life of this community. 

This book presents the result of that study, and the author acknowledgeshis indebtedness to Professor Giddings for the working analysisnecessary to the knowledge of his problem, as well as for patientassistance and inspiring interest. The gradual unfolding of theconclusions, the logical unity of the whole, and the explanation of thatwhich before was not clear, have all been the fruit of this patientfield-work. 

The study of human society is at the present time little more than aclassifying of material. Only with great reserve should any studentannounce ultimate results, or generalize upon the whole problem. Forthis period of classifying and analyzing the material, such study oflimited populations as this should have value. The author makes noapology for the smallness of his field of study. Quaker Hill is not evena civil division. It is a fraction of a New York town. Therefore nostatistical material of value is available. It is, moreover, not now aneconomic unit, though it still may be considered a sociological one. This study, therefore, must be of interest as an analysis of the workingof purely social forces in a small population, in which the wholeprocess may be observed, more closely than in the intricate and subtleevolution of a larger, more self-sufficient social aggregate. 

The descriptive history of Quaker Hill, which it is my purpose in thisbook to write, comprises three periods; and the descriptive sociologyrecords two differing yet related forms of social life, connected by aperiod of transition. This study will then be made up of three parts:First, the Quaker Community; second, the Transition; and third, theMixed Community. The periods of time corresponding to these three are:The Period of the Quaker Community, 1730 to 1830; second, the Period ofTransition, 1830 to 1880; and third, the Period of the Mixed Community, 1880 to 1905. 

The Quaker Community, which ran its course in the one hundred yearsfollowing the settlement of the Hill, presents the social history of ahomogeneous population, assembled in response to common stimuli, obedient to one ideal, sharing an environment limited by nature, cultivating an isolation favored by the conditions of the time, intermarrying, and interlacing their relations of mutual dependencethrough a diversified industry; knowing no government so well as theintimate authority of their Monthly Meeting; and after a centurysuffering absorption in the commerce and thinking of the time throughincreased freedom of communication. 

The Transition follows the Division of the Quaker Meeting in 1828, thebuilding of turnpikes, and the coming of the railroad in 1849. Acultured daughter of Quaker Hill, whose life has extended through someof those years, has called them "the dark ages. " It was the middle ageof the community. The economic life of the place was undergoing change, under the penetrating influence of the railroad; the population wasundergoing radical renovation, the ambitious sons of the old stockmoving away, and their places being filled at the bottom of the socialladder by foreigners, and by immigration of residents and "summerboarders" of the "world's people. " Above all, the powerful ideal ofQuakerism was shattered. The community had lost the "make-believe" atwhich it had played for a century in perfect unity. With it went themoral and social authority of the Meeting. Two Meetings mutuallycontradicting could never express the ideal of Quakerism, that assertedthe inspiration of all and every man with the one divine spirit. Thisschism, too, was not local, but the Monthly Meeting on the Hill wasdivided in the same year as the Yearly Meeting in New York, theQuarterly Meetings in the various sections, and the local MonthlyMeetings throughout the United States. 

The Period of the Mixed Community, from the building of Akin Hall andthe Mizzen-Top Hotel in 1880 to the year 1905 has been studiedpersonally by the present writer; and it is his belief that during thisshort period, especially from 1890 to 1900, the Hill enjoyed as perfecta communal life as in the Period of the Quaker Community. The samesocial influence was at work. An exceptionally strong principle ofassimilation, to be studied in detail in this book, which made of theoriginal population a century and a half earlier a perfect community, now made a mixed population of Quakers, Irish Catholics and New YorkCity residents, into a community unified, no less obedient to amodified ideal, having its leaders, its mode of association, itspeculiar local integrity and a certain moral distinction. 

This period appears at the time of this writing, in 1907, to be comingslowly to an end, owing to the death of many of the older members of theQuaker families, and the swift diminution--with their authorityremoved--of the Quaker influence, which was the chief factor in thecommunity's power of assimilation. 

If one may state in condensed form what this study discovers in QuakerHill that is uncommon and exceptional, one would say that the socialpeculiarity of the Hill is: first, the consistent working out of an ideain a social population, with the resultant social organization, andcommunal integrity; and second, the power of this community toassimilate individuals and make them part of itself. 

PART I. 

The Quaker Community, from its Settlement in 1728, to the Division in 1828. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE SOURCES OF THIS HISTORY. 

The sources of the history and descriptive sociology of Quaker hill are, first, the reminiscences of the older residents of the Hill, many ofwhom have died in the period under direct study in this paper; andsecond, the written records mentioned below. At no time was Quaker Hilla civil division, and the church records available were not kept withsuch accuracy as to give numerical results; so that statistical materialis lacking. 

The written sources are:

 1. The records of Oblong Meeting of the Society of Friends until 1828; of the Hicksite Meeting until 1885, when it was "laid down"; and of the Orthodox Meeting until 1905, when it ceased to meet. [1]

 2. Records of Purchase Meeting of the Society of Friends for the period antedating 1770. 

 3. Ledgers of the Merritt general store of dates 1771, 1772, 1839. 

 4. Daybooks and ledgers of the Toffey store of dates 1815, 1824, 1833. 

 5. The "Quaker Hill Series" of Local History, publications of the Quaker Hill Conference. In particular Nos. II, III, IV, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI and XVII. [2]

 6. Maps of Fredericksburgh and vicinity by Robert Erskine in the De Witt Clinton Collection, in the New York Historical Society Building. 

 7. Papers by Hon. Alfred T. Ackert, read before the Dutchess County Society in the City of New York, 1898 and 1899. 

 8. An Historical Sketch. The Bi-Centennial of the New York Yearly Meeting, an address delivered at Flushing, 1895, by James Wood. 

 9. A Declaration of some of the Fundamental Principles of Christian Truth, as held by the Religious Society of Friends. 

 10. James Smith's History of Dutchess County. 

 11. Philip H. Smith's History of Dutchess County. 

 12. Lossing's "Field Book of the Revolution. "

 13. Bancroft's "History of the United States. "

 14. Irving's "Life of Washington. "

 15. "Gazetteer of New York, " 1812. 

 16. Akin and Ferris, Wing, Briggs and Hoag Family Records. 

 17. De Chastellux's "Travels in North America. "

 18. Anburey's "Travels in North America. "

 19. Thatcher's "Military Journal of the Revolution. "

 20. Wilson's "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power. "

 21. Barnum's "Enoch Crosby. "

 22. "The Writings of Washington, " especially in Fall of 1778. 

 23. Proceedings of the New York Historical Society, 1859, etc. 

 24. New Milford Gazette, 1858, Boardman's Letter. 

 25. Poughkeepsie Eagle, July, 1876, Lossing's Articles. 

 26. Fishkill (New York) Packet, 1776-1783. 

 27. New York Mercury, 1776-1783. 

 28. Tax-lists of the Town of Pawling, New York. 

[1] The oldest records of Oblong meeting are contained in therecords of Purchase Meeting, the mother society, from the earliest date, about 1741, at which Oblong is mentioned, to 1744, when it became anindependent monthly meeting. Most of the early settlers on the Oblongcame through Purchase, married there and left their names on its pages. From the year 1744 Oblong Meeting was a meeting of record, but forthirteen years the minutes were written on loose sheets, which have beenlost. They may indeed be in existence, for in 1760 the meeting directsClerk Zebulon Ferriss to record the minutes for the time he has beenclerk; and appoints two to record the previous minutes from theestablishment of the meeting. If those two did as they were directed, there should be a book of the oldest records of the Hill in existence;and in any case there may be in some old leather bound trunk, leaves ofrecords from 1744 to 1757, whose value is beyond calculation. Theminutes of the Meeting from 1757 until the division, and from that dateuntil the Hicksite Meeting was laid down in 1885, are in the possessionof John Cox, Librarian of the Yearly Meeting (Hicksite). From 1828, theyear of the division, until the present year, the minutes of theOrthodox Friends are in the possession of William H. Osborn. The minutesof the Women's Meeting previous to 1807 are missing; one volume, from9th Mo. , 14th, 1807, to 3rd Mo. , 16th, 1835, is with John Cox. In thesame place are three volumes of the record of Births, Marriages andDeaths: one from 1745 to 1774; then, after a gap, due to the absence ofa volume, is the second, from 1786 to 1866; and a third volume of birthsand deaths alone from 1828 to 1893. Volumes lacking in this collectionare the records of births and deaths previous to 1828: and of marriagesfrom 1774 to 1786. 

The records of the present Orthodox Meeting in full, as well as thefollowing two volumes of the records of the Preparative Meeting ofMinisters and Elders at Oblong, are in the possession of William H. Osborn on Quaker Hill; first from 10th month, 12th, 1783, to 1st month, 13th, 1878; and second from 1878 to present time. Last of all, therecord of births and deaths of the meeting, from 1810 to the presentday, following the line of the Orthodox society, is in the possession ofthe Post family on Quaker Hill. 

[2] LOCAL HISTORY SERIES. 

David Irish--A Memoir, by his daughter, Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer, of QuakerHill, N. Y. 

Quaker Hill in the Eighteenth century, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson, ofBrooklyn, N. Y. 

Quaker Hill in the Nineteenth century, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson, ofBrooklyn, N. Y. 

Hiram B. Jones and His School, by Rev. Edward L. Chichester, ofHartsdale, N. Y. 

Richard Osborn--A Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan, of Quaker Hill, N. Y. 

Albert J. Akin--A Tribute, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson, of Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Ancient Homes and Early Days at Quaker Hill, by Amanda Akin Stearns, ofQuaker Hill, N. Y. 

Thomas Taber and Edward Shove--a Reminiscence, by Rev. Benjamin Shove, of New York. 

Some Glimpses of the Past, by Alicia Hopkins Taber, of Pawling, N. Y. 

The Purchase Meeting, by James Wood, of Mt. Kisco, N. Y. 

In Loving Remembrance of Ann Hayes, by Mrs. Warren H. Wilson, ofBrooklyn, N. Y. 

Washington's Headquarters at Fredericksburgh, by Lewis S. Patrick, ofMarinette, Wis. 

Historical Landmarks in the Town of Sherman, by Ruth Rogers, of Sherman, Conn. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE LOCALITY. 

In the hill country, sixty-two miles north of New York, and twenty-eightmiles east of the Hudson River at Fishkill, lies Quaker Hill. It is theeastern margin of the town of Pawling, and its eastern boundary is thestate line of Connecticut. On the north and south it is bounded by thetowns of Dover and Patterson respectively; on the west by a line whichroughly corresponds to the western line of the Oblong, that territorywhich was for a century in dispute between the States of New York andConnecticut. Its length is the north and south dimension of Pawling. 

This area is six and a half miles long, north and south, and irregularlytwo miles in width, east and west. Quaker Hill can scarcely be called ahamlet, because instead of a cluster of houses, it is a long roadrunning from south to north by N. N. E. And intersected by four roadsrunning from east to west. The households located on this road for onehundred and sixty years constituted a community of Quakers dwelling neartheir Meeting House; and until the building of the Harlem Railroad inthe valley below in 1849, had their own stores and local industries. 

Before the railroad came, Quaker Hill was obliged to go to Poughkeepsiefor access to the world, over the precipitous sides of West Mountain, and all supplies had to be brought up from the river level to thisheight. At present Quaker Hill, in its nearest group of houses at theMizzen-Top Hotel, is three miles and three-quarters from the railroadstation at Pawling. Other houses are five and seven miles from Pawling. On the east the nearest station of the New York, New Haven and HartfordRailroad, New Milford, is nine miles away. The "Central New England"Branch of the N. Y. N. H. & H. , running east and west, is at WestPatterson or West Pawling, seven and eight miles. 

The natural obstacle which does more than miles to isolate Quaker Hillis its elevation. The "Mizzen-Top Hill, " as it is now called, is astraightforward Quaker road, mounting the face of the Hill four hundredfeet in a half-mile. The ancient settler on horseback laid it out; andthe modern wayfarer in hotel stage, carriage or motor-car has to follow. Quaker Hill is conservative of change. 

The mean elevation is about 1, 100 feet above the sea. The highest pointbeing Tip-Top, 1, 310 feet, and the lowest point 620 feet. The Hill ischaracterized by its immediate and abrupt rise above surroundinglocalities, being from 500 to 830 feet above the village of Pawling, inwhich the waters divide for the Hudson and Housatonic Rivers. On itshighest hill rises the brook which becomes the Croton River. From almostthe whole length of Quaker Hill road one looks off over interveninghills to the east for twenty-five miles, and to the west for forty milesto Minnewaska and Mohonk; and to the north fifty and sixty miles to theCatskill Mountains. 

One's first impressions are of the green of the foliage and herbage. Thegrass is always fresh, and usually the great heaving fields are mellowedwith orange tints and the masses of trees are of a lighter shade ofgreen than elsewhere. The qualities of the soil which have made QuakerHill "a grass country" for cattle make it a delight to the eye. Wellwatered always, when other sections may be in drought, its naturaladvantages take forms of beauty which delight the artist and satisfy theeye of the untrained observer. 

The Hill is a conspicuous plateau, very narrow, extending north andsouth. It is "the place that is all length and no breadth. " Six mileslong upon the crest of the height runs the road which is its mainthoroughfare, and was in its first century the chief avenue of travel. Crossing it at right angles are four roads, that now carry the wagon andcarriage traffic to the valleys on either side; which since railroaddays are the termini of all journeys. The elevation above thesurrounding hills and valleys is such that one must always climb toattain the hill; and one moves upon its lofty ridge in constant sight ofthe distant conspicuous heights, the Connecticut uplands east of theHousatonic on one side, and on the other, the Shawangunk and CatskillMountains, west of the Hudson, all of them more than 25 miles away. 

Unsheltered as it is, the locality is subject to severe weather. Theextreme of heat observed has been 105 degrees; and of cold--24 degrees. 

Quaker Hill possesses natural advantages for agriculture only. Nominerals of commercial value are there; although iron ore is found inPawling and nearby towns. On the confines of the Hill, in Deuell Hollow, a shaft was driven into the hillside for forty feet, by some lonelyprospector, and then abandoned; to be later on seized upon and made thetraditional location of a gold mine. The Quaker Hill imagination is morefertile and varied than Quaker Hill land. No commercial advantages haveever fallen upon the place, except those resultant from cultivation ofthe fertile soil in the way of stores, now passed away; and theopportunity to keep summer boarders in the heated season. 

Interest which attaches to Quaker Hill is of a three-fold sort:historical, scenic and climatic. The locality has a history ofpeculiarly dramatic interest. It is beautiful with a rare and satisfyingdignity and loveliness of scene; and it is the choice central spot of aregion bathed in a salubrious atmosphere which has had much to do withits social character in the past, and is to-day very effective in makingthe place a summer settlement of New York people. The population isincreased one hundred per cent. In the summer months, the increase beingsolely due to the healthful and refreshing nature of the place. 

The history of the locality is associated with the quaint name, "TheOblong. " This was the name of a strip of land, lying along the easternboundary of New York State, now part of Westchester, Putnam and DutchessCounties, and narrowing to the northward, which was for a century indispute between New York and Connecticut. 

There had been a half century in which this was all disputed land, between the Dutch at New York and the English in New England. Thenfollowed a half century of dispute as to the boundary between sistercolonies, which are now New York and Connecticut. As soon as this wassettled in 1731 the immigration flowed in, and the history of QuakerHill, the first settlement in the Oblong, begins. It was granted to NewYork; and in compensation the lands on which Stamford and Greenwichstand were granted to Connecticut after a long and bitter dispute. Theend of the dispute and the first settlement of the Oblong came, forobvious reasons, in the same year. The first considerable settlement ofpioneers was made at Quaker Hill in 1731, by Friends, who came fromHarrison's Purchase, now a part of Rye. [3]

The historical interest of the locality dwells in the contrast betweenthe simple annals of Quakerism, which was practiced there in theeighteenth century, and the military traditions which have fallen to thelot of peaceful Quaker Hill. The "Old Meeting House, " known for yearsofficially as Oblong Meeting House, experienced in its past, full ofmemories of men of peace, the violent seizures by men of war. Thatstoried scene, in the fall of 1778, when the Meeting House was seizedfor the uses of the army as a hospital, [4] has lived in the thoughts ofall who have known the place, and has been cherished by none morereverently than by the children of Quakers, whose peace the soldiersinvaded. Both the soldier and the Quaker laid their bones in the dust ofthe Hill. Both had faith in liberty and equality. The history of QuakerHill in the eighteenth century is the story of these two schools ofidealists, who ignored each other, but were moved by the same passion, obeyed the same spirit. It is said that a locality never loses theimpression made upon it by its earliest residents. Certain it is thatthe roots of modern things are to be traced in that earliest period, andthrough a continuous self-contained life until the present day. 

In the eighteenth century Quaker Hill was the chosen asylum of men ofpeace. Yet it became the rallying place of periodic outbursts of thefighting spirit of that warlike age; and it was invaded during thegreat struggle for national independence by the camps of Washington. 

There is a dignity common to Washington battling for liberty, and theQuaker pioneers serenely planning seven years before the Revolution forthe freedom of the slave. But he was a Revolutionist, they were loyal toKing George; he was a man of blood, brilliant in the garb of a warrior, and they were men of peace, dreaming only of the kingdom of God. He wasfighting for a definite advance in liberty to be enjoyed at once; theywere set on an enfranchisement that involved one hundred years; and agreater war at the end than his revolution. Their records contains nomention of his presence here, though his soldiers seized and fortifiedthe Meeting House. [5] His letters never mention the Quakers, neithertheir picturesque abode, their dreams of freedom for the slave, northeir Tory loyalty. 

Each cherished his ideal and staked his life and ease and happiness uponit. Each, after the fashion of a narrow age, ignored the other'sadherence to that ideal. To us they are sublime figures in bold contrastcrossing that far-off stage: Washington, booted, with belted sword, spurring his horse up the western slope of the Hill, to review thesoldiers of the Revolution in 1778; and Paul Osborn, Joseph Irish andAbner Hoag, plain men, unarmed save with faith, riding their ploughhorses down the eastern slope in 1775, to plead for the freedom of theslave at the Yearly Meeting at Flushing. 

What effect the beauty of the place had upon the pioneer settlers it is, of course, impossible to say, for they have left no record of theirappreciation of its beauty. Probably their interest in the picturesquewas the same as that of a Quaker elder, of fine and choice culture afterthe Quaker standards, who said to the author, with a quiet laugh:"People all say that the views from my house are very beautiful, and Isuppose they are; but I have lived here all my life, and I have neverseen it. " A Quakeress confessed to the same indifference to the beautyof the Hill, until she had resided for a time in another state, and hadmingled with those who had a lively sense of beauty of scene; returningthereafter to the Hill, it appeared beautiful to her ever afterward. 

The land has been for several generations under a high state ofcultivation. The keeping of many cattle has enriched the broad pastures;and the dairy industry has been carried on with constant fertilizing ofthe lands; so that the great fields, heaping up one upon another, highabove the valley, and plunging down in steep slopes so suddenly that thefalling land is lost from view and the valley below seems to hangunattached, are covered with a brilliancy of coloring and a variety ofthose rich tints of green and orange which spell to the eye abundance, and arouse a keen delight, like that of possessing and enjoying. 

There is also a large dignity in the outlines of every scene, whichconstantly expands the sensations and gives, on every hand, a sense ofexhilaration and a pleasurable excitement to the emotions, which seemsin experience to have something to do with the industry and applicationcharacteristic of Quaker Hill. 

With this the atmosphere has had much to do, no doubt, being dry andsoft. The first sensation of one alighting from a train in the town isone of lightness and exhilaration. This sensation continues through thefirst hours of one's stay on the Hill. [6] After the first day ofexhilaration come a day or more of drowsiness, with nights of profoundsleep. In some persons a heightened nervousness is experienced, but inmost cases the Hill has the effect upon those who reside there of asteady nervous arousal, a pleasure in activity, and a keen interest inlife and work. 

Whether the early settlers, in selecting the highest ground in thisregion, had a sense of this excellence of the climatic effect we do notknow; but their descendants believe that such was their reason forsettling the highest arable land on the Hill before the valleys or thelower slopes were cleared. 

It is the common tradition that they settled on the Hill first, and onits highest parts, in order to avoid the malaria of the lowlands; aswell as because they thought the hill lands to be more fertile. 

The excellence of the climate is witnessed in the long lives of itsresidents. There were living in 1903, in a population of four hundred, five persons, each of whom was at least ninety years of age; andfifteen, each of whom was more than seventy-five years of age. 

[3] Mr. James Wood, in his Bicentennial Address in 1895, thusdescribed the Oblong:

The eastern side of the country had been settled by Presbyterians fromConnecticut, and the western side along the Hudson River by the Dutch. The feeling between them was far from friendly. Their disputes had beenvery bitter, and Rye and Bedford had revolted from New York'sjurisdiction. Their whipping-posts stood ready for the punishment of anyfrom the river settlements who committed even slight offenses withintheir limits. As the two peoples naturally repelled each other they hadleft a strip of land, comparatively unoccupied, between them. Thiscontinued in nearly a north and south line, parallel with the river, anda little more than midway between it and the Connecticut andMassachusetts lines, as far as they extended. Into and through the stripof land the Quaker stream flowed, like a liquid injected into a fissurein the rocks. Each Quaker home as it settled became a resting place forthose who followed, for it was a cardinal principle of Quakerhospitality to keep open house for all fellow members, under allcircumstances. 

[4] "One First Day morning, in the mellow October days of thatyear, the worshipping stillness of the Friends' Meeting was broken bythe tramp of horses, and the jangling of spurs, as a band of soldiersrode up, dismounted and entered the building. They remained quiet andreverent, till the handshaking of the elders closed the meeting; thenthe commanding officer rose, and in the name of the Continental Congresstook possession of the building for a hospital for the troops, and assuch it was used all that winter. After this meetings were held in the'great room' in the house of Paul Osborn, and were often frequented bysoldiers stationed in the place, who listened attentively to thespeaking, and left quietly at the close of the meeting. "--RichardOsborn--a Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan, Quaker Hill LocalHistory Series, No. VIII. 

[5] In the garret of the Meeting House rifle-ports, cut throughthe original planks, were discovered by the present writer. 

[6] "Bodily functions are facilitated by atmospheric conditionswhich make evaporation from the skin and lungs rapid. That weak personswhose variations of health furnish good tests, are worse when the air issurcharged with water, and better when the weather is fine; and thatcommonly such persons are enervated by residence in moist localities butinvigorated by residence in dry ones, are facts generally recognized. And this relation of cause and effect, manifest in individuals, doubtless holds in races. "--Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Vol. I, p. 21. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE ASSEMBLING OF THE QUAKERS. 

The social mind of the Quaker Hill population was formed, at thesettlement of the place, in a common response to common stimuli. Thepopulation was congregated from Long Island and Massachusettssettlements, by the tidings of the opening of this fertile land of theOblong for settlement in 1731. I infer from the fact that settlementswere previously made on both sides, at Fredericksburgh on one side, andat New Milford on the other, --at New Milford there was a Quaker Meetingestablished in 1729, fifteen years before Quaker Hill--that the value ofthe lands in the Oblong was well advertised. From the fact noted byJames Wood (The Purchase Meeting, p. 10) that "the first settlement inany considerable numbers was upon Quaker Hill in the Oblong, " I inferthat the uncommon promise of this hill land had been made known to theQuakers then assembling at this "Purchase in the Rye Woods, " and thatQuaker Hill was settled in response to the stimulus of valuable, fertilelands offered for occupation and ownership. 

It seems to have been the desire of the first settlers to form acommunity where they could live apart, maintain their form of religionand possess land fertile and rich. The Quakers are always shrewd as toeconomic affairs, and the business motive is never lost sight of in thespiritual inner light. In choosing Quaker Hill soil they selected groundwhich after one hundred and sixty-seven years is the richest in theregion, sustains the best dairies, and is able longer than any other inthe neighborhood in time of drought to afford abundant green grassand verdure. 

[Illustration: MAP No. I. 

QUAKER HILL AND VICINITY. (From Robert Erskine's Map, 1778-1780, in DeWitt Clinton Collection, New York Historical Society. )]

[Illustration: MAP No. II. 

QUAKER HILL AND VICINITY. (Based on a tracing of United StatesGeographical Survey. )]

To this place thus secluded, came Benjamin Ferriss in 1728, and NathanBirdsall. They settled upon the sites marked 31 and 39; which are 1, 200and 1, 100 feet above the sea, and very near the highest ground for manymiles. There was at this time, 1729, a meeting of Friends at NewMilford, nine miles away; but these two men came from Purchase Meetingin the town of Rye, forty miles directly to the South. There soonfollowed others, bearing the names, Irish, Wing, Briggs, Toffey, Akin, Taber, Russell, Osborn, Merritt, Dakin, Hoag. In ten years the tide ofsettlement was flowing full. In forty years the little community wasfilled with as many as could profitably find a living. 

Complete records of the sources of this immigration are not available. John Cox, Jr. , Librarian of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, says "therecords do not show in any direct way where the members came from. A fewcame from Long Island meetings by way of Purchase, but most of them fromthe East, and I believe from Massachusetts. Indirectly the records showthat the members occasionally went on visits into New England, and tookcertificates of clearance there (to marry). " Dartmouth, Mass. , a townbetween Fall River and New Bedford, was the original home of so many ofthem that it easily leads all localities as a source of Quaker Hillancestry. The Akin, Taber, Briggs families came from Dartmouth, whichwas in a region of both temporary and permanent Quaker settlement. Quaker Hill, R. I. , is within fifteen miles of Dartmouth. The residentsof Quaker Hill, New York, preserve traditions of the returns of theearly Friends "to Rhode Island. " There is a Briggs family tradition ofthe first pair of boots owned on the Hill, which were borrowed in turnby every man who made a visit to the ancestral home at Dartmouth. 

It is probable also that some of the original residents came from LongIsland, though from what localities I do not know. The minutes ofPurchase Meeting at Rye, through which meeting most of the Quaker Hillsettlers came, indicate in only a limited number of cases that theimmigrant came from a farther point; and leave the impression that theFriend so commended to the Oblong was already a resident of "thePurchase, " or of its related meetings at Flushing on Long Island. Anexample is the case of William Russell and his wife, notable pioneers, the earliest residents of Site 25, whose letter from Purchase Meeting in1741 indicates only that they came to Oblong from Purchase. 

The settlement of the Hill continued from the early years, 1728-1731, atwhich it began, until 1770, when the community may be said to have beencomplete. The land was supporting by that time all it would bear. Sincethat time the number of houses on the Hill has remained about the same, as will be seen from a comparison of the Maps I and II, the one made forWashington in 1778-80 and the other being a tracing of the map of theTopographical Survey of the United States Government of recent date. 

The extent of this population resident upon the Hill is shown in thelists of persons whose names appear in Appendix A, which is a census ofthe heads of families in the Meeting in the year 1761; added to which isa list of names which appear in the minutes of the Meeting in yearsimmediately following. These lists show the growth of the populationunder study, in the years from 1761 to 1780, for there are wholefamilies omitted from the list of 1761, who are named in the minutes insucceeding years. An instance is that of Paul and Isaac Osborn, who camefrom Rhode Island in 1760. [7]

As this list of members of the meeting shows the actual size of thepopulation resident upon the Hill in 1761, the other list published inAppendix B, containing the names of those who traded at the Merrittstore in 1771, exhibits, with startling vividness, the importance ofQuaker Hill at that time. Little as the place is now, and geographicallyremote and hard of access always, it was evidently in the years named acenter of a far-reaching country trade. This list is published in full, exactly as the names appear on Daniel Merritt's ledger, to convey thisimpression; and by contrast, the impression of the shrinkage in theyears since the railway changed the currents of trade. It is publishedalso as a basis of this study, being a numerical description, in therough, of the problem we are studying. And a third use which such a listmay serve is that of information to those interested in genealogy. It isa veritable mine of information, suggestion, and even color, of the lifeof that time--as indeed are the ancient ledgers, bound in calf, and keptwith exquisite care, by this colonial merchant. In these old records aresuggested, though not described, the lives of a hard-working, prosperouspopulation, filling the countryside, laying the foundations of fortuneswhich are to-day enriching descendants. It was a community without anidler, with trades and occupations so many as to be independent of othercommunities, hopeful, abounding in credit, laying plans for generationsto come, and living bountifully, heartily from day to day. 

Every item in these mercantile records is of interest and full ofsuggestion, from the names of the negro slaves, who had accounts on thebooks, to the products brought for sale by one customer after another, by which they liquidated their accounts; from the "quart of rum" boughtby so many with every "trading, " to the Greek Testament and LatinGrammar bought by solid Thomas Taber, who wrote his name in real estateby his thrift and force, if he did not write it in dead languages. 

[7] Richard Osborn--A Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan, Quaker Hill Local History Series, No. VIII, p. 10. 

CHAPTER IV. 

ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES OF THE QUAKER COMMUNITY. 

The economic activity of the early Quaker Community was varied. All theyconsumed they had to produce and manufacture. Though the stores soldcane sugar, the farmers made of maple sap in the spring both sugar andsyrup, and in the fall they boiled down the juice of sweet apples to asyrup, which served for "sweetness" in the ordinary needs of thekitchen. 

Every man was in some degree a farmer, in that each household cultivatedthe soil. On every farm all wants had to be supplied from localresources, so that mixed farming was the rule. The land which its modernowners think unsuited to anything but grass, because it is such "heavy, clay soil, " was made in the 18th century to bear, in addition to thegrass for cattle and sheep, wheat, rye, oats and corn, flax, potatoes, apples. Of whatever the farmer was to use he must produce the rawmaterial from the soil, and the manufacture of it must be within thecommunity. 

Two lists which come to us from early days cast light on the populationand occupations of the early period. One is the sheriff's list oflandowners in Dutchess County in 1740, on which is no name of any farmerthen resident on Quaker Hill. The other list is that of those whoclaimed exemption from military duty in 1755; 38 are from Oblong and 21from Beekman, many of them being Quakers resident on the Oblong. Thislist is as follows:

Joshua Shearman, Beekman Prec'nt, shoemaker; Moses Shearman, BeekmanPrec'nt, laborer; Daniel Shearman, Beekman Prec'nt, laborer; JosephDoty, Beekman Prec'nt, blacksmith; John Wing, Beekman Prec'nt, farmer;Zebulon Ferris (Oblong), Beekman Prec'nt, farmer; Joseph Smith, son ofRich'd, Beekman Prec'nt, laborer; Robert Whiteley, Beekman Prec'nt, farmer; Elijah Doty, Oblong House, carpenter; Philip Allen, Oblong, weaver; Richard Smith, Oblong, farmer; James Aiken, Oblong, blacksmith;Abrah'm Chase, son of Henry, Oblong, farmer; David Hoeg, Oblong, ----;John Hoeg, Oblong, farmer; Jonathan Hoeg, Oblong, blacksmith; Amos Hoeg, son of John, Oblong, laborer; William Hoeg, son of David, Oblong, farmer; John Hoeg, son of John, Oblong, farmer; Ezekiel Hoeg, Oblong, laborer; Judah Smith, Oblong, tailor; Matthew Wing, Oblong, ----;Timothy Dakin, Oblong, farmer; Jonathan Dakin, Oblong, laborer; SamuelRussell, Oblong, laborer; John Fish, Oblong, farmer; Reed Ferris, Oblong, shoemaker; Benjamin Ferris, Junr. , Oblong, laborer; Joseph Akin, Oblong, blacksmith; Israel Howland, Oblong, farmer; Elisha Akin, Oblong, farmer; Isaac Haviland, Oblong, blacksmith; Nathan Soule, son of George, Oblong, farmer; James Birdsall, Oblong, laborer; Daniel Chase, Oblong, farmer; Silas Mossher, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; William Mosher, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Silvester Richmond, Oswego in BeekmanPrec't, farmer; Jesse Irish, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; DavidIrish, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; William Irish, Oswego inBeekman Prec't, farmer; Josiah Bull, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer;Josiah Bull, Junr. , Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Allen Moore, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Andrew Moore, Oswego in BeekmanPrec't, farmer; William Gifford, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer;Nathaniel Yeomans, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Eliab Yeomans, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; William Parks, Oswego in BeekmanPrec't, farmer. 

This list mentions six occupations: the farmer, blacksmith, tailor, shoemaker, carpenter and laborer. With these six a frontier communitycould live, for every man of them was a potential butcher, tanner, trader. There is record of others in later years, when the communal lifehad become differentiated. There were at various times in the Quakercentury stores at four places on the Hill. The Merritt store, at Site28, descended to the sons of Daniel Merritt, and finally to James Craft. There was a store in Deuell Hollow, kept by Benjamin and Silas Deuellfor several years. There is extant one bill of merchandise purchased bythem of Edward and William Laight, merchants of New York, the amountbeing £200 and the date Feb. 25, 1785. The Akin stores at Sites 47 and46, were kept by Daniel and Albro Akin, and the store at Site 53, byJohn Toffey. These stores during the period of the Quaker community werein trade largely by barter, taking all the commodities the farmer hadbeyond his immediate use, and selling sugar, coffee, cloth and othercommodities which after 1815, as will be shown later, rapidly increasedin number and in quantity. The use of money increased at the sameperiod. The phrase still lingers in Quaker Hill speech: "I am going tothe store to do some trading, " though the milk farmer has engaged in nobarter for fifty years. 

In the culminating period of the Quaker Community, which followed theRevolutionary War, the following were some of the occupations practicedon the Hill, the record or remembrance of which is preserved:[8]

Abram Thomas was a blacksmith, at Site 14, [9] and is said to have madethe nails used in building the Meeting House. George Kirby, at Site99-1/2, had a blacksmith shop; there was another at Site x100, nowabandoned on Burch Hill, kept by Joel Winter Church, where Washington'scharger was shod, and the bill was paid at the close of the war. 

But the most notable smithy was at Site 41, where now stands one of theoldest houses on the Hill. Here Davis Marsh wrought in iron, and thesound of his trip-hammer audible for miles smote its own rememberedimpression upon the ears of those ancient generations. Doubtless thefavored location of Marsh's shop in the neighborhood most central, as isshown in Chapter III, Part III, gave it greater use. There was at onetime a forge in the Glen at Site 66, to which magnetic ore was hauledfrom Brewster to be worked. 

A "smith shop" is also noted on Erskine's map for Washington in 1778 atSite x111. The most important manufacturing business of the community, however, was the wagon-worker's shop at Site 45, kept by Hiram Sherman. Under the general title of wagon maker he manufactured all movables inwood and iron, from fancy wagons to coffins. 

Other trades were of increasing variety as the century of isolationproceeded. Shoemakers went from house to house to make shoes for thefamily, of the leather from the backs of the farmer's own cattle, tannedon the farm or not far away. Reed Ferris was a shoemaker, in whoseresidence at Site 99 Washington was entertained in September, 1778, until he took up Headquarters at John Kane's. Stephen Riggs was ashoemaker. Three tanneries were maintained on the Hill in the bloom ofthe Quaker community by Ransom Aldrich about Site 13; Amos Asborn, atSite x21, who also made pottery there; and Isaac Ingersoll, at Site 134. 

Albro Akin had a sawmill in the Glen, and a gristmill was also locatedthere in an early period. William Taber had a gristmill and also a clothmill, consisting of carding machine, fulling mill, and apparatus forpressing, coloring and dressing cloth. John Toffey, at Site 53, andJoseph Seeley, at Site 15, and some of the Arnolds, near Site 12, werehatters. Jephtha Sabin, at Site 74, and Joseph Hungerford were saddlersand harnessmakers. 

Every farmer and indeed every householder raised hogs. Pork was salted, as it is to-day, for winter use, in barrels of brine. Hogs also wereextensively raised and butchered for market, at a year and a half old, the meat being taken to Poughkeepsie by wagon, and thence to New York. Many who raised more pork than their own use demanded exchanged it atthe stores. Fields of peas were raised to feed the hogs. 

Sheep also were raised for their wool; their meat afforded an acceptablevariety in farmer's fare and their hides had many uses. David Irish, Daniel and David Merritt, Jonathan A. Taber and George P. Taber werefarmers whose product of wool was notably fine and abundant. JonathanAkin Taber "kept about eleven hundred sheep, some merino and somesaxony. "

Butter and cheese making were an important part of the business andincome of the farmer's family, the butter being packed and sent weeklyto the Hudson River boats for New York markets, or to Bridgeport or NewHaven--a two-days' journey in either case. The cheese was ripened, orcured, being rubbed and turned every day, and kept until the dealerscame around to inspect and purchase. On every farm was kept a flock ofgeese, which were picked once in six weeks to keep up the supply offeather beds and to furnish the requisite number for the outfit of eachdaughter of the family. 

In the year 1767, Oblong Meeting took action which resulted, after sevenyears of agitation, in the clear declaration by the Yearly Meeting ofNew York, earliest of such acts, in favor of the freeing of slaves. Thiswas one hundred years before the Emancipation Proclamation. 

Wilson's "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America" says that"Members of the Society of Friends took the lead in the opposition toslavery. " There had been action taken in 1688 by a small body ofGermantown Quakers, in the form of a petition to their Yearly Meetingagainst "buying, selling and holding men in slavery. " But to this theYearly Meeting, after eight years of delay, replied only that "themembers should discourage the introduction of slavery, and be careful ofthe moral and intellectual training of such as they held in servitude. "

Meantime the Quaker Meetings on Long Island, in New York andPhiladelphia took action recognizing slavery, with only a gradualtendency to regard the institution of slavery with disfavor. Now thetime had come for putting the denomination in array against theinstitution. 

There was a preacher of the Quakers who traveled much from 1746 to 1767through the colonies, proclaiming that "the practice of continuingslavery is not right;" and that "liberty is the natural right equally ofall men. " In the last year of his propaganda occurred the event notablein local history. This was thirteen years before the action of the Stateof Pennsylvania, which initiated the lawmaking for emancipation amongthe northern colonies. It was "twenty years before Wilberforce took thefirst step in England against the slave-trade. " The record of thisaction is as follows:

"At a (Yearly) Meeting at the Meeting House at Flushing the 30th day ofthe 5th month, 1767, a Querie from the Quarterly Meeting of the Oblongin Relation to buying and Selling Negroes was Read in this meeting andit was concluded to be left for consideration on the minds of friendsuntil the Next Yearly Meeting. The Query is as follows: It is notconsistent with Christianity to buy and Sell our Fellowmen for Slavesduring their Lives, & their Posterities after them, then whether it isconsistent with a Christian Spirit to keep those in Slavery that we havealready in possession by Purchase, Gift or any otherways. "

The year after, not without due hesitation, a committee was appointedwhich "drew an Essay on that subject which was read and approved and isas follows: We are of the mind that it is not convenient (consideringthe circumstances of things amongst us) to give an Answer to thisQuerie, at least at this time, as the answering of it in direct termsmanifestly tends to cause divisions and may Introduce heart burnings andStrife amongst us, which ought to be Avoided, and Charity exercised, andpersuasive methods pursued and that which makes for peace. We arehowever fully of the mind that Negroes as Rational Creatures are bynature born free, and where the way opens liberty ought to be extendedto them, and they not held in Bondage for Self ends. But to turn themout at large Indiscriminately--which seems to be the tendency of theQuerie, will, we Apprehend, be attended with great Inconveniency, assome are too young and some too old to obtain a livelihood forthemselves. "

Here, then, is the first action in a legislative body in New York State, upon the freeing of slaves. The "Querie from Oblong" had secured a cleardeliverance in favor of the essential right of the negro as a man, infavor of his being freed "where the way opened, " and against the holdingof man for the service of another. The only hesitation of the meetingwas frankly stated; emancipation was not to be pushed to the point ofdivision among Christians, and was not to be accomplished to theimpoverishment of the negro. 

Yet if this action seems to any one like "trimming, " it was followed byother deliverances increasingly clear and emphatic. Three years laterFriends were forbidden to sell their slaves, except under conditionscontrolled by the Meeting. Throughout the communities of Friends theagitation was being carried on, and the meetings were anxious to purgethemselves of the evil. 

Finally in 1775 came the clear utterance of the Yearly Meeting in favorof emancipation without conditions: "it being our solid judgment thatall in profession with us who hold Negroes ought to restore to themtheir natural right to liberty as soon as they arrive at a suitable agefor freedom. " At this meeting the Oblong was represented by JosephIrish, Abner Hoag and Paul Osborn. 

It only remains to picture the rest of the process by which slavery waspurged away on Quaker Hill. In 1775 the practice of buying and sellingslaves had come to an end, and no public abuse was noted by the Meetingin the treatment accorded to slaves by their masters. The next yearthere was but one slave owned by a member of the Meeting; and the day hewas freed in the fall of 1777 was counted by the Meeting so notable thatthe clerk was directed to make a minute of the event. The owner had beenSamuel Field, and the slave was called Philips. Another manumission in1779 is recorded, but it was doubtless in the case of a new resident ofthe Hill, for it is recorded without signs of the joy exhibited in thefreedom of Philips. 

In the years 1782-3 the final act in emancipating the local slaves wastaken, in the investigation by a committee of the Meeting into thecondition of the freed slaves, and the obligations of their old mastersto them. It was not very cordially received at first, but in the thirdyear of the life and labors of the committee it was reported by themthat "the negroes appear to be satisfied without further settlement. " Sothe first American community to free herself from slavery required butsixteen years of agitation fully to complete the process. 

[8] See "Some Glimpses of the Past, " by Alicia Hopkins Taber, 1906; Quaker Hill Series. 

[9] See Map II. 

CHAPTER V. 

AMUSEMENTS IN THE QUAKER COMMUNITY. 

The Quaker community had little time for amusements, and less patience. The discipline of the Meeting levelled its guns at the play spirit, andfor a century men were threatened, visited, disowned if necessary, for"going to frollicks, " and "going to places of amusement. " The MeetingHouse records leave no room for doubt as to the opinion held by theSociety of Friends upon the matter of play. 

An account is given elsewhere of the discipline of the Meeting in itsstruggle against immorality and "frollicking. " The following quotationfrom James Woods' "The Purchase Meeting, " vividly depicts the confusedelements of the social life of that time: "On great occasions such asthe holding of a Quarterly Meeting, the population turned out _enmasse_. Piety and worldliness both observed the day. The latter classgathered about the meeting house, had wrestling matches and variousathletic sports in the neighboring fields, and horse races on theadjacent roads. The meetings regularly appointed committees as a policeforce to keep order about the meeting house during the time of worshipand business. "

The stories told by old Quaker Hill residents of the gatherings aboutthe meeting house, even on First Day, or Sunday, confirm the abovequotation. The field opposite the meeting house, for years after 1769, when the earliest meeting house was moved away from that site, was usedas a burial ground, and later, no headstones being placed in those earlydays, as a space for tethering horses. An old resident tells me thatcrowds of men were always about the meeting house before and aftermeeting, and even during meeting, and that in later years the residentof Site No. 32, who owned valuable horses, used to exhibit a bloodedstallion on a tether, leading him up and down to the admiration of thehorse-owners present, and to their probable interest. 

These conditions seem to have continued through that whole century. Theplay spirit had no permitted or authorized occasions. It had to exerciseitself with the other instincts, in the common gatherings. It was, asfar as we can see, a time of asceticism. Men were forbidden rather thaninvited, in those days. 

The Meeting not only provided no play opportunities, but it forbade theattendance of its members upon the "frollicks, " which then were held, asnowadays they are held, in the country side. A gathering with plenty toeat, and in those days a free indulgence in drink on the part of themen, with music of the fiddler, and dancing, this was a "frollick"--thathorror of the meeting house elders. Indeed, it was of incidental moraldetriment; for it was outlawed amusement, and being under the ban, wascontrolled by men beyond the influence or control of the meeting. Theyoung people of the Quaker families, and sometimes their elders, yieldedto the fascinations of these gatherings. The unwonted excitement ofmeeting, the sound of music, playing upon the capacity for motorreactions in a people living and laboring outdoors, inflamed beyondcontrol by rum and hard cider, soon led to lively, impulsive activitiesand physical exertions, both in immoderate excess and in disregard ofall the inhibitions of tradition and of conscience. That there was aclose relation of these "frollicks" with the sexual immorality of theperiod is probable. 

Of more concern to us here is the observation, which is made withcaution, that the attitude of the community to amusements was notconducive to moral betterment, because amusement was not specialized. The repression of the play spirit, offering it no occasions, recognizing no times and places as appropriate for it, disturbed theequilibrium of life, forced the normal animal spirits of the populationto impulsive and explosive expressions and deprived them of theregulative control of the community. 

It is probable that that early period had modes of amusement the recordof which is wholly lost. There are few sources existing to inform us ofthe amusements of laboring classes. Hints occur in such records as thatof the sale of powder and shot, of fishhooks and a quart of rum, at theMerritt store, in 1771, to the Vaughns. Seven years later the Vaughnswere the Tory "cowboys, " who robbed the defenceless neighborhood, untiltheir leader was killed by Captain Pearce, during the Revolution. 

It is probable that then the community wore the aspect which now itwears, of industry without play; and that members went elsewhere fortheir amusement, the acknowledged leaders in which were resident inother neighborhoods and communities. 

The recreation of the body of working population of the Hill wasincidental to the religious assemblies. In these meetings they took anintense and a very human pleasure. Their solitary, outdoor labor wasperformed in an intense atmosphere of communal interaction. He whoraised hogs was to sell them, not to a distant market, but to DanielMerritt, or John Toffey, the storekeepers. He who made shoes went fromhouse to house, full of news, always talking, always hearing. He whowove heard not his creaking loom, but the voice of the storekeeper or ofthe neighbor to whom he would sell. The cheeses a woman pressed andwiped in a morning were to be sold, not far away to persons unseen, butto neighbors known, whose tastes were nicely ascertained and regarded. 

The result was that meetings on First Day and Fourth Day were times ofintense pleasure, occasions of all-around interest: not mere businessinterest, but incidentally a large satisfaction of the play instinct, especially for the working and mature persons. The young, too, had theirhappiness and enjoyment of one another in a multitude of ways, inaddition to those boisterous games described above by Mr. James Wood. Their intense friendships and lively enterprises were probably not soeasy to confine to the bounds of sober, staid meetings, but no less didtheir merry good spirits fill those assemblies. The galleries of the oldMeeting House were built in 1800 for the young, who were expected to sitthere during meeting. The wooden curtains between the "men's part" andthe "women's part" are especially thorough in their exclusion of even aneyeshot from one side to the other. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE IDEALS OF THE QUAKERS. 

In the Introduction to Professor Carver's "Sociology and SocialProgress" is a passage of great significance to one who would understandQuaker Hill, or indeed any community, especially if it be religiouslyorganized. The writer refers to: "a most important psychic factor, namely the power of idealization. This may be defined, not veryaccurately, as the power of _making believe_, a factor whichsociologists have scarcely appreciated as yet. We have such popularexpressions as 'making a virtue of necessity, ' which indicates thatthere is a certain popular appreciation of the real significance of thispower, but we have very little in the way of a scientific appreciationof it. 

"One of the greatest resources of the human mind is its ability topersuade itself that what is necessary is noble or dignified orhonorable or pleasant. For example, the greater part of the human racehas been found to live under conditions of almost incessant warfare. Warbeing a necessity from which there was no escape, it was a greatadvantage to be able to glorify it, to persuade ourselves that it was anoble calling--in other words, a good in itself. 

"Another example is found in the case of work. Work is a necessity asimperious as war ever was. Looked at frankly and truthfully, work is adisagreeable necessity and not a good in itself. Yet by persuadingourselves that work is a blessing, that it is dignified and honorable, our willingness to work is materially increased, and therefore theprocess of adaptation is facilitated--in other words, progress isaccelerated. Among the most effective agencies for the promotion ofprogress, therefore, must be included those which stimulate this powerof idealization. In short, he who in any age helps to idealize thosefactors and forces upon which the progress of his age depends, isperhaps the most useful man, the most powerful agent in the promotion ofhuman well-being, even though from the strictly realistic point of viewhe only succeeds in making things appear other than they really are. From the sociologist's point of view this is the mission of art andpreaching of all kinds. "

The quotation from Professor Carver bears the impression ofincompleteness, or rather of suggestiveness. If "making a virtue ofnecessity" is idealization, is not symbolism also a form of "makebelieve. " If the "ability to persuade oneself that what is necessary isnoble or dignified or honorable or pleasant, " is exhibited on QuakerHill as a "most important psychic factor, " so is also the idealizationof the commonplace the "making believe" that peace and plainness, thatsimple, old-fashioned dress, and seventeenth century forms of speech arespiritual and are serviceable to the believing mind. The power ofidealization is nowhere exhibited as a social force more clearly than ina Quaker community. Professor Carver's word, "make believe, " is mostaccurate. Quakers act with all sincerity the drama of life, usingcostume and artificial speech, and attaching to all conduct peculiarmannerisms; casting over all action a special veil of complacentserenity; all which are parts in their realization of the ideal of life. Their fundamental principle is that the divine spirit dwells and acts inthe heart of every man; not in a chosen few, not in the elect only, butin all hearts. Quaker Hill to this day acts this out, in that everyperson in the community is known, thought upon, reckoned and estimatedby every other. Towns on either side have a neglected population area, but Quaker Hill has none. Pawling in its other neighborhoods hasforgotten roads, despised cabins, in which dwell persons for whom nobodycares, drunkards, ill-doers, whom others forget and ignore. Quaker Hillignores no one. There are, indeed, rich and poor, but the former employthe latter, know their state, enjoy their peculiarities, relish theirhumor. It has apparently always been so. Elsewhere I have described themeasures taken by popular subscription to replace the losses suffered bythe humbler members of the community, in the tools of life (see ChapterVII). It need not be said that the poorer members bear the rich in mind. Every person resident on the Hill has come to partake in this sense ofthe community, this practice of new Quakerism. No one is out of sightand yet there is no dream of equality behind this communal sense. It isas far from a communistic, as from a charitable state of mind. It is theresult of years of belief in common men and common things. 

This "make believe" that commonplace things are the spiritual things wasa corollary of George Fox's life as much as of his doctrine. He opposedpomp and ritual, salaried priests, ordinations and consecrations; hedisbelieved in "the imposition of hands. " His followers therefore wentso far as to find in plainness a new sanctity. They adapted at once the"plain garb" of the period of William Penn and Robert Barclay, and thegenerations of men who followed felt themselves morally bettered by adrab coat and breeches, a white neck-cloth, and a broad-brimmed brownhat; the women by dresses of simple lines, low tones of color, bonnetsof peculiar shape, shielding the eyes on either side. 

Of course in time this exceptional garb by its uniqueness defeated thevery desire George Fox had for "plainness. " It was not commonplace butextraordinary. Roby Osborn's garb is thus described by her biographer:"Her wedding gown was a thick, lustreless silk, of a delightfulyellowish olive, her bonnet white. Beneath it her dark hair was smoothlybanded, and from its demure shelter her eyes looked gravely out. Hervest was a fine tawny brown, of a sprigged pattern, both gown and vestas artistically harmonious as the product of an Eastern loom. Pieces ofboth were sewn into a patchwork quilt, now a family heirloom. "[10]

For more than a century now "plainness in dress" has been extravagancein dress. A proper Quaker hat for man or woman costs twice or thricewhat plain people of the same station in life would pay. But be it so. In its day, which is now gone--for only one person now wears "plaindress" on Quaker Hill--it was a true expression of the "make believe" ofsanctity in plainness. The quiet colors, the prescribed unworldlinessinvolved a daily discipline, and infused into the wearer an emotionalexperience which mere economy and real commonness would never socontinuously have effected. 

The "plain speech" has the same effect. It is part of the same dramaticcelebration of an ideal. It is a use of quaint and antique forms, notgrammatically correct nor scriptural, in which "thee" takes the place of"thou" and you in the singular, both in the nominative and objectivecases. It is not used with the forms of the verb of solemn style, butwith common forms, as "thee has" instead of "thou hast. " Another elementof the "plain speech" is the use of such terms as "farewell" for "goodday"--which is declared to be untruthful on bad days! The Quakers alsoaddress one another by their first names, and the old-fashioned Friendsaddressed everybody so, refusing to use such titles as "Mr. , " "Mrs. , " or"Miss. "

Of late years the younger members of the Meeting, while maintainingtheir standing there, have used with persons not in the Meeting theordinary forms of speech, as they have refused to assume the Quakerplain garb. With fellow-Quakers and with members of their own familiesthey say "thee. "

Before the period of the mixed community this power of idealization, of"making believe, " had wrought its greatest effects, but it still hasfull course and power without the highest direction. The minds of theresidents of the Hill are very suggestible; but the persons who have thepower to implant the suggestion are no longer inspired as of old, with asublime and unearthly ideal. They are only animated with an economicone. But the result is the same. It is social, rather than religious. Itwas one thing for the early Friends to cement together a communitythrough the feeling that in every man was the Spirit of God. A wonderfulappetite was that for the assimilation of new members coming into thecommunity. It was a doctrine that made all the children birthrightmembers of the Meeting and so of the community. 

But in our later time, between 1895 and 1905, this power of "makingbelieve" had suffered the strain of a division of the meeting. It washarder to believe that the Spirit of God was in all men, when half thecommunity was set off as "unorthodox. " It had suffered the strain ofseeing the wide social difference caused by money. Yet it bravely playedthe game. Children are not more adapt at "making believe" than werethese old Friends. They deceived even themselves; and their "pretending"assimilated into the communal life every newcomer. For it createdunderneath all differences a sense of oneness; it kept alive, in alldivisions, many of the operations of unity. It compelled strangers anddoctrinal enemies to "make believe" to be friends. 

I find it difficult to describe this elusive force of the communalspirit in the place, just as the communal character of the place isitself evanescent, while always powerful. I know clearly only this, thatit proceeded, and still on Quaker Hill proceeds from the old religiousinheritance, and from the present religious character of the place; thatit tends directly to the creation of the community of all men, of alldifferent groups, and that it is ready at hand at all time, to becalled to the assistance of anyone who knows how to appeal to thatcommunal unity; and that it is a power of idealization, meaning by that"a power of making believe. " In this power, I recognize this communityas being more expert and better versed than any I have ever known. 

The dramatic expression of an ideal has had great social power. Upon thecasual observer or visitor it has wrought with the effect of a charm toimpress upon them in a subtle way the ideal of Quakerism. Expressed inwords, it would have no interest: acted out so quaintly, it awakensadmiration, interest, and imitation, not of the forms, but always insome degree of the substance of the Quaker ideal. 

Thus the Quaker ideal has given authority to the Friends, especially tothe older and more conservative of them; has furnished a subtlemachinery for assimilating new members into the community and thus hasbeen an organizing power. 

[10] "Richard Osborn--a Reminiscence, " by Margaret B. Monahan;Quaker Hill Series, 1903. 

CHAPTER VII. 

MORALS OF THE QUAKER COMMUNITY. 

From the first the members found themselves subjected to a clear, simplestandard of morals. Its dominion was unbroken for one hundred years, andcame to an end with the Division of the Meeting; though that event was aresult as much as a cause of its termination. For one hundred years alocal ethical code prevailed. While they lived apart the Quakers intheir community life rejoiced in the unbroken sway of a communal code ofmorals, the obedience to which made for survival and economic success. When, with better roads to Poughkeepsie and to Fredericksburgh, newcomers began to invade the community; when in 1849 the railroad cameto the neighborhood, immersing the Quakers in the world economy, theQuaker code was insufficient, retarded rather than assisted survival, and rather forbade than encouraged success. It therefore lost its force. Only in a few individuals has it survived. 

The residents of the Hill, from their earliest settlement in 1728 to thetime of the Division in 1828, knew no other government than that of theMeeting. They accepted no other authority, hoped for public good throughno other agency, even read no other literature, than that of the QuakerMonthly Meeting of the Oblong. The religious Meeting House was also theCity Hall, State House, and Legislature for the patriotism, as it wasthe focus of the worship and doctrinal activity of this population. Thiscannot be stated too strongly, for there was no limit to its effect. Itexplains many things otherwise diverse and unexplained. 

During all the periods of war the Quakers showed their separateness byrefusing to pay taxes, lest they contribute to the support of armies. Inthe Revolution, the Meeting exercised unflinching discipline, for thepurpose of keeping members out of the patriot armies, and punished withequal vigor those who paid for the privilege of exemption from militaryduty and those who enlisted in the ranks. In every act of the disciplineof the Quaker Community appears the purpose of the Meeting, namely, tokeep its members to itself and away from all other moral and spiritualcontrol. This will appear in definite illustrations below. 

The standard of morals which the Meeting thus upheld with jealous carewas a simple one, and logically derived from the distinctive doctrine ofthe Society of Friends. That the Spirit of God dwells in every man wastheir belief, [11] and from 1650, when Fox was called "a Quaker" beforeJustice Bennett at Derby, England, to the Division in 1830, they appliedthis doctrine in practical, rather than in metaphysical ways. They werea moral, rather than a theological people. It will appear in thischapter that only when the moral grip of the Meeting was broken in adivision did doctrinal questions come to discussion on the Hill. 

The moral bearing of the one cardinal doctrine of Quakerism is wellexpressed in the following quotation from a Friend qualified to speakwith authority:

"The Friends have been consistent in all their peculiarities with onecentral principle, the presence and inspiration of the Divine Spirit inthe human soul. This has been the reason for their opposition toslavery. They felt, You cannot hold in slavery GOD! And God is in thisblack man's life, therefore you cannot enslave God in him. So you mustnot inflict capital punishment upon this man in whom is God. 

"The same argument dignified woman, who was made the equal of man. Thesame argument applies to the impossibility of war. You cannot think ofGod fighting against God. The Quaker had no sentimental idea ofsuffering; but he believed that you cannot take life, in which is God. 

"The same argument applied to weights and measures; the Quakers earlydemanded that they be officially sealed. So they believed in only onestandard of truth, rather than one for conversation and one for a courtof justice. No oaths were necessary for those who spoke for God all thetime. "[12]

In this belief one sees the principle on which were selected the reformsin which the Quaker Preacher was interested. "He appears to have had ... His mind strongly influenced to an active protest against the evils ofslavery, war, capital punishment and intemperance. "[13] Each of thesereforms was inspired by reverence for human life, which was thought tobe desecrated or abused. 

This simple code expressed itself in abstinence from practices believedto defile the body. Members of the Meeting early adopted a strict ruleagainst the use of intoxicating liquors. It is said of the ancestors ofRichard Osborn that: "Of these six generations not a man has ever beenknown to use spirituous liquors, or tobacco, to indulge in profanity, orto be guilty of a dishonest action. "[14]

A sense of personal degradation underlay their opposition to povertyamong members. There is record of an order of the Meeting, in 1775, forthe purchase of a cow "to loan to Joseph ----. " The practice thus earlyobserved has since then been unbroken. The member of the community whocomes to want is at this day taken care of by popular subscription. Through the early century the Meeting accomplished this end, sometimesby formal, sometimes by informal methods. In the later years of thenineteenth century it was accomplished by special funds to whicheverybody gave. Thus simply was poverty forestalled. The family assistedsoon came to self-support again. No debt was incurred, and no obligationremained to be discharged; but every member of the Meeting and of thecommunity felt obliged to give and was glad to give to this anti-povertyfund. The basis of it seems to have been respect for human embodimentsof the Divine Spirit. 

This ideal of personality, divinely indwelt, created a sense of personalduty, even in opposition to all men. In the years of anti-slaveryagitation David Irish and his sister "made their protest against slaveryby abstaining as far as possible from slave-made products; and togetherthey made maple, to take the place of cane sugar, and used nothing butlinen and woolen clothing (largely homespun). "[15] This later Quaker, possessed of the spirit of the community of his fathers, shows his innerconflict with the ideals of a competitive age in the expression "so faras possible. " It was not as practicable in 1855 to "abstain fromslave-made products, " as it would have been in the year 1755. 

The hospitality of the neighborhood expressed this simple code. It wasthe custom to entertain the traveler in any house to which he mightcome. It would have been wrong to exclude him; he was welcomed with adignified and formal respect by these old Friends, because entertainmentof guests in those days was a vital reality, as well as a religiouspractice. These settlers in the wild forests believed that in everywayfarer was a divine voice, a possible message from heaven. They alsotreated every traveler as a possible object of their "preachments, " andspared not to "testify" to him of their peculiar beliefs and "leadings. "It was the Friends' method of propagating their gospel to send men andwomen on journeys, without pay, to distant states and provinces. Thisreligious touring was not peculiar to them, but it was made by them anofficial agency of great power in evangelizing the Colonies. 

As an itinerant Friend, Woolman, the anti-slavery apostle, came to theHill in 176-. So Paul Osborn joined himself to a party of Friends"travelling on truth's account, " and with them visited the Carolinas, inthe years before the Revolution. The same pioneer left in his willdirections for the entertainment of such travellers upon his estateforever. [16]

This religious itinerating was a part of the economic life of those daysas well; for the Friends never separated the one from the other. Wherever they went they "testified, " and to every place they came withshrewd appreciation of its value as a place of settlement. Says JamesWood: "Each Quaker home as it was settled became a resting-place forthose who followed, for it was a cardinal principle of Quakerhospitality to keep open house for all fellow-members, under allcircumstances. "[17]

The development of the hospitality that was a part of the religion ofthe Quakers would be itself a sufficient study. It has furnished some ofthe most interesting chapters of the history of the Hill. It is nowcompletely transformed, through the pressure of competitive economiclife; and, with undiminished activities, has become a means of revenuein "the keeping of boarders. " Seven of the old Quaker homes, in theperiod of the Mixed Community, took on the aspect of small hotels. Forthis business the Quakers have a preparation in their history andtraditions. They have an inbred genius for hospitality. They have also athrift and capacity for "management" which have made their effortssuccessful. One is impressed in their houses by a union of abundancewith economy, impossible to imitate. 

Like other American pioneer neighborhoods, of a religious type, theQuaker community at Oblong had a history in the matter of sexualmorality. The relations of the sexes offered to the Friends a field inwhich their favorite doctrine of the indwelling divine spirit producedmoral harvests. The records of Oblong Meeting are filled with cases ofmoral discipline. There is scarcely a meeting in whose minutes some caseis not mentioned, either its initial, intermediate or final stages. Nofamily was exempt from this experience. The best families furnished theculprits as often as they supplied the committees to investigate and tocondemn. 

The regular method of procedure in marriage will best exhibit the moralstandards of the time. When a couple would marry, they indicated to theMeeting their intention; and a committee was at once appointed toinvestigate their "clearness. " That is, these two must be free of otherengagements, and must be free of debt or other incumbrance of such sortas would render marriage impossible or unadvisable. At the next monthlymeeting the report of the committee advanced the case one stage; and ifthey were found "clear of all others, " another committee was appointed"to see that the marriage was orderly performed. "

The parties on the day set appeared before the Meeting, [18] and in itsregular course, stood up and said the words of mutual agreement whichmade them man and wife. A certificate was used, and to it the guestssigned their names. But no minister had official part in the ceremony. It was their belief, to which they adhered with logical strictness, thatthe divine spirit in each of the parties to a marriage made it sacred, and that in marrying they spoke the will of the Spirit. 

Entire continence was expected of every unmarried person, and thestrictest marital faithfulness of man and wife, because of thesacredness of personal life. But in a pioneer society, through thoserough early decades, when for long times war was disturbing the serenityof social life, the conduct of men and women, not mindful of propriety, was determined by the strong, masterful passions of an out of doorpeople. Besides, the government of the Meeting was contrary to thegeneral opinion of the countryside, and the Meeting House members wereimmersed in a population whose standards were looser, as well assanctioned by authorities not recognized by the Meeting. The result wasthat in the first century of the Hill, 1728-1828, there were manyinstances of sexual immorality, many accusations of married personsuntrue to their vows, and a resulting attention of the whole communityto this theme which we do not know to-day. Frankness of discussion ofthese matters prevailed. The punishments inflicted, the publicconfessions demanded, the condemnation of specific and detailed offencesread from the steps of the Meeting Houses, were all as far from presentday approval as the offences themselves from modern experience. Thewriter is sure that, comparing the records of the Quaker Community withhis own knowledge of the annals of the Mixed Community, there were moreoffences of this kind considered by the Monthly Meeting of Oblong in anyone year, 1728-1828, than were publicly known in a population of thesame extent in the ten years 1890-1900. The commonest of these offenceswere simple cases of illicit relations between unmarried persons, orbetween persons, one of whom was married; the offence often beingassociated in the minds of the accusers with "going to frollicks. " Inthese, as in all cases, the Meeting received the complaint and appointeda committee to investigate and to labor with the accused. On receivingits report, if guilt was evidenced, the Meeting pressed the matter, often increasing the size of the committee. It always demanded anexpression of repentance, and the restoration of right conduct, withoutwhich no satisfaction was to be had. If the accused persons, being foundguilty, did not repent, they were in the end "disowned. " The disownmentby the Meeting was a serious penalty. It diminished a man's businessopportunities, it shut the door of social life to him, and iteffectually forbade his marriage within the Meeting. 

Its power is shown in a number of cases recorded in the minutes, inwhich the ban of the Meeting had been laid upon some one, who wascompelled later to come to the Meeting, make a tardy acknowledgement, and be restored, before he could proceed freely in some of the communalactivities controlled by the Meeting. Often the committee appointed bythe Meeting reported that they were not satisfied with the repentanceoffered, seeing in it evidently more of policy than penitence. Usuallythey received, in later visitations of the accused, sufficient tokensof submission, and the Meeting was satisfied; but not always. 

The most curious instance of the working out of this control exercisedby the Meeting, especially over the sexual relations, is in the marriageof Joseph ---- with Elizabeth ----. The first act in the little dramawas the formal written statement of Joseph that he was sorry for "havingbeen familiar with his wife before his marriage to her. " The MonthlyMeeting appointed a committee, as usual, after making record of this"acknowledgment. " After a month the committee reported that they hadvisited Joseph, and found his repentance sincere; and another committeewas appointed to draw up a testimony against his former misconduct, towhich Joseph was required to subscribe; and in a later month to hear itread from the steps of the Preparative Meeting in the neighborhood wherehe lived--or perhaps in that in which the offence was best known. Afterthis had all been done, with patient detail, and reported and recorded, a further month elapsed, and then announcement was made at the Meetingof the intention of Joseph and Elizabeth to marry. The reader isastonished, thinking that Joseph has already evidenced his loyalty tohis wife. A closer re-reading of the stages of the incident shows thatthe wife mentioned in the original offence was now dead; but that theoffence was not dead. Joseph had to be restored to the Meeting before hecould marry Elizabeth, who was very evidently a devoted member. To winhis new wife, he had to make acknowledgment of the offence whichpreceded his former marriage. 

This incident illustrates the whole attitude of that community towardthese moralities. They were thought to be defilements of the body, thetemple of God. No change of outward condition could eliminate theoffence, which must be wiped out by repentance, public acknowledgmentand formal restoration. 

It is evident from the foregoing that the Meeting maintained controlover the community, at least of its own members, by possessing aneffective power to approve or to disapprove of the economic and themarital condition of each individual. 

The code of morals practiced in this community required strict businesshonesty. The Quaker has moral discretion in economic affairs. He"expects to get what he pays for, and he expects to give what he hasagreed. " The honesty of "stroke-measure, " by which bushels are toppedoff, the faithful performance of contracts and payment of debts wereinculcated by the Meeting and enforced by its discipline. 

This chapter may fitly close with a statement of the anathema ofQuakerism, pronounced many times in a year, during the century. Theoffence selected shall be a moral one:

"Whereas, Jonathan Osgood hath had a right of membership among us, thepeople called Quakers, but not taking heed to the dictates of truth, hath so far deviated from the good order established among Friends as toneglect attendance of our religious meetings for worship and discipline, to deviate from the plain scripture language, and to refuse to settlewith his creditors, and pay his just debts; and hath shut himself upconcealed from the civil authorities, therefore for the clearing oftruth and our Religious Society we do testify against his misconduct, and disown him, the said Jonathan Osgood, from being any longer a memberof our Society, until he shall from a true sight and sense of hismisconduct condemn the same to the satisfaction of the Meeting. Whichthat he may is our desire for him. Signed, in and on behalf of PurchaseMonthly Meeting this th day of the th month. "

The above wording except the name is taken from the minutes of PurchaseMeeting; and some of the offences mentioned in a few pages of thoseminutes, for which men were disowned, or for acknowledgment pardonedand restored, are the following: "deviating from plainness of speech andapparel"--"not keeping to the plain scripture language;" "going toFrollicks, " "going to places of amusement, " "attending a horserace;""frequenting a tavern, being frequently intoxicated with strong liquor;""placing his son out apprentice with one not of our Society;" "leavinghis habitation in a manner disagreeable to his friends;" "to use profanelanguage and carry a pistol, in an unbecoming manner;" "bearing arms;""to challenge a person to fight;" "to marry with a first cousin;" "tokeep company with a young woman not of our Society on account ofmarriage;" "to be married by a magistrate;" "to marry with one not ofour Society before a hireling priest;" "to join principles and practicewith another society of people;" "to be guilty of fornication;" "to beunchaste with her who is now my wife" (the person afterward married bythe accused). Oblong minutes: "to have bought a negro slave, " "to havebought a negro wench and to be familiar with her. "

It was the operation of this code of morals, and of its ecclesiasticalchecks and curbs, that made the Quaker Hill man and the Quaker Hillsentiment what they are. And having done its work this code at the lasttended to weaken the Meeting, as it had strengthened the publicconscience. In talking recently with a sweet old lady past eighty, Iasked her, "Did you ever hear anyone disowned in meeting?" "No, " shenever had, and "doubted if there had been many. " Later, her daughtersaid, "Why, Grandmother, you married out of meeting yourself!" WhereuponI asked again, "Well, what did they do with you then?" "Oh, " shereplied, not at all embarrassed, "they turned me out!"

"But what was the outcome of it all?" asks James Wood, in the closingsentences of his monograph, "The Purchase Meeting. " He continues: "As achurch the Quakers here missed their great opportunity. As settlerscame among them in increasing numbers, the Friends became solicitous topreserve the strictest moral observance among their members. Theywithdrew from contact and association with the world about them andconfined their religious influence and effort to themselves. Thestrictest watch was maintained over the deportment of old and young. Members were dismissed for comparatively slight offences. Immigrationfurther reduced their numbers. Hypercriticism produced disagreementsamong themselves. Finally, doctrinal differences arose which resulted ina disastrous separation into two bodies in 1828. "

[11] Francis B. Gummere of Haverford college says of GeorgeFox, the founder of the Society of Friends: "The central point of hisdoctrine is the direct responsibility of each soul to God, withoutmediation of priest or form, because of the presence of the Holy Spiritin the heart of every human being. " Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia, 1894. 

The following is authoritative for the Society: "We believe in noprinciple of life, light or holiness, but the influence of the HolySpirit of God, bestowed on mankind, in various measures and degrees, through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is the capacity to receive thisblessed influence, which, in an especial manner, gives man pre-eminenceabove the beasts that perish; which distinguishes him, in every nationand in every clime, as an object of the redeeming love of God; as abeing not only intelligent but responsible;... "--"A Declaration of Someof the Fundamental Doctrines of Christian Truth, as held by theReligious Society of Friends. "

[12] Mr. James Wood, in an address at Quaker Hill Conference, 1907. 

[13] "David Irish, A Memoir, " by Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer. 

[14] "Richard Osborn, a Reminiscence, " by Margaret B. Monahan. 

[15] "David Irish, A Memoir, " by Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer. 

[16] To "friends travelling on truth's account" the doors ofthe old house always swung wide. Paul Osborn kept open house for "hisfriends, the people called Quakers, " during his lifetime, and his willprovides in the most minute and careful manner for his wife "the betterto qualifye her to keep a house of entertainment for friends. " ... The"littel meadow in lot 29" he gave to Isaac Osborn, that "he shall keepwell all horses of friends my wife shall send him;" and should Isaac"neglect the injunctions herein enjoined, " and cease to keep such houseof entertainment for friends then his right to certain legacies "shalldescend and revolve to them, him or her that shall truly fulfill them. "All his lands in the latter case Paul gives to the "Yearly Meeting forFriends, the people called Quakers, of Philadelphia. "--"Richard Osborn, a Reminiscence, " by Margaret B. Monahan. 

[17] "The Bi-Centennial of the New York Yearly Meeting, AnHistorical Sketch, " by James Wood, 1895. 

[18] "It was Wednesday, the day of the regular mid-weekmeeting, and the house was crowded. The young people took their placesupon the facing seats, and the meeting began. Daniel Haviland wasminister and he spoke at length. Then, after a short pause, RichardOsborn and Roby Hoag arose, and clasping hands, spoke alternately thesolemn sentences of the Friends' marriage ceremony, which have unitedthem for sixty years. Then was brought forth the marriage certificate, fairly engrossed in the bridegroom's own hand, and many names of thosepresent were affixed, after which it was read aloud. This being done, and kindly greetings offered, Richard and Roby Osborn drove back totheir home. The wedding was well furnished with guests, and four fatturkeys graced the board that day. "--"Richard Osborn, a Reminiscence, "by Margaret B. Monahan. Quaker Hill Series. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE TOLERATION OF HOSTILE FORCES. 

Quaker Hill has been always a place of peace. The earliest settlers cameto make an asylum for the propagation of the principles of peace. I havespoken elsewhere of their consistent belief and practice of thisprinciple. 

The community always acted promptly in response to the known injury ofits members. The Quakers have a "Meeting of Sufferings, " at which arerelated and recorded the persecutions from which they suffer. Thiscommunity, which for one hundred years was Quaker, has always beenprompt to act "solidly and judiciously" in support of the injured. Anillustration is the riot in opposition to Surgeon Fallon, who inJanuary, 1779, was left here with convalescent soldiers in the MeetingHouse. It is very interesting as showing the length to which men will goin the interest of peace, even to the use of violence. It illustratesalso the fact that kindness to the sick and wounded, simply because theyare helpless and needy, is modern, a humanitarian not a dogmaticdevelopment. 

To superior power the Quakers of this place have always submitted. Theirforefathers were loyalists in England, and they in America, till farinto the Revolution. But see the resolutions passed in April, 1778:

"The answering of the 14th Query Respecting the Defrauding of the Kingof his dues is omitted by reason of the Difficulty of the timestherefore this meeting desires the Quarterly meeting to Consider whetherit would not be well to omit the answering that part of the Query infuture until the way may appear more Clear. " This action was taken bythe meeting five months before the coming of Washington to the Hill, immediately after the heroic winter of Valley Forge and just before theBritish retreated from Philadelphia. An official body which could speakof dues to the king at that time, after their country had been separatedfrom him for three years, surely represented a community in which thegreat majority were Loyalists, and the disorderly and violent wereTories. 

But the non-resistant character of the neighborhood, perched between theConnecticut Yankees, who took ardent interest in the Revolution, and theaggressive settlements of Pawling, Fredericksburgh and Beekman, renderedthe Hill at times an asylum, strange to say, of the most adventurousforces. Whenever in Colonial days an adventurer or soldier sought apeaceful region in which to recruit his forces, he thought upon QuakerHill; and in four memorable instances used the Hill as a place of saferefuge. There no one would by force resist his enjoyment of a time forrecruiting. 

The first instance of this is the so-called "Anti-Rent War, " which in1766 excited the inhabitants of Dutchess and Columbia Counties. Itssources were in the land grants made by the Crown, and in theindependent character of the settlers in this state. The series ofdisturbances so caused continued until well into the years of thenineteenth century. They concern the local history only in one year, 1766. 

The Anti-Rent War of 1766 is a forgotten event. But in that time itaroused the Indians and the white settlers to revolt. Bodies of armedmen assembled, British troopers marched from Poughkeepsie to QuakerHill, to seize a leader of rebellion; and at the time of his trial atPoughkeepsie in August, 1766, a company of regulars with threefield-pieces was brought up from New York. [19]

The prime cause of this insurrection was the granting of the land ingreat areas at the beginning of the century to favored proprietors, sothat the actual settlers could not become owners but only tenants. Fragments of such great estates remain in the hands of certain familiestill our time. The ownership of Hammersley Lake by the family of thatname is an example. The exercise of authority by these monopolists ofnatural opportunities drove the actual tillers of the soil, who hadgiven it its value, to desperation. I have shown that in 1740 no landowners were enrolled on Quaker Hill, and that the list of its mostrepresentative citizens in 1755 contained few landowners. [20] A furthercause of this conflict may have been that, in the year of the settlementof the boundaries of the Oblong it was granted to one company by theBritish Crown, and to another by the Colony of New York. This broughtthe title of all the lands on the Oblong into dispute. Moreover, boundaries were carelessly indicated and loosely described, a pile ofstones or a conspicuous tree serving for a landmark. All this workedgreat confusion, for the settlement of which in a crude community courtswere ineffective. 

Finally the popular discontent broke out to the north in armed refusalof settlers to pay the rents exacted. The movement spread from Dutchessto Columbia County. William Prendergast, who is said to have lived in ahouse standing on the ground now part of the golf links in Pawling, wasthe leader of the insurgents in this county. He assembled a band onQuaker Hill so formidable that the grenadiers at Poughkeepsie waited forreinforcements of two hundred troopers and two field pieces from NewYork before proceeding against him. The sight of the red coats wasenough. Prendergast surrendered. But so great was the local excitementthat, to forestall an attempt to rescue, he was taken a prisoner to NewYork. In July he was brought back for trial; and on the same boat withthe King's counsel, judges, lawyers and prisoner came a company ofsoldiers to put down the continued disturbance in Columbia County. [21]

The trial occurred the first fortnight of August. Prendergast wasassisted in his defense by his wife, who made a strong impression on thejury, proving that her husband, before the acts of which he was accused, was "esteemed a sober, honest and industrious farmer, much beloved byhis neighbors, but stirred up to act as he did by one Munro, who isabsconded. " So ardent was this woman advocate that the State's attorneyforgot himself and moved that she be excluded from the court room. Themotion was denied, and the mover of it emphatically rebuked. But therewas not lacking proof of the fact of treason, and Prendergast wasconvicted and sentenced to be hanged in six weeks. Then this valiantwoman's energy and perseverance rose to their highest. She set off foran audience with the Governor, Sir Henry Moore, Bart. , and returnedabout the first of September with a reprieve. Just in time she arrived, for a company of fifty mounted men had ridden the whole length of thecounty to rescue her husband from the jail. She convinced them of thefolly of such action as they proposed, and sent them home, while sheturned to the task of obtaining a pardon from the King. Here, too, shewas successful; for, six months later, George III, who required sixyears to be subdued by a Washington, released her husband. They arrivedhome amid great popular rejoicings. 

William Prendergast and Mehitabel Wing, whose descendants settled laterabout Chautauqua Lake, New York, were bound to the Quaker Community byties of marriage and of trade. William was not, so far as I can learn, amember of the Meeting; but Mehitabel was a daughter of Jedidiah Wing, whose family was devoted to the Society from 1744 until the "layingdown" of the Meeting in 1885. William Prendergast was, however, a memberof the community. His name heads an account in the ledgers of theMerritt store, in 1771 and 1772, and his purchases indicate that he wasa substantial farmer whose trading center was Quaker Hill. [22]Prendergast was an Irishman. 

Before the Revolution he with his family and possessions, a caravan ofseventeen vehicles and thirty horses, emigrated westward, going as farsouth as Kentucky, then north through Ohio and New York. A part of thefamily company proceeded to Canada. His son James settled, with otherPrendergasts, on Chautauqua Lake, and became the founder of Jamestown, where his family, now extinct there, has given the city a library. WhenWilliam Prendergast and Mehitabel Wing, his resolute wife, died, is notknown. None of that name is later found on or near Quaker Hill. 

The motive of their hegira appears to have been chagrin and a sense ofhumiliation at the sentence of death pronounced upon the head of thefamily. In the Prendergast Library at Jamestown is a book containingfamily histories, which came from the Prendergast private library. Fromthis book two pages had been cleanly cut away. The Librarians setthemselves to replace the lost material, and after patient efforts inmany quarters, discovered another copy, and had typewritten pages madeand pasted in. Upon the missing pages, thus replaced after theextinction of James Prendergast's family, was found the account ofWilliam Prendergast's sentence to be hanged. His descendants, had theylived longer, might have been more proud than ashamed of his rebellionagainst injustice. 

The Quakers, because they would passively tolerate an intrusion, wereforced to harbor another rendezvous of turbulent men. It is said thatEnoch Crosby, the famous spy of the Revolution, who is believed tohave been Cooper's model for the hero of the novel, "The Spy, " came toQuaker Hill during the Revolution, in pursuance of a plan he was at thattime following, and got together a band of Tory volunteers, who wereplanning to join the British army; and delivered them to the Continentalauthorities, as prisoners. In this he was assisted by Col. Moorehouse, who kept a tavern on a site in South Dover, opposite the brick housewhich now stands one-half mile south of the Methodist Church. 

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF OBLONG MEETING HOUSE

On the "facing seats" are: OLIVE HOAG, ROBY OSBORN, BETSY POST, RICHARDOSBORN, JOHN L. WORDEN]

I have spoken above of the sullen loyalty of the Quakers to the BritishCrown during the Revolution. It may have been in part owing to theirloyalty that their neighborhood became more congenial for the Tories whoduring that period harried the country-side. The Quakers were Tories, and are so called in the letters of the period; but the word "Tories"remains in the speech of Quaker Hill as a name of opprobrium. Itdescribes a species of guerrillas who infested parts of New York andConnecticut. 

The "Tories" of the Revolutionary days furnish the substance of thestories of violence that are told about the fireside to Quaker Hill boysand girls. It is difficult, however, to persuade those who have heardthese tales to relate them. Those who know them best are the very oneswho cannot recall them in systematic or orderly form. I mention only onemore of the free lances of the time. The chiefest of all bandit-leadersof those turbulent times was Waite Vaughn. It is related that thisfellow was the head of a band of Tories, which means locally the samethat the term "Cowboys" or "Skinners" means in the history ofWestchester County. The latter were lawless bands who infested theregions in which the armies made civil life insecure, and subsisted bystealing cattle, plundering houses, robbing and often murderingcitizens. "They seemed, " says a writer, "like the savages to enjoy thesight of the sufferings they inflicted. Oftentimes they left theirwretched victims from whom they had plundered their all, hung up bytheir arms, and sometimes by their thumbs, on barndoors, enduring theagony of wounds that had been inflicted to wrest from them theirproperty. These miserable beings were frequently relieved by theAmerican patrol. "[23] Waite Vaughn lived in Connecticut in the part ofNew Fairfield known as Vaughn's Neck. Under the house, recentlydemolished, in which "Dr. Vaughn, " his brother, is said to have livedduring the Revolution, was found rotted linen below the cellar floor. Behind the great heap of the chimney also was found a secret cellar, foryears forgotten, in which, among other rubbish of no significance, aresaid to have been found counterfeit coins of the Revolutionary periodand other evidences of outlaw practices in that time. [24]

Vaughn used to ride at night with his troop to Quaker Hill, throughConnecticut neighborhoods, which knew the sound of his passing. ThePepper family still relate the tradition of his riding up "Stony Hill, "past the point where stands Coburn Meeting House, in the night, whilethey and their neighbors stayed discreetly indoors. This rendezvous wasa place in the woods on Irish land, about half way between Sites 96 and120, now known as "The Robber Rocks. " Here the Vaughns are said to haveconcealed booty at times, and from this point they made forages uponfarmhouses in the richest neighborhoods of this vicinity. Probably theyspared the Quakers. I will speak later of the fact that Quakers haveways of their own for protecting themselves against intruders. Moreover, their men were not gone to the war. 

The record of these years, on the pages of the clerk's minute-book, area disappointment. One searches in vain for even the slightest trace ofthe presence in the Meeting House of the troops. There is no record ofthe presence in the Meeting House of the "Tories" or guerrillas of theRevolution; and not a word about the makers of the rifle-ports in thegables of this building which the present writer discovered there, unless it be the unruffled and serene utterance, under date of 8thMonth, 9th, 1781, the very period at which the "Tories" must have beenat their worst: "Samuel Hoag is appointed to take care of the MeetingHouse, and to keep the door locked and windows fastened, and to nail upthe hole that goes up into the Garratt. " The "Tories" robbed the storeon Site 28. They had hidden for that purpose in the loft of the MeetingHouse and were discovered by some young Quakers who were skylarking inthe Meeting House under pretense of cleaning it. The story is that oneof the young men, being dared--of course by a maiden--to open thetrap-door into the garret, and look for the Tories, found them hidingthere. The bandits, being discovered, tumbled down the hole from thegarret, and compelled their discoverers to go with them to the store;and proceeded at once to plunder it, relying no doubt on thenon-resistant character of the people of the Hill. They stacked theirarms at the door and went about their business in a thorough manner. Butthere was that in the blood of some Quakers there that could not containitself within the bounds of non-resistance, and one of them, BenjaminFerris, cried out, "Seize the rascals. " In the scrimmage that resultedfrom the excitement of this remark, the leader of the Tories wasrecognized by the young lady who had by her challenge to the young mandiscovered them, and being taunted by her was so incensed that hestabbed her. It is only said in closing the story that the blood of boththe fair and adventurous young Quakeress whose abounding spirit broughton all the trouble, and that of the leader of the "Tories, " flows in theveins, of some who live on the Hill in the twentieth century. 

Samuel Towner, a relative of Vaughn, resident in the region ofFredericksburgh (now Patterson), returning from a trip, once foundVaughn at his home, and urged him at once to leave, as his propertywould be confiscated, if Vaughn's presence there were tolerated. 

Vaughn was once pursued by farmers near Little Rest, and was sighted andsurrounded in a lonely road. He turned upon his pursuers coolly andsaid: "Now, gentlemen, you can arrest me, or kill me, but you must takethe consequences; for I will kill some of you. " Daunted by hisresolution, they stood motionless while he crossed a fence and a field, and disappeared among the trees of a wooded hill. 

Quaker Hill became known as Vaughn's rendezvous, and here he met hisend, I think about 1781. His band had robbed the home of one of thePearce family, then as now resident in the valley where Pawling villagestands. The victim was hung up by his thumbs till life was almostextinct. The next day, Capt. Pearce, of the Revolutionary army, returnedunexpectedly to his home, and set off with armed assistance for theRobber Rocks on Quaker Hill. Near that spot, in the fields east of Site97, on the Wing lands, Vaughn and his men were resting, some pickinghuckleberries, and some playing cards on a flat stone. Pearce gave nowarning, but opened fire at once. Vaughn fell mortally wounded. He wascarried to John Toffey's residence, Site 53, where he soon died. He isburied under the trees outside the "Toffey Burying Ground, " beside thebrook, in the very heart of Quaker Hill, into which he had intrudedbecause in that peaceful neighborhood he had for a time a safe asylum. With his death it is believed that his band dispersed, and theirdepredations ceased. 

A peaceful people like the Quakers must find means of their own toprotect themselves against intruders. No one can live long on QuakerHill without knowing that they have done so. One may brusquely intrudeonce, but he will be a violent man indeed, not to say a dull one, whocontinues to enjoy invading the preserves of the "Friends. " The fourthinstance of a forcible invasion of the Hill was that of Washington'sarmy, which encamped in the vicinity in the fall of 1778, theHeadquarters being in John Kane's house, on a site now within theborders of Pawling Village. See on Map I, "HeadQrs. "

On his arrival, September 19, 1778, Washington, [25] with his bodyguard, was entertained for six days at the home of Reed Ferris, in the Oblong, Site 99, [26] an honored guest, when he moved to the place designated ashis Headquarters on his maps by Erskine. His letters written during hisresidence here are all dated from "Fredericksburgh, " the name at thattime of the western and older part of the town of Patterson. Washington's general officers were quartered in the homes of variousresidents of the neighborhood. One was so entertained by Thomas Taber, at the extreme north end of the Hill. It is natural to suppose thatothers were housed in nearer places. That Lafayette was entertained atthe home of Russell, who lived at Site 25, now the Post-office, isreliably asserted. The brick house standing at that time was torn downby Richard Osborn, who erected the present house. That Washington, withother officers, was entertained at Reed Ferris's home is asserted by thedescendants most interested, and is undoubtedly true. 

The Meeting House was appropriated by the army officers for a hospital, because it was the largest available building. The only official record, says Mr. L. S. Patrick, is that of Washington's order, Oct. 20th, "Nomore sick to be sent to the Hospital at Quaker Hill, without firstinquiring of the Chief Surgeon there whether they can be received, as itis already full. " Arguing from the date of Washington's order above, Oct. 20, and from that of Surgeon Fallon below, this use of thebuilding for a hospital continued three and perhaps five months. Meantime the Friends' Meetings were held in the barn at Site 21, thenthe residence of Paul Osborn. This barn had been the first Meeting Houseerected on the Hill in 1742. It was removed to Site 21 in 1769, when itwas used as a barn till 1884, when it was removed by the presentresident. [27]

There is no mention, even by inference, in the records of Oblong Meetingthat proves this occupation of their building by soldiers. It was notvoluntarily surrendered; other records show that the use of the buildingwas supported by force; its surrender was grudging, not a matter to berecorded in the Meeting. It is characteristic of the Friends that theyignored it. 

This toleration of the Hospital was never sympathetic. A letter of greatinterest to the student of those times was written to the Governor ofthe State of New York, Hon. George Clinton, [28] by Dr. James Fallon, physician in charge of the sick which were left on Quaker Hill, in theMeeting House, after the departure of the Continental army. He could getno one to draw wood for his hospital in the dead of winter, till finally"old Mr. Russell, an excellent and open Whig, tho' a Quaker, " hired hima wagon and ox team. He could buy no milk without paying in Continentalmoney, six for one. He declared that "Old Ferris, the Quaker, pulpiteerof this place, old Russell and his son, old Mr. Chace and his family, and Thomas Worth and his family, are the only Quakers on or about thisHill, the public stands indebted to. " The two pioneers of the Hill, thepreacher and the builder, were patriots as well. He denounces the restas Tories all, the "Meriths, " Akins, Wings, Kellys, Samuel Walker, theschoolmaster, and Samuel Downing, whom he declared a spurious Quaker andagent of the enemy; also the preacher, Lancaster, "the Widow Irish;"and many he called "half-Quakers, " who were probably more zealous, andcertainly more violent for Quaker and Tory principles than the Quakersthemselves. 

The trouble culminated in Dr. Fallon's impressing the wagons of Wing, Kelly and "the widow Irish, " to take fourteen men to Danbury andFishkill to save their lives. The former impress was not resisted; butthe soldiers who took the Irish team had to battle with a mob, headed byAbraham Wing and Benjamin Akin, who used the convalescent soldiersroughly, but could not prevent the seizure. They were not the first mento do violence for the sake of the principle of non-resistance. One cansee, too, that modern Quakerism has taken a gentler tone. 

The small violence done by Abraham Wing and Benjamin Akin, like that ofyoung Ferriss to prevent the robbery of the Merritt store, wasineffective. But the Quaker mode of self-protection was more effectivethan violence. They "froze out" the doctors and their soldiers from theMeeting House, by leaving them alone in the bitter winter, by lettingthem starve. The bitterness of their Toryism, and the zeal of Quakerideals, the ardor of their "make-believe, " carried them too far. Theyforgot mercy for the sake of opposing the cruelty of war. 

Among the soldiers who lay sick in the Meeting House many are said tohave died. They were buried in the grounds of the resident on Site 32, in the easterly portion of the field facing the Meeting House. No stonesmark their place of rest, as none were ever placed in the cemetery ofthe early Quakers in the western part of the same field. Over them boththe horses of persons attending meeting were tethered for many decades. The ploughman and the mower for years traversed the ground. But it isnot forgotten who were buried there. 

Says L. S. Patrick in his attempt to estimate the amount of sicknessand death of soldiers on the hill that winter:[29] "Of the conditionsexisting, the prejudices prevailing, and the probable number in theHospital, Dr. Fallon's letter to Governor Clinton furnishes the onlyaccount known to exist: 'Out of the 100 sick, Providence took but threeof my people off since my arrival. ' On the occasion of the arrival ofCol. Palfrey, the Paymaster General, at Boston from Fredericksburgh, General Gates writes to General Sullivan: 'I am shocked at our poorfellows being still encamped, and falling sick by the hundreds. '

"The death list--out of the oblivion of the past but four names havebeen found--John Morgan, Capt. James Greer's Co. , died at Quaker HillHospital, Oct. 19, 1777(?); Alexander Robert, Capt. George Calhoun'sCo. , 4th Pa. , Nov. 6, 1778; James Tryer, Capt. James Lang's Co. , 5thPa. , Oct. 22, 1778; Peter King, 1st Pa. , enlisted 1777, Quaker HillHospital, N. J. (?) 1778 (no such hospital). 

"Some doubt may exist as to two of these, but as the hospital is named, an error may exist in copying the original record. "

[19] "Dutchess County in Colonial Days, " 1898, and "DutchessCounty, " 1899, papers read before the Dutchess County Society, in theCity of New York, by Hon. Alfred T. Ackert. Also, "History of DutchessCounty, " by James H. Smith. 

[20] See pp. 20 and 21. 

[21] See "New York Mercury, " July 28, 1766, August 18 and 25, 1766, September 15, 1766. See also "Dutchess County, " by Alfred T. Ackert, 1899, p. 5. 

[22] See Appendix B. 

[23] Thacher's "Military Journal of the Revolution. "

[24] The narrative of Vaughn is gleaned from old residents, Almira Briggs Treadwell, Archibald Dodge, Jane Crane, and others. 

[25] "Washington Headquarters at Fredricksburgh, " by L. S. Patrick; Quaker Hill Series, 1907. 

[26] This matter is very fully treated in "Washington'sHeadquarters at Fredericksburgh, " by Lewis S. Patrick. Quaker HillConference Local History Series, XVI. 1907. 

[27] See No. III, Quaker Hill Series, pp. 12, 42, and No. VIII, pp. 16, 17. 

[28] "Letters of Governor George Clinton, " New York StateLibrary. 

[29] "Washington Headquarters at Fredricksburgh, " by L. S. Patrick, 1907. 

PART II. 

The Transition. 

CHAPTER I. 

COMMUNICATION--THE ROADS. 

The roads were originally bridle paths, and to this day many a stretchof road testifies in its steep grade to its use in the days of the packsaddle. No driver of a wheeled vehicle would have selected so abrupt aslope. 

In the early days the roads had a north and south direction. In thePeriod of Transition, with the diversion of commerce to the railroad inPawling, the roads of an east and west direction became the principalroads, though the one great Quaker Hill highway north and south is stillthe avenue of communication on the Hill. 

As the years passed wagons were used; indeed, by the time of theRevolution, in the second generation, they were bearing all thetransportation. The state of the roads is shown, however, by the factthat Daniel Merritt was accustomed to pay, in 1772, £1, or $5, forcarting four barrels of beef to the river; that is, about 1, 000 lbs. Constituted a load. At the present state of the country roads, a QuakerHill employer would expect 2, 000 lbs. To make a load. The state of theroads before the turnpikes were made, that is, before 1800 to 1825, isdescribed by a resident as follows: "The road was so full of stones, large and small, that people of to-day would consider impassable for anempty wagon, to say nothing of drawing a load over it. In the fall ofthe year it is said that toward evening one could hear the hammering ofthe wheels of the wagons on the stones of the road a distance of fouror five miles. "[30]

I cannot learn that Quaker Hill was during the Quaker Period on any mainline of country travel. Marquis De Chastelleux records in his "Travelsin North America, " that he journeyed in 1789 to Moorehouse's Tavern (seeMap I) along the Ten Mile River, two or three miles from the Housatonicto "several handsome houses forming part of the district known as _TheOblong_. The inn I was going to is in the Oblong, but two miles fartheron. It is kept by Col. Moorehouse, for nothing is more common in Americathan to see an inn kept by a colonel ... The most esteemed and mostcreditable citizen. " There was no inn on Quaker Hill and no colonel. TheQuaker aversion to military titles was then as great as to the sale ofrum. The houses referred to by the French traveller were probably thenorthern boundary of the Quaker community, at what is now Webatuck. Icannot find record of any post road coming nearer than this, until inthe 19th century a stage was maintained between Poughkeepsie and NewMilford, by way of Quaker Hill, making the journey every other day, andstopping at John Toffey's store at Site 53. 

The building of turnpikes became, in the years following 1800, a popularform of public spirit. Says Miss Taber: "In fact, turnpikes seemed to bea fad in those days all over the state and probably a necessary one. Thelongest one I learn of in this part of the country was from Cold Springon the Hudson River to New Milford in Connecticut. The turnpike in whichthe people of this neighborhood were most interested was the oneincorporated April 3, 1818, and reads, 'That Albro Akin, John Merritt, Gideon Slocum, Job Crawford, Charles Hurd, William Taber, Joseph Arnold, Egbert Carey, Gabriel L. Vanderburgh, Newel Dodge, Jnrs. , and such otherpersons as shall associate for the purpose of making a good andsufficient turnpike road in Dutchess Co. ' It was named as the Pawlingsand Beekman Turnpike, being a portion of what is known as thePoughkeepsie road passing over the West Mountain, but we do not findthat anything was done until after the act was revived in 1824, whenJoseph C. Seeley, Benoni Pearce, Samuel Allen, Benjamin Barr and GeorgeW. Slocum were associated with them. "

The Pawlings and Beekman Turnpike maintained a tollgate till 1905, whenit was burned down; and the company, which had long discussed itsdiscontinuance, then abandoned its private rights in that excellentstretch of road. The turnpike which crossed Quaker Hill ended at theJephtha Sabin residence, known to the present generation as "the GarryFerris place, " Site 74. The roads of the neighborhood were the same in1778-80 as at the present day, as will be seen from a comparison of MapI, made by Erskine for Washington, and Map 2, which is a copy of the U. S. Survey; except the road from Mizzen-Top Hotel to Hammersley Lake, made after the hotel was erected. The comparison of maps shows also, toone who knows the use of these roads, that they have changed from anorth and south use to an east and west use; the highway on thenorthward slope of the Hill in Dover, and on the southward slope inPatterson, being but little used to-day. The road from the Meeting Houseand cemetery westward, which was once much favored, is now scarcely everused, and being neglected by the authorities, is little more than astony gutter. 

The whole character of the neighborhood was changed by a revolution intransportation. Not turnpikes effected the change, but railroads. Theearly years of the nineteenth century were filled with expectation ofnew modes of travel. Robert Fulton was building his steamboat amid thederision of his contemporaries, and to their amazement steaming up theHudson against the tide. At first canals seemed to country folk thesolution of their problem. They occupied in the dawn of the 19th centurythe place which trolley cars occupy in the minds of promoters to-day. Acanal was planned to run through the Harlem valley, where now Pawlingstands, and Quaker Hill men were among the promoters of it, among themDaniel Akin and Johnathan Akin Taber. 

Presently, however, came the promotion of railroads, and many of thesame men who had favored the canals, entered heartily into the newprojects. The foundation of Albert Akin's fortune was made when, about1830, he began to borrow money of his neighbors and invest in therapidly growing lines of steam-cars in New York State. There were those, however, who foresaw dire things from the new iron highway, and oldresidents tell of "one man who said that whosoever farm that locomotivepassed through would have to give up fatting cattle, as it would beimpossible to keep a steer on the place. "

For many years the railroad came no nearer than Croton Falls. RichardOsborn used to tell the story of one resident of the Hill who boastedthat he could go to New York and return the same day. This he finallyattempted and accomplished by driving with a good pair of horses toCroton Falls in the morning, taking an early train to New York, returning in the evening, and driving home before night. This story, which is well authenticated, proves the good condition of some of theroads before 1849, for the drive to Croton Falls is about twenty miles. Among leading Quaker Hill residents who promoted railroads in the valleywere Jonathan Akin, Daniel D. Akin, J. Akin Taber, John and Albert J. Akin. The two men who were most influential in completing the last linkof the road--from the local viewpoint--were Albert Akin and Hon. JohnKetcham, of Dover, both recently deceased. They supplied cash for thecontinuation of the road from Croton Falls to Dover Plains. To Mr. Akin the promise was made that if he would supply a building for astation the road would place an eating house at the point nearest QuakerHill. There was then no such village or hamlet as Pawling, the localitybeing known as "Goosetown. " Patterson was an old village, west of itspresent business center one mile, and was known as Fredericksburgh. Dover also was a place of distinction in the country-side. Mr. Akin, with several yoke of oxen, hauled a dwelling to the railroad track fromthe site on which Washington's Headquarters stood in 1778; and thus wasinitiated the settlement of the village which is now among the mostthriving on the road. 

[Illustration: A QUAKER GENTLEMAN]

At that time Quaker Hill was the most prosperous community for manymiles around. A description of its industries will be found elsewhere, in Chap. IV, Part I. The coming of the railroad changed the whole aspectof things. The demand for milk to be delivered by farmers at therailroad station every day, and sold the next day in New York, began atonce. It soon became the most profitable occupation for the farmers andthe most profitable freight for the railroad. Eleven years after thefirst train entered Pawling came the war, with inflated prices. Thefarmer found that no use of his land paid him so much cash as the"making of milk, " and thereafter the raising of flax ceased, grain wascultivated less and less, except as it was to be used in the feeding ofcattle, and even the fatting of cattle soon had to yield to the loweredprices occasioned by the importation of beef from western grazing lands. The making of butter and cheese, with the increased cost of labor on thefarms, was abandoned, that the milk might be sold in bulk to the citymiddleman. The time had not come, however, in which farmers or theirlaborers imported condensed milk, or used none. Quaker Hill farmers livedtoo generously and substantially for that; but they ceased, during theCivil War, when milk was bought "at the platform" for six cents a quart, to make butter or cheese. 

Thus the Harlem Railroad transformed Quaker Hill from a community ofdiversified farming, producing, manufacturing, selling, consuming, sufficient unto itself, into a locality of specialized farming. Itsmarket had been Poughkeepsie, twenty-eight miles away, over high hillsand indifferent roads. Its metropolis became New York City, sixty-twomiles away by rail and four to eight miles by wagon road. 

With the railroad's coming the isolated homogeneous community scattered. The sons of the Quakers emigrated. Laborers from Ireland and otherEuropean lands, even negroes from Virginia, took their places. NewYorkers became residents on the Hill, which became the farthest terminusof suburban traffic. The railroad granted commuters' rates to Pawling, and twice as many trains as to any station further out. The populationof the Hill became diversified, while industries became simplified. Inthe first century the people were one, the industries many. In thePeriod of the Mixed Community, in the second century, the people weremany and the industries but one. I speak elsewhere of these elements ofthe mixed community. Suffice it to have traced here the simplifying ofthe economic life of the Hill, by the influence of the railroad, whichmade the neighborhood only one factor in a vaster industrial community, of which New York was the center. When the Meeting House and the Merrittstore were for a century the centers of a homogeneous Quaker community, it was a solid unit, of one type, doing varied things; when Wall Streetand Broadway became the social and industrial centers, a varied people, no less unified, did but one thing. 

[30] "Some Glimpses of the Past, " by Alicia Hopkins Taber. 

CHAPTER II. 

ECONOMIC CHANGES. 

The transition from the mixed or diversified farming of the Quakercommunity to the special and particular farming of the mixed communityis written in the growth of the dairy industry, which in the year 1900was the one industry of the Hill. In 1800 dairy products were onlybeginning to emerge from a place in the list of products of the QuakerHill lands to a single and special place as the only product of salablevalue. While the Hill people constituted a community dependent on itselfand sufficient unto itself, the exceptional fitness of the "heavy claysoil" to the production of milk, butter and cheese did not assertitself, and wheat, rye, flax, apples, potatoes were raised in largequantities and sold; but in the period of opening communication with theworld in general, exactly in proportion as the Hill shared in the growthof commerce, by so much did the dairy activities supplant all otheroccupations. The order of this emergence is a significant commentaryupon the opening of roads and the development of transportation. Thestages are: first, cheese and butter; second, fat cattle; and third, milk. At the end of the Quaker community, when the best roads were ofthe east and west directions, and Poughkeepsie was the market-place, cheese and butter were made for a "money crop, " by the women, whoretained the money for their own use. 

There is a story told in the Taber and Shove families, which prettilyshows the customs in the Quaker century. Anne Taber, wife of ThomasTaber, substantial pioneer at the north end of the Hill, "had a finereputation as a cheese maker. " Being a New England woman, she was of thefew who in Revolutionary days were in sympathy with the Colonies, andshe gave forth that she would present a cheese to the first generalofficer who should visit the neighborhood. "One day, being summoned tothe door, " writes one of her descendants, "she was greatly surprised tofind a servant of General Washington, with a note from him claiming, under conditions of the promise, the cheese. Of course it was sent, andthe General had opportunity to test her skill in that domestic art. "[31]

The Taber family did not preserve that note; but in the TreasuryDepartment of the United States, among Washington's memoranda ofexpenditures, is the item under date of Nov. 6, 1778, "To Cash paidservant for bringing cheese from Mr. Taber, 16 shillings. " It would seemthat the fame of Anne Taber's cheeses had won her a market with theofficers at Headquarters, for sixteen shillings was payment "forbringing cheese" in large quantity, and the date is six weeks after thearrival of Washington for his stay in the vicinity. 

In the ledger of the Merritt store, under date of Nov. 6, 1772, ThomasTaber, Esq. , is credited as follows: "By 29 cheses wd. 484 lb. At 6d. , £12 2s. " In that year Thomas Taber, Esq. , satisfied his account with anox, £6 16s. ; cash, £10; three pounds and nine ounces of old pewter, 4s. 6d. ; seven hogs, £20 11s. 6d. , and the above 29 cheeses. So thatapproximately one-fourth of the "money crop" of this substantial farmerwas in the form of a dairy product. In the year 1895, the average QuakerHill farm was producing, as will be shown in Chapter III, Part III, ninety per cent. Of dairy product, namely milk. 

The second phase of the industry proper to Quaker Hill was that ofraising fat cattle. This culminated at the end of the period of theQuaker Community. In this industry were laid the foundations of somelarge fortunes. It brought in its day more money into the neighborhoodthan any other occupation had ever brought. It disappeared with thecoming of the railroad into the valley, bringing, in refrigerator cars, meat from western lands, and killed in Chicago. Then the cattle werefattened on these hills, in the rich grass, and driven to New York to bekilled and sold there. 

In "Some Glimpses of the Past, " Miss Taber says: "But the chief businessof most farmers was the fatting of cattle. The cattle were generallybought when from two to three years old, usually in the fall, keptthrough the winter and the following summer fattened and sold. They werethe only things that did not have to go to the river to reach themarket. From all over the country they were driven to New York on foot, and the road through the valley was the main thoroughfare for them. Monday was the market day in New York and all started in time to reachthe city by Saturday. From Pawling the cattle were started on Thursday, and those from greater distances planned to reach this part of theirjourney on that day. It used to be said that the dealers could tell whatthe market would be in New York on the following Monday by watching thecattle that passed through Pawling on Thursday. The cattle werecollected and taken to the city by drovers; theirs was a great businessin those days. Hotels or taverns were provided for their accommodationat frequent intervals along the road. Ira Griffin was a drover and Mr. Archibald Dodge remembers when a boy going to New York with him and hiscattle, walking all the way. There were also droves of cattle other thanfat ones, on the road, some called store cattle, and the books of Mr. Benjamin V. Haviland, who kept one of the taverns, show that in the year1847 there had been kept on his place 27, 784 cattle, 30, 000 sheep and700 mules, and it is said that occasionally there would be 2, 000 headbetween his tavern and that of John Preston's in Dover. When Mr. AlbertJ. Akin was a young man he was considered an expert judge and buyer ofsteers for fattening, and generally had the finest herd of fat cattle. "

This reference is to the business at its height and applies to the years1800-1850. In the books of John Toffey's store are frequent referencesto the business. 

Interesting material is furnished for the study of the period oftransition, in the records of the store kept by John Toffey at Site No. 53. These old day-books and ledgers are incomplete, but they coverspaces of time in the years 1814, 1824, 1833; and their account of thepurchases made by John Toffey's customers furnishes a record, we maysuppose, of the goods brought into the households on the Hill at thattime, from other communities; as well as the actual exchange ofcommodities on the Hill, where at that time diversified industries werecarried on. 

The growth of trade in these respects, from the period 1814-1816 to theperiod 1824-1833 will be considered in four lines, as it is exhibited inthe commodities: first of Costume, second of Food and Medicine, andthird of Tools and Material for Industry, fourth, of House-furnishings. It is assumed that John Toffey kept a representative store, and that thegrowth in his trade corresponded to the growth in the commercialinterchange in the community. 

In 1814-1816 the imported goods kept and sold by John Toffey are cloth(perhaps in part locally manufactured), indigo, thread, cambric, penknives, knitting needles, spelled "nittenneedels, " plaster, finesalt, molasses, tea, apple-trees, nutmeg, shad and occasionally otherfish. The list is brief, and its proportion to the other commoditiessold in the store evidences the simplicity of a community dependentchiefly upon itself, and living a life of rudeness and content. 

Among prices which change in the twenty years recorded in John Toffey'sbooks are those of molasses which was in 1814-1816 $2. 00 per gallon, andfell to $1. 25 and in 1824 to 35c. Per gallon. "Tobago" was sold in 1814at $2. 75 per pound, and later for 62c. Flour was sold in 1814 for $18per barrel, or 9c. Per pound; wool hats at $4; fine salt 10c. Per pound;plaster $3. 25 per hundredweight; boots at $9. 00; tea at $2. 75 per pound. 

A day's work for a man in 1814-1816 was from $1. 00 per day for ordinarywork, to $1. 25 for driving oxen, or $1. 50 for "digging a grave, " or thesame amount "for going after the thief. "

House-rent is recorded at the rate of thirty dollars a year. 

One may explain the high rates of many of these commodities, and therelatively high rate paid for labor by the prevalence of war prices atthe time. Commodities such as molasses would be expensive as a result ofthe stoppage of sea-trade; and the labor market was exhausted to supplythe army with soldiers. 

In 1824 Toffey imported, for Costuming, shawls, crepe at $1 per yard, silk, skein-silk, twist, ribbon, velvet at 90c. Per yard, drab-cloth, flannel, braid, handkerchiefs, buttons and button-moulds, gloves, suspenders, calico, vest patterns, pins, chrome-yellow, "bearskin" at82c. Per yard, dress handkerchiefs, beads, buckles, silk flags andmorocco skins. 

Of new foods he imported molasses at 35c. Per gallon, oranges at 2c. Each, which he seems to have sold only one by one, sugar at 6c. , tobaccoat 12c. , alum, tea at 85c. , salt at $1 per bushel, pepper, all-spice, raisins, salt-peter, pearlash, castile soap, hard soap, paregoric, ginger, logwood, vitriol, cinnamon, snuff, sulphur, cloves, mustard, opium, coffee, loaf sugar, watermelons, and seeds for beets, lettuce, parsnips. 

Of House-furnishings, he had for sale, knives, forks--one set of knivesand forks selling for $13, plates, bowls, pitchers, mugs, teacups, teapots, decanters, almanacs, brooms, oilcloth, glass and putty, inkstands, bedsteads, spoons in sets, sugar-bowls, tin pans. 

Of Tools and Materials for Industry he sold nails by the "paper, " by thehundred and by the pound, files, oil at 75c. A gallon, locks, slates, paper, pocket-books, pencils, turpentine, raw steel and iron, spectaclesat 34c. , sandpaper, shovels and spades, screws, gimlets. 

Rum, brandy and gin appear also, with powder, shot and fishhooks, astributes to the convivial and adventurous spirit. But the convivialspirits were the better patrons, for there was scarcely an entry incertain years in which was not an item of alcoholic spirits. Thesporting goods were only occasionally purchased. 

In 1833 for Costuming, cotton-batting had appeared, and canton flannel, canvas, blue jeans at 83c. Per yard, brown Holland, cloth at $3. 64 peryard, hats at 44c. Each, hooks and eyes, pearl buttons at 10c. A dozen, side combs, bandanna handkerchiefs; while sole-leather was still sold inquantity, with buckskin mittens, which were scarcely made on the Hill. 

For Industry, behold the arrival of pincers, gum arabic, "Pittsburghcord" at 21c. Per yard. In Housings, candles, frying pans, tin pails, dippers, tin basins, wash-tubs made their appearance; and in this yearfor the first time window-blinds were sold, for 75c. 

For Food and Medicines John Toffey offered at this time codfish, coffee, souchong tea, crackers, castor oil, camphor gum, Epsom salts. 

Meantime, a day's wages had fallen from $1 and $1. 50 to 65c. And 75c. Per day. 

The growth of trade in John Toffey's store is summarized in Table I. Inthis table may be seen also the growth of economic demand. The increaseof the number of kinds of commodities in each evidences the acquirementof varied tastes by this people of the Hill. 

 TABLE I. JOHN TOFFEY'S STORE. --------------------+---------+--------+--------- Commodities | 1814-16 | 1824 | 1833 --------------------+---------+--------+--------- Costume | 5 | 25 | 38 Food and Medicine | 5 | 29 | 36 Tools and Materials | 5 | 18 | 21 House Furnishings | | 18 | 24 --------------------+---------+--------+--------- Daily Wage |$1. -$1. 50| |65c. -75c. --------------------+---------+--------+---------

The above summary of the importations to the Hill in the years 1814-1833casts light upon the social and religious history of the period inquestion; in which occurred the greatest social convulsion thiscommunity has ever known. In the year 1828 the Religious Society of theFriends was divided, never to be united, the integrity of the communityas a social and religious unit was ended, the ties of a century weresevered, and instead of the "unity" of which Quakers are always soconscious, came mutual criticism, recrimination, and excommunication ofone-half of the community by the majority of the Meeting. Thus ended thecommunal life of Quaker Hill, and began the disintegration of thecommunity which is now almost complete. 

It is true that this schism was general throughout the denomination, inall the United States; and that it was shared in its doctrinalinfluences by the Congregational churches, the Unitarian Associationhaving been formed in Boston in 1825. But nevertheless it had roots onQuaker Hill in an economic condition; and that economic condition mayhave been general throughout the Eastern States. 

Let the doctrinal causes of this schism be considered elsewhere. [32]Economic causes are hinted at in the above paragraphs. There came inmany embellishments of life which must have seemed to early Friends mereluxuries, and to the stricter few must have appeared instruments of sin, as "beads, " "ribbons, " velvet, silk, braid, crepe, shawls, dresshandkerchiefs, buckles, silk flags, pearl buttons--these are expressionsof new states of mind. The economic change underlying the socialconvulsion is seen in the increase of varied stuffs for costume, articles and materials for the food and medicine cupboards of thefarmhouses, and in more varied tools and materials both for industry andhouse furnishing. 

Even more influential than the exciting power of luxuries would be thequieter and more pervasive stimulus of comfort. Houses that are glazedand ceiled and furnished with well adapted implements in every room;tables set with all the wares of leisurely and pleasurable feeding speaka new state of affairs. The people so clothed and so fed begin toproduce in every family some members of cultured tastes, some ofindependent thought, who are restive under the denials of Quakerism. 

Business and industry too become more varied; and the effect of thisprosperous and varied industry shows itself in active and criticalminds. Importation from places beyond Poughkeepsie awakened imaginationand invited reflection upon the state of the world. 

All this time the daily wage continued to fall, from $1 and $1. 50 in1814 to 50c. , 65c. And 75c. In 1833. It is said that men bitterlycommented, in those days of the rapid development of the country, that afarmer who paid a laborer fifty cents for a day's labor in the hay-fieldfrom daybreak to dark, would pay the same amount, fifty cents, for hissupper on the Hudson River boat, when he made his annual visit to thegreat city of New York. 

We have, then, in John Toffey's daybook a reflection of conditionswhich had to do with the break-up of the community, as truly as did thetheological difference between Elias Hicks and the Orthodox. Comfortableliving, diversified and intensified industry, importation of expensiveand stimulating comforts, leisure with its sources in wealth, and itstendencies toward reflection, and especially a differentiation of thehomogeneous community into diverse classes, owing to lowered wages andmultiplied embellishments of life, made up altogether the raw materialsof discontent, criticism and division. 

These factors go with a state of growing discontent and disintegration. The men and women possessed of leisure cultivated a humanist state ofmind, with which arose a critical spirit, a nicer taste and a cultureddiscrimination. They were offended by literalism, bored by crudenesshowever much in earnest, and disgusted with the illogical assertions ofpietists. The imperative mandate of the meeting awakened in them onlyopposition. They found many to sympathize with their state of mind. 

On the other side there were those who seriously feared the incoming ofluxurious ways. They distrusted books, remembering the values of oneBook to the laborer who reads it alone; they believed in plainness, andtheir minds associated freedom of dress with freedom of thought. Theyresented also the new privileges conferred on some by wealth, because tomost had come only harder work with discontent. 

The schism which rent the community was an economic heresy, the beliefin the use of money for embellishment of life. All the Quakers regardedwith favor the making of money. The Liberals, however, saw ends beyondmoney, and processes of ultimate value beyond administration andbusiness. They looked for household comforts, books, travel, and theleisure with great souls who have written and have expressed thegreatest truths. They believed in a divinity such as could have made, and regarded with favor, the whole teeming world. 

The Orthodox saw the values of prosperity only in plainness of life, recognized no divinity in humanized manners, and sternly butineffectually called the community back to idealized commonplaceness, and to hear the utterances of rude ploughmen and cobblers in the name ofDeity. 

One ventures to believe, too, that there was a falling away from allreligious exercises at this time, and that the pious of both schoolswere troubled about it, and accused one another. The poor were too hardworked and too poorly paid to feel anything but discontent; and theleaders of the community differed as to the solution of the religiousproblem. Hence came division. 

The Quakers are conscious of religious "unity, " but their mode of lifeis a true economic unity. The Quaker Community was re-arranging itselfeconomically, but the members felt a religious change. Class divisionwas coming upon them, and they felt it as a sectarian division. It wasindeed the end of the old community ruled by religion, and the formationof a new neighborhood life; a new Quakerism, ruled by economic classes:the persons of influence being invariably persons of means, and thedominating leaders rich. Doubtless the Quakers who led in the Divisionof 1828 hoped, in each party equally, to maintain the old religiousdomination. The community has never granted that leadership to thedivided Meeting, neither to the Orthodox, nor to the Hicksites. The realpower has, since a period antedating the division, been in the hands ofthose who have owned farms centrally located; who in addition to owningland centrally located have been possessed of large means: the "richmen" and "wealthy women" have possessed a monopoly of actual leadership. If also, they have been religiously inclined, their leadership has beenabsolute. 

[31] "Thomas Taber and Edward Shove--a Reminiscence, " by Rev. Benjamin Shove; Quaker Hill Series, 1903. 

[32] The matter is fully treated in "Quaker Hill in theNineteenth Century, " by Rev. Warren H. Wilson; Quaker Hill Series ofLocal History No. IV. 

CHAPTER III. 

RELIGIOUS LIFE IN TRANSITION. 

In religion the solidarity of this country place has been best shown inthe fact that, during most of its history, it has had but one church ata time. For one hundred years there was the undivided meeting. From 1828to 1885 the Hicksite--Unitarian, branch of the Friends held the OldMeeting House, with diminishing numbers. The Orthodox had their smallermeeting house around the corner, attended by decreasing gatherings. In1880 was organized Akin Hall, in which till 1892 were held religiousservices in the summer only. Since that time religious services havebeen held there all the year round. The early united meeting had amembership of probably two hundred, and audiences of three hundred werenot uncommon. 

The church in Akin Hall, named "Christ's Church, Quaker Hill, " had in1898 a membership of sixty-five, and audiences of fifty to two hundredand fifty, according to the occasion and the time of year. In the pastthe general attitude of the community toward religion has been reverentand sympathetic. It is no less so to-day. 

Of religious ceremonies the Quakers claim to have none. But they arefond of ceremoniousness beyond most men. The very processes by whichthey abolish forms are made formal processes. They have ceremonies theintent of which is to free them from ceremony. The meeting is called toorder by acts ever so simple, and dismissed by two old persons shakinghands; but these are invariable and formal as a doxology and abenediction. They receive a stranger in their own way. A visitingminister is honored with fixed propriety. An expelled member is read outof meeting with stated excommunicatory maledictions. 

Worship has had on Quaker Hill a large place in characterizing thesocial complexion of the people. By this, I mean that the peculiaritiesof the Quaker worship, now a thing of the past, have engraved themselvesupon character. Those peculiarities are four: the custom of silence; thenon-employment of music, or conspicuous color or form; the separateplace provided for women; the assertion and practice of individualism. 

The silence of the Quaker meeting is far from negative. It is not a mereabsence of words. It is a discipline enforced upon the lower elements ofhuman nature, and a reserve upon the intellectual elements, in orderthat God may speak. I think that in this silence of the meeting wediscover the working of the force that has moulded individual characteron Quaker Hill and organized the social life. For this silence is avivid experience, "a silence that may be felt. " The presence andinfluence of men are upon one, even if that of God be not. Themotionless figures about one subtly penetrate one's consciousness, though not through the senses. They testify to their belief in God whenthey do not speak better than they could with rhetoric or eloquence. Itis the influence of many, not of one; yet of certain leaders who are theorgans of this impression, and of the human entity made of many who incommunion become one. The self-control of it breathes power, andprinciple, and courage. One would expect a Quaker meeting to exert animperious rule upon the community. It is an expression of the majesty ofan ideal. I believe that the Quaker Hill meeting has been able toaccomplish whatever it has put its hand to do. The only pity is that themeeting tried to do so little. 

The original religious influence of Quakerism, carried through allchanges and transformation, was a pure and relentless individualism. Itwas the doctrine that the Spirit of God is in every heart of man, absolutely every one; resisted indeed by some, but given to each andall. With honest consistency it must be said, the Quakers appliedthis--and this it was they did apply--to the status of women, to thequestion of slavery, to the civic relations of men. This it was thatmade Fox and Penn refuse to doff their hats before judge, or titledlord, or the king himself. 

The character of the common mind of the community has been muchinfluenced by the fact that the Quakers made no use of color, form andmusic either in worship or in private life; that they also idealized theabsence of these. They made it a matter of noble devotion. In nothing dolocal traditions abound more than in stories of the stern repression ofthe aesthetic instincts. One ancient Quakeress, coming to the well-settable at a wedding, in the old days, beheld there a bunch of flowers ofgay colors, and would not sit down until they were removed. Nor couldthe feast go on until the change was effected. So great was the power ofauthority, working in the grooves of "making believe, " that those whomight have tolerated the bouquet in silence, as well as those who hadsensations of pleasure in it, supported her opposition. 

I have spoken elsewhere of the effect of this century-long repressionand ignoring of the aesthetic movements of the human spirit, in bankingthe fires of literary culture in this population. The presentgeneration, all inheriting the examples of ancestors ruled in suchunflinching rigor, has in none of its social grouping any true sense ofcolor or of the beauty of color. Neither in the garments of those whohave laid off the Quaker garb, nor in the decorations of the houses isthere a lively sense of the beauty of color. None of the women of Quakerextraction has a sense of color in dress; nor can any of them match orharmonize colors. I except, of course, those whose clothing is directlyunder the control of the city tailor or milliner. The general effect ofcostume and of the decorations of a room, in the population who gettheir living on the Hill, is that of gray tones, and drab effects; notmere severity is the effect, but poverty and want of color. 

In forms of beauty they know and feel little more. I do not refer to thelack of appreciation of the elevations and slopes of this Hill itself--aconstant delight to the artistic eye. Farmers and laborers might fail toappreciate a scene known to them since childhood. But there is in theQuaker breeding, which gives on certain sides of character so true andfine a culture a conspicuous lack in this one particular. 

As to music, even that of simplest melody, it has come to the Hill, butit "knows not Joseph. " An elderly son of Quakerism said: "You will findno Quaker or son of the Quakers who can sing; if you do find one who cansing a little, it will be a limited talent, and you will unfailinglydiscover that he is partly descended from the world's people. "

The effect of this aesthetic negation appears, it seems to the presentwriter, in a certain rudeness or more precisely a certain lack in thedomain of manners, outside of the interests in which Quakerism has givenso fine a culture. This appears to be keenly felt by the descendants ofFriends. Not in business matters; for they are made directors of savingsbanks and corporations, and trustees, and referees, and executors ofestates, in all which places they find themselves at home. Nor is it alack of dignity and composure in the parlor or at the table. Nor is it alack of sense of propriety in meetings of worship. But it is in mattersethical, civic and deliberate, and in the free and discursive meetingsof men, in which new and intricate questions are to arise; in positionsof trust, in which the highest considerations of social responsibilityconstitute the trust; in these, the men and women trained in Quakerismare lacking throughout whole areas of the mind, and lacking, too, inethical standards, which can only appeal to those whose experience hasfed on a rich diversity of sources and distinctions. 

In this I speak only of the Quaker group and of those who have beenunder its full influence. It does not apply to the Irish Catholics, norto the incomers from the city. The Quakers and their children lackprecisely those elements of aesthetic breeding which would belegitimately derived from contemplation and enjoyment of beauty asidefrom ethical values. Ethical beauty, divorced from pure beauty, a stern, bare, grim beauty they have, and their children and employees have. Butthey have little sense of order in matters that do not proceed to theends of money-making, housekeeping and worship. They do not seem topossess instinctive fertility of moral resource. It may be due to othersources as well, but it seems to the present writer that the moraldensity shown by some of these birthright Quakers, upon matters outsideof their wonted and trodden ethical territories, is due to their longrefusal to recognize aesthetic values, and to see discriminations in thefield in which ethics and aesthetics are interwoven. 

They made red and purple to be morally wrong, idealizing the plainnessof their uncultured ancestry, and sweet sounds they excluded from theirears, declaring them to be evil noises, because they would set up theboorishness of simple folk of old time as something noble and exalted, "making believe" that such aesthetic lack was real self-denial andunworldliness. It is not surprising that in a riper age of the world, after lifetimes of this idealization of peasant states of mind, theirchildren find themselves morally and mentally unprepared for theresponsibilities of citizenship, of high ethical trust and of the variedways of a moral world, whose existence their fathers made believe toignore and deny. 

Women have always occupied in Quakerism a place theoretically equal tothat of the men, in business and religious affairs. George Fox and hissuccessors declared men and women equal, inasmuch as the Divine Spiritis in every human soul. 

After the influence of the early Friends ceased, the place of womanbegan to be circumscribed by new rules, and crystallized in a reactionunder the influence of purely social forces; so that this most sensiblepeople made women equal to men in meetings and in religious legislationthrough a form of sexual taboo. 

Following the custom of many early English meeting houses, the men andwomen sat apart, the men on one side of the middle aisle, and the womenon the other, so that men and women were not equals in the individualistsense, as they are for instance, in the practice and theory ofSocialism, but were equals in separate group-life; to each sex, groupedapart from the other, equal functions were supposed to be delegated. Oblong Meeting House, on Quaker Hill, had seats for two hundred andfifty people on the ground floor, and in the gallery for one hundred andfifty more. The men's side was separated from the women's, of equal sizeand extent, by wooden curtains, which could be raised or lowered; sothat the whole building could be one auditorium, with galleries; or thecurtains could be so lowered that no man on the ground floor could seeany woman unless she be a speaker on the "facing seats"; nor could anyyoung person in the gallery see any one of the opposite sex; yet aspeaker could be heard in all parts. The curtains could be so fixed, also, that two independent meetings could be held, each in a separateauditorium, even the speakers being separated from one another. 

It was the custom for women to have delegated to them certain religiousfunctions, at Monthly Meeting and Quarterly and Yearly Meetings, onwhich they deliberated, before submitting them to the whole meeting. This old Oblong Meeting House is a mute record and symbol of thecentury-old contest of the Puritan spirit among the old Quakers, striving for an inflexibly right relation between the sexes. Theyattained their ends through the creation of a community, but not untilthe community dissolved. 

The position of woman among Friends is another eloquent tribute to thetwo-fold "dealing" of Quakerism with women. She is man's equal, but sheis man's greatest source of danger. She must be on a par with him, butshe must be apart from him. The relations of men and women are thereforevery interesting. In doctrinal matters, in discussion, in preaching and"testifying, " men and women are equal, and the respect that a man hasfor his wife or sister or neighbor woman, in these functions of a devoutsort is like that he has for another man. Generally the men of theQuaker school of influence believe as a matter of course in theintellectual and juristic equality of women with men; and in thereligious equality of the individual woman with the individual man. Butin the practical arts and in business a woman is a woman and a man is aman. Here the women are restricted by convention to housekeeping, whichon large farms is quite enough for them; and the men have the outdoorlife, the "trading, " and the gainful occupations--except the boarding ofcity people. There is no especial respect for the "managing woman" who"runs a farm"; the community expects such a woman to fail. 

Moreover, between the sexes there is no camaraderie, no companionship ofan intellectual sort between husband and wife, no free exchange of ideasexcept in circles made up of the members of one sex. In any publicmeeting the men habitually sit apart from their wives and from the womenmembers of their families, even though the audiences be not bilaterallyhalved. 

The orbits of man's and woman's lives are separate, though each ascribesto the individuals of the other sex an ethical and religious parity. Theeffect is seen in the diminishing of the numbers of men on the Hill, inthe group-life of the women, and in the type of woman. It may be well toconsider these in reverse order. 

The individual Quaker Hill woman, so far as she differs from womengenerally, may be described as a woman almost perfectly conformed totype, presenting fewer variations than elsewhere, either in the form ofyouthful prettinesses and follies, or in the strenuous opinion of matureyears. She is neither a flirt as a girl, nor a radical as a woman. Colorhas not yet come into her maidenly days, nor violence of opinion intoher womanly years. She affects neither fashion nor intellectualeccentricity. Yet she attains to a better average of reasonable, sensible action than she could otherwise do. She knows less of theimpulsive, emotional prettiness of adolescence than women of othercountry communities, and in later years gives herself less tointellectual vagaries. Women's rights are established on the Hill; it isimpossible to be strenuous about them. 

The numerous groupings and associations of women are especiallyinteresting in view of the fact that the men of the Hill have noassociations whatever, now that the stores are closed; and are assembledin no fixed groupings. It has never been possible, so far as records go, to maintain a society of men on the Hill. In the early part of theperiod under study a literary and debating society was organized, withsocial attractions; but it was feeble and short-lived. There are notenough leaders among the men to make such group-life possible. They arerelated by ties of labor, rather than of class-fraternity; and they havenever acquired any interest common to their sex to assemble them ingroups and companies; the discipline of the religion known to the Hillhas discouraged and outlawed it. 

This contrast may have something to do with the departure of men fromthe Hill. So long as the stores were in operation, at Toffey's, Akin's, and Merritt's places, the men could meet there, and had in theirassembling a natural group-life, which satisfied many with life in thecountry. But with the closing of the stores after the coming of therailroad in 1849, this also failed, and the men having no capacity forgeneral association with one another, and few interests possessed incommon with the women, have been the more impelled to leave the Hill. Economic advantage had only to be as good elsewhere, and the manemigrated. I have not known those who have left the place, in myknowledge of it, to give as a reason inability to make a good livingthere; but always they have spoken most emphatically of the bareness andlack of interest in the social life of the Hill as their reason foremigrating to the city or large town. 

Part III. 

The Mixed Community, from 1880 to the Present. 

CHAPTER I. 

DEMOTIC COMPOSITION. 

There are ninety-three dwellings on Quaker Hill, as defined above, andillustrated in Map II. The shaded area alone is referred to here as thearea proper to the term "Quaker Hill. " In these dwellings live fourhundred and five persons. This gives a density of population of 26. 667per square mile. In the summer months of July and August there come tothe Hill at least five hundred and nineteen more, increasing the densityof population to more than 61 per square mile. 

There is a steady emigration from the Hill, due to the departure ofworking-people and their families in search of better economicopportunities. This has in ten years removed thirty-nine persons. Deathhas removed or occasioned the removal of twenty-seven more, while onlythree have been removed by marriage. 

Over against this there has been an immigration in the years 1895-1905of thirty persons; of whom eleven have come in to labor, and nineteenfor residence on their own property. 

There were resident in 1905 on Quaker Hill the following social-economicclasses: Professional men, three; one minister, two artists; wealthybusiness men, three; farmers, thirty-eight; laborers, forty (heads ofhouses). 

There were fifty-three births in ten years, 1895-1905, of which fourteenwere in the families of property-owners, and thirty-nine in families oftenants. There were in these ten years thirty-one deaths, of whichtwenty-five were in the families of property-owners, and only six inthose of tenants. Thus the tenant class, bound to the community by noties of property, contributed 73 per cent. Of the births and only 20 percent. Of the deaths, while the property holders suffered 80 per cent. Ofthe deaths and were increased by only 26. 4 per cent. Of the births. Thenumber of persons in the families of property holders in 1905 was 184, and in those of tenants 221. These are as one to one and one-fifth. Thisdifference is not enough to account for the great disparity in birthsand deaths between the two classes of families. For, allowing for thisdifference, births are two and one-third times as numerous in theworking and landless class as among the landowners; and deaths arealmost three and a half times as many among the landholders as amongtheir servants and tenants. 

The present population of the Hill is of a composition which isexplainable by migration, and by the effect of the topography of theHill upon that population. There is every evidence that before thecoming of the railroad in 1849 the population was unified, and thecommunity freer of neighborhood groupings. The lists of customers whotraded at Daniel Merritt's store, given in Appendix B of this volume, indicates the centering on the Hill of a wide economic life. Everyrecord and tradition of a religious sort indicates that the OblongMeeting House was also the center of a religious community aswide-spread as the business of the stores. The Hill was one neighborhooduntil 1828, when the Division of the Meeting occurred; and 1849, whenthe railroad came to Pawling. It is not now one neighborhood. Threegroupings of households may be discerned, roughly designated "The NorthEnd, " "Quaker Hill Proper, " and "Wing's Corners. " The second of these, being the territory most under scrutiny in Part III, might again bedivided into the territory "up by the Meeting House, " and that "down byMizzen-Top. " The difficulty one experiences in naming these groupingsof houses is a token of the indefiniteness of these divisions. They areaccentuated by events occurring in the more recent history of the Hill. The older history which shapes the consciousness of the community doesnot know these neighborhood divisions. Yet the change of the emphasis oftravel to the roads running east and west, from those north and south, has separated these neighborhoods from one another. "The North End, "therefore, is composed of those households between Sites 1 and 15, whogo to the village of Pawling for "trading" and "to take the cars, " alongthe road which passes Sites 16 to 18. They include Hammersley Lake andHurd's Corners in their interests. 

The "Middle Distance, " or as I would call it "The Meeting HouseNeighborhood, " is composed of those households from Sites 21 to 41; "theHotel Neighborhood, " of those from Site 42 to 95; and these all, whetherregarded as one or as two sections, go habitually to the village by the"Mizzen-Top road, " past Sites 99 and 113. 

"Wing's Corner" is properly the name of Site 100, but it may serve for atitle of the southern neighborhood from Site 122 to 104. From thisneighborhood all travel to the valley by the road westward from the"Corners. "

The "North End" and "Wing's Corners" are settled almost entirely byAmericans, and until within the past two years, by families derived fromthe original population. "Quaker Hill Proper" is the place of residenceof the Irish-Americans. It has been also the place of residence of thelast of the Quakers during the period, just closed, of the MixedCommunity. It is also the territory in which land has the highest value. Here also are the residences of all the persons of exceptional wealth. 

The community most cherishes the central territory, lying upon the twomiles of road between the Mizzen-Top Hotel and the Meeting House, andextending beyond these points and on either hand one-half mile. Withinthis area land is nominally held at a thousand dollars an acre. 

"The proximate causes of demotic composition, " says ProfessorGiddings, [33] "are organic variation and migration. The ultimate causesare to be looked for in the characteristics of the physicalenvironment. " The Quaker Hill population, drawn originally from a commonsource, was in 1828 perfectly homogeneous. The very intensity of thecommunal life had effected the elimination of strange and otherelements, and preserved only the Quakers, and those who could live withthe Quakers. Since 1849 this population has become increasinglyheterogeneous. It is not yet a blended stock. There is but little vitalmixture of the elements entering into social and economic union here. They do not generally intermarry. They are related only by economicfacts and by religious sympathies, so that the effect of organicvariation does not yet appear among them. But in this chapter the effectof immigration will be indicated. 

The influence of the physical environment is worthy of brief notice. Between one and another of the three neighborhoods lie stretches ofland, nearly a mile wide, valued less highly than that on which theclusters of houses stand. In the days before the railroad, thepopulation passed over this territory to the centers of the community inthe three stores at Toffey's, Akin's and Muritt's places, and to theMeeting House. But with the necessity of driving westward to therailway, the stretches of road passing poorer land had diminished use, and the clusters of households, once closely related, ceased tointerchange reactions and services; so a segregation of neighborhoodsbegan, which is increasing with time. 

The list of members of the Meeting in Appendix A, and that of customersof one of the stores in Appendix B, will serve to show the extent of thecommunity, religious and economic, in the eighteenth century. A steadyshrinkage has drawn in the margins of this communal life. At this dateQuaker Hill receives no tribute from any outer territory; and might beconfined to the limits of "Quaker Hill Proper, " as some indeed call the"Middle Distance. " The present writer, while not so limiting the Hill, has omitted both Burch Hill to the south and the stretches towardWebatuck to the north, which lie in other towns. 

Just a word about neighborhood character. There is no especial characterlocalized in the Wing's Corners neighborhood. The central territory hasbeen fully described in this book, and especially in the chapters on"The Common Mind, " and "Practical Differences and Resemblances. " "TheNorth End" is the most isolated of any neighborhood included within theHill population. Its families are less directly derived from Quakerstock. The older Quaker families once living there have disappeared. Itis a genial, kindly, chatty neighborhood, without the exalted sense ofpast importance or of present day prestige which affects the manners of"Quaker Hill Proper. " It has, moreover, none of the Irish-Americanresidents, and until recently no New York families. The seven familygroups resident in these fifteen houses have been long acquainted, andhave become used to one another. A kindly, tolerant feeling prevails. Gossip is not forbidden. Standards of conduct are not stretched uponhigh ideals, and a preference for enjoyments shows itself in a greaterleisure and a laxer industry than in the central portion of the Hill. 

The greater distance from the railway also forbids some of theactivities of "Quaker Hill Proper. " The milk wagon which in 1893-1899was driven each day from Site 1 to the railway, gathering up the milkcans on the successive farms, has been discontinued, and in winter theroad between Sites 15 and 21 is often blocked with snow for weeks. Theresident at Site 3 has for about twenty years maintained aslaughter-house and a wagon for the sale of meat, using his land forfatting cattle and sheep, and selling the meat along two routes. Theresident at Site 15 maintains a fish-wagon, buying his fish at therailways and selling at the houses along selected routes, through thesummer. The other residents follow the diversified farming, based ongrazing, which in this country includes fatting of calves and pigs, raising of poultry and other small agricultural industries. One familyonly in this neighborhood takes boarders in the summer. 

The peculiar religious character of Quaker Hill had by 1880 drawn in itsmargins to "Quaker Hill Proper, " though the population in these outlyingneighborhoods had a passive acquiescence in it. They still respond tothe activities which are centered in the focal neighborhood. Ofthemselves, none of these neighborhoods originates any religiousactivity. 

In this connection mention should be made of the Connecticutneighborhood known as Coburn, in which a certain relation to Quaker Hillhas always been maintained. It is not here regarded as a Quaker Hillneighborhood. Its characteristics are those of Connecticut, and itstraditions are not Quaker, in a pure sense; but Quaker Hill hasinfluenced it not a little, religiously. In Coburn remains a measurabledeposit of Quaker Hill population. 

Among the changes wrought by the railroad was the introduction of newsocial elements into the community. The Quaker population had becomedivided into rich and poor, but all were of the same general stock. Theparents of all had the same experience to relate. Their fathers had cometo Quaker Hill in the early or middle part of the eighteenth century, had endured together the hardships of pioneer days, had known the"unity" of Quaker discipline for one hundred years, and had held loyallyto the ideas and standards of Quakerism. 

With the approach of the railroad came Irish laborers, who settled firstin the valley below, generally in the limits of Pawling village, andlater came on the Hill as workers on the farms in the new forms of dairyindustry to which the farmers were stimulated by the railroad. Thisimmigration continued from 1840 until 1860. In that time, a period ofabout twenty years, there came laborers for almost all the farmers onthe Hill. I am informed that in the decade following the Civil War thework on all the farms, "from Wing's corner to the North End, " was doneby young Irishmen. 

The first Irishmen of this immigration whose names appear upon thetax-lists of the town of Pawling are Owen and Patrick Denany, who areassessed upon one hundred acres in 1845, the land upon which they firstsettled being in the western part of the town. These two brothers camebefore the railroad was extended to Pawling, in 1840. In 1867 Patrickmoved to Quaker Hill and bought a place, midway between Sites 128 and131. Thomas Guilshan in 1858 and years following was taxed upon nineacres, the land upon which his widow still lives, at Site 93. John Bradylived for years at Site 71, and in a house now removed except for tracesof a cellar, about fifty feet southeast of the Akin Free Library, livedCharles Kiernan. Among the earliest Irish Catholics came James Cullomand Margaret, his wife, who acquired land at Site 34. Other names of theearlier Irish generations are Hugh Clark, who acquired land at Site 116, James Rooney, Fergus Fahey, James Doyle, Kate Leary, James Hopper, whosettled in Pawling or Hurd's Corner, and David Burns, who became alandowner at Site 117. 

The Irish Catholics early differentiated into two classes, only one ofwhich, with their children, remains to the present day. There were the"loose-footed fellows, " who followed the railroad, worked for seasons onthe farms, drifted on with the renewal of demand for railroad laborers, and disappeared from the Hill. Their places were taken, in the yearsfollowing 1880, by American laborers, and a very few other foreigners, of whom I will speak below. The other class of Irish Catholics sought toown land. The details given above indicate their promptness in acquiringinterest in the soil. From them has been recruited almost all thepresent Catholic population of the Hill, which in 1905 amounted in allto twenty-five households and one hundred persons. 

Whereas the early immigration of Irish worked in all the dairies fromone end of the Hill to the other, the land owned by Irish-Americans nowis all in the central portion of the Hill, within a radius of one milefrom Mizzen-Top Hotel. Within this mile also all the Irish laborersemployed on the Hill are at work. They are employed about the Hotel, onthe places of the wealthier landowners of the Hill, and in suchindependent trades as stone-mason, blacksmith or wheelwright. Only anoccasional Irish-American is found among the hired hands on the dairyfarms. 

In contrast to the indifference of the original population of the townto education, it is worthy of note that the grandson of anIrish-American named above promises at this writing to be the firstyouth born in the town to graduate from a higher institution oflearning, being in his last year at West Point. 

The Irish population who have remained on the Hill are singularlyhomogeneous, and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the place. In thechapter on "The Ideals of the New Quakerism, " I have commented on Irishacquisition of a character like that of the Quakers. The gentleness ofmanner, the quickness of social sympathy and the industrious quietnessof the Quakers have come to be theirs. Yet they are loyal Catholics, andwith very few exceptions support their Church in the village regularly. Many of them who have not conveyances have for years employed astage-driver to transport them on Sunday morning to St. Bernard'sChurch. This church has been built by the Irish and Irish-Americans. Atthe time of their coming in 1840-1850, there was no Catholic church, and"if you wanted to hear mass said, you had to drive to Poughkeepsie. "Later, a tent was erected for a time, for the Catholic services, then aBaptist church building was purchased. This building was destroyed byfire about 1875, and the present structure in the village was erected. 

The Catholic population of the Hill is now equal to the Quakerpopulation, there being of each twenty-five households; the old and thenew. But each has gone through striking changes since the Catholicscame, sixty years ago. "When I was a boy, " says a prominentIrish-American, "you could hardly see the road here for the carriagesand the dust, all of them Quakers going to the Old Meeting House, onSunday, or to Quarterly Meeting. But now they are all gone. " Thereligious faithfulness of those Friends of two generations ago hasdescended upon no part of the population more fully than upon thehandful of Catholic families, who now drive to Pawling every Sunday ingreat wagon-loads, while the members of the Quaker households haveclosed their meeting houses forever. 

Of the Irish-Catholic population here described only eleven are Irishborn. The rest, about ninety in number, are American born of Irishparents. 

The other elements who have been adopted into the Quaker Hill populationare small in number in comparison with the Irish. They are among theworking people, one Swiss, two Poles, who have bought small places atSites 42 and 75, respectively; and two New York ladies who about 1890purchased places at Sites 41 and 35, who have become a strong influence, being socially and religiously in sympathy with the original Quakerpopulation. Their influence is described in the chapter upon "The CommonMind of the Mixed Community. " Purchases of land have been made in theyears 1905-1907, more than in the preceding decade, by persons comingfrom outside the Quaker Hill population, all of the buyers being fromNew York City. These purchases are all upon the outer fringes of theHill territory, at Sites 107, 108, 111, 118, in the southwestern part, and Sites 6 and 10 in the "North End, " and in the Coburn neighborhood, Sites 88 and others near the Meeting House, Site 139. The land in thecentral section has changed hands, in the years 1890-1907, only throughthe increase in the holdings of those who owned large estates before theperiod of the Mixed Community. 

[33] Descriptive and Historical Sociology, p. 118. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE ECONOMY OF HOUSE AND FIELD. 

The hospitality of the Quakers is worthy of a treatise, not of thecritical order, but poetic and imaginative. It cannot be described inmere social analysis. It has grown out of their whole order of life, andexpresses their religious view, as well as their economic habits. Ishowed in Chapter VII, Part I, that the hospitality of the Friendsacquired religious importance from their belief that in every man is theSpirit of God. With the simplicity, and direct adherence to a fewtruths, which characterized the early Friends this belief was practiced, and became one of the religious customs of the Society. They entertainedtravellers, "especially such as were of the household of faith. " Theymade it a religious tenet to house and welcome "Friends travelling ontruth's account. "

With equal directness they proceeded further to welcome every traveller, and to endure often the intrusions of those who would not be desired asguests, because they believed that such might be acting by the divineimpulse. 

The hospitality, therefore, of such a community is very beautiful. Forthey have their ways of asserting themselves, in spite ofnon-resistance. They open their doors, they set their table, with areligious spirit. A thoroughness characterizes all their householdarrangements, a grace is given to all their housekeeping, which infusesan indescribable content into the experiences of a guest in these homes. Their hospitality to one another has been therefore a powerful engineryfor continuing and for extending the domains of Quakerism. 

On Quaker Hill the living generations have known this hospitality in twonotable ways only, in the Quarterly Meetings, and in the transformedhospitality of the boarding-house. The Quarterly Meeting is now gonefrom the Hill. Both the Hicksite Meeting, which was "laid down" in 1885, and the Orthodox Meeting, which ceased to meet in 1905, brought in theirday to the Hill, once in the year, an inundation of guests, who stayedthrough the latter days of a week, and then went their way, to meetquarterly throughout the year, but in other places, until the seasoncame again for Quaker Hill. 

The Quaker Hill Quarterly was in August, and "after haying. " "The roadswere full of the Quakers going up to the Meeting House. " In every Quakerhome they were welcomed, whether they had written to announce theircoming, or whether they had not. All through the days of the Meeting, they would renew the old ties, and discuss the passing of the Society, the interests of the Kingdom, as they saw it, "the things of thespirit. "

They meet no more. In the Quarterly Meeting, which comprises the MonthlyMeetings of an area comparable to Dutchess County, there are still someFriends, and some meetings which are not "laid down. " But they come nomore, at "Quarterly Meeting time" to Quaker Hill. Many of the oldermembers are dead. Of the younger members many have only a passiveadherence to Quakerism, only sufficient to excuse them from undesirableworldliness, and from irksome responsibility in other religious bodies. 

The hospitality of the old Quaker assemblings has passed over into thebusiness of boarding city people. The same table is set, the samewelcome given; but to the paid guest. 

The passing of the old hospitality of the Friends was illustrated in theyears of the writer's residence on the Hill, in the person of an oldpeddler, known as Charles Eagle. It had been the ancient custom toentertain any and every wayfarer; and Eagle journeyed from South toNorth about once a month in the warmer seasons, for many years. He hadenjoyed the entertainment of the Quakers, following the ancient line oftheir settlements along the Oblong, and stopping overnight in theirample, kindly households. He carried a pack on his back and anotherlarge bundle in his hand. His pace was slow, like that of an ox, butuntiring and unresting, hour after hour. His person, sturdy and short, was clothed in overall stuff, elaborately patched and mended. At firstsight it seemed to be patched from use and age; but closer inspectionshowed that the patches were deliberately sewed on the new material. Hewore a straw hat in summer, decorated with a bright ribbon, in whichwere flowers in season. He wore also a red wig, tied under his chin witha ribbon. His face was like that of an Indian, with broad cheek-bonesand small shifting eyes. 

Eagle was French, and professed to be a refugee, a person of interest toforeign monarchs. On the inner wrapping of his pack was written large, "Vive le Napoleon! Vive la France! Vive!" He had little hesitation aboutspeaking of himself, though always with stilted courtesy, and alwaysfurtively. 

He made a study of astronomy, and every night would ask his hostess, with much apology but firm insistence, for a pitcher of water, and forthe privilege that he might retire early to his room, open the windowand view the stars. Strange to say, in this he was not merely eccentric;for his reading was of the latest books on the science, and he exchangedwith Akin Hall Library a Young's Astronomy for a Newcomb's, in 1898. Heaccompanied the presentation of the later book, in which was theauthor's name inscribed with a note to Mr. Eagle, with a demonstrationof a theory of the Aurora Borealis. 

Eagle never tried to sell his goods on the Hill, and indeed it isdoubtful if he carried them for any other purpose than to conceal hisreal commodities, which were watches. Of these he carried a goodselection of the better and of the cheaper sorts, all concealed in thecenter of his pack, among impossible dry goods and varied fancy wares. 

An attempt was made to rob him, or at least to annoy him, by some youngmen; and he shot one of his assailants. For this offence he was, aftertrial, sent to the Asylum for the Criminal Insane. 

His earlier journeys over the Hill found him a welcome guest at theQuaker homes. But the substitution of boarding for the ancienthospitality made the peddler unwelcome; and he passed through withoutstopping in his later years. 

The Quarterly Meeting of the Society of Friends was the annualculmination of the hospitality of the Hill population. Coming in August, "after haying, " it was for a century and a half the great assembly ofthe people of the Hill, and of their kindred and friends; and until theOrthodox Meeting ceased to meet, in 1905, there was Quarterly Meeting inthe smaller Meeting House. The old hospitality was never diminished bythe Quakers as long as their meetings continued. Even though the samehouse were filled with paying boarders, the family retreated to theattic, the best rooms were devoted to the "Friends travelling on truth'saccount;" and the same house saw hospitality of the old sort extendedfor one week to the religious guests, and of the new sort faithfully setforth for the guests who paid for it by the week. 

The Quakeress and daughter of Quakers has produced the summerboarding-house; which is no more than the ample Quaker home, organizedto extend the thrifty hospitality continuously for four months, for goodpayment in return, which has always been extended to Friends andvisiting relatives for longer or shorter periods in the past, as an actof household grace. 

The Quaker Hill woman is a good housekeeper. The substantial farmhouseson the Hill are outward signs of excellent homes within. The table iswell spread, with a measured abundance, which satisfies but does notwaste. The rooms are each furnished forth in spare and righteousdaintiness, over which nowadays is poured, in occasional instances, apretty modern color, timidly laid on, which does not remove the primQuakerness. Ventures in the use of decoration, however, have been crudein most cases, and the results, so far as they have been effected by thetaste of the woman of the Hill, are incongruous in color, andill-assorted in design. It is in house-furnishing that the tendency ofthe daughter of the Quakers shows the most frequent variation. Occasionally one sees the outcropping of a really artisticspirit--peculiarly refreshing because so rare--which has only in awoman's mature years ventured to indulge in a bit of happy color; butthe venture if successful is always reserved and simple; and the most ofsuch ventures are of unhappy result. 

The housekeeping arts have reached a high degree of perfection on theHill. Cooking is there done with a precision, economy and tastefulnessin sharp contrast to the non-aesthetic manner in which the Quakersconduct most occupations. It is, moreover, a kind of cooking after theQuaker manner, at once frugal and abundant. For of all people, theQuakers have learned to manage generously and economically. 

The outcome of this housekeeping is the diversion of much of thebusiness energy of the Hill to the "keeping of boarders. " Seven of theold Quaker families, and one Irish Catholic household are devoted to thekeeping of boarders; five of them being supported in the main by thisbusiness. Of these five families, however, four reside upon farms ofmore than one hundred and fifty acres apiece. These families sell atcertain times in the year, a certain quantity of milk, or make butter, or fatten calves, but not as their central means of support. 

To these farmhouses come year after year the same paying guests, eachhouse having its own constituency, built up through thirty years ofpatient and unbroken service. The charm of the Quaker character, theexcellence of the cooking and the enjoyable character of the otherfactors of the household, bring patrons back; while the benefits of theelevation and pure air are, to city dwellers, material returns for themoneys expended. For this board, the price charged is, in the IrishCatholic household, five dollars per week; in one of the oldtime Quakerhouses, six dollars, and in the others from eight to ten or twelvedollars per week. 

The season in which boarders can be secured in paying numbers is aperiod extending from June fifteenth to October first, with the housesfilled only in the months of July and August. For this period, which isone continued strain upon the housekeepers and their aids, preparationbegins as early as the month of March. The housework is generally doneby the women of the family, with some employed help, of an inferiorsort. The horses and carriages on the farm must be used for thetransportation of guests, and for hire to those who drive for pleasure. On one farm sheep are kept; though most of the boarding-houses buy theirmeat supplies of the dealers mentioned below. 

Of late years the help employed in these boarding-houses, in addition tomembers of the family, has come to be negroes from Culpepper County, Virginia. These employees come each spring and return in the fall. 

The one Irish Catholic boarding-house is for the entertainment of thehired men on the lower part of the Hill, near the Hotel. It ismaintained throughout the year, with a varying number of guests, by awoman ninety years of age, who in addition to the management, does muchof the hard work herself. 

The conservatism of the Hill families is shown in the fact that theboarding-house business has never been extended. No house has ever beenerected for that purpose alone; but the present business of that sortis carried on in the old Quaker homes, each receiving only as many paidguests as it was used to receive of its hospitable duty, when theQuarterly Meeting brought Friends from afar, once in the year. 

Mizzen-Top Hotel is perhaps an exception, if, indeed, a large hotel, with quarters for two hundred and fifty guests, and at prices rangingfrom three dollars per day up, be an exception. It has grown out of thesame conditions which transformed the farmhouses into boarding-houses, save that it has never been managed at a profit, and they never at aloss. It is, however, an institution by itself, and will be treated inanother place. 

The Mizzen-Top Hotel has always been a sober institution, influencedthereto by the pleasureless spirit of the Hill. Baseball, tennis, andgolf in their times have had vogue there, but under every management ithas been hard to arouse and maintain active interest in outdoor orindoor sports. The direct road to Hammersley Lake, formerly calledQuaker Hill Pond, has made possible a moderate indulgence incarriage-driving. The laying out of the golf links in 1897 set goingthat dignified sport, just as the Wayside Path in 1880 occasioned somemild pedestrianism. But the Hotel diminishes rather than increases inits play-activities; and only games of cards retain a hold upon theguests, who prefer the piazza, the croquet ground, the tennis court, andthe golf links in rapidly diminishing proportion. 

Intemperance was common in earlier times, and drinking was universal. Every household made and stored for winter many barrels of cider. Rumand wine were freely bought at the store. Their use in the harvest fieldwas essential to the habits of agriculture which preceded the times ofthe mower and reaper. This free use of cider, with accompanyingintemperance, survives in only two houses on Quaker Hill. 

Miss Taber's account, in "Some Glimpses of the Past, " describes thedrinking habits of the older period: "It was customary to have cider onthe table at every meal, the ladies would have their tea, but most ofthe men drank cider largely, many to excess, consequently there weregreat quantities made in the fall and stored in the cellars during thewinter. A large farmer would lay out a great deal of work, gatheringfrom ten to twenty cartloads of apples, hooping and cleaning barrels, and many ground and pressed their own cider, then the large casks weredrawn to and placed in the cellars. This usually occupied a large partof the month of October. In the spring a portion of the hard cider wouldbe taken to a distiller, and made into cider brandy to be used in thehaying and harvest field, at sheep washings, butchering, raisings, shearings and on many occasions. Some was always on the sideboard andoften on the table. In most households there were sideboards wellfurnished with spirits, brandy, homemade wine, metheglin, etc. , whichwere offered to guests. It was a fashion or custom to offer a drink ofsome kind whenever a neighbor called. 

"My grandfather being obliged to have so many men at least two monthseach year became disgusted with the custom of furnishing so much ciderand spirits to the men in the field, as many of them would come to thehouse at supper time without any appetite and in a quarrelsome mood. There would be wrestlings and fighting during the evening and the chainin the well could be heard rattling all night long. So one year, probably about 1835 or '36, he decided that he would do it no longer. His brother and many of his neighbors tried to dissuade him andprophesied that he would not be able to get sufficient help to securehis crops, but he declared he would give up farming before he wouldendure it any longer, and announced when securing his extra help forthat summer that he would furnish no cider or spirits in the field, butthat coffee and other drinks would be carried out and that every manshould have a ration of spirits at each meal. Most of the men he had hadin past years came back and seemed to be glad to be out of the way oftemptation. The next year he dispensed with the ration at meal times, and the custom grew among his neighbors with surprising rapidity; it wasbut a few years when it became general, with a few exceptions, where thefarmer himself was fond of it, until to-day such a thing is not heardof, and in fact, the farmer, like the railroads and other largecorporations, do not care to employ a man that is in the habit of usingspirits at all. "

In the years 1890-1905 there were only two families on the Hill whichfollowed primitive custom in "putting in cider" into the cellar inquantity for the winter. In five more a very small quantity was kept. Inthe other cases it was regarded as immoral to use the beverage. Thewriter was only once offered a drink of alcoholic beverage in six years'residence on the Hill. 

In respect to the standard of living which is regarded as necessary tothe maintenance of respect and social position, the Hill exhibits twostrata of the population. The city people, and the farmers and laborers. The former class, besides the Hotel and its cottages, comprise sevenhouseholds, who have formed their ways of living upon the city standard. The others, resident all the year round upon the Hill, live after astandard common to American country-people generally of the betterclass. 

The economic ideas and habits are in no way peculiar to the Hill. Theresurvive in a few old persons some primitive industrial habits. One oldlady, now about ninety, amuses herself with spinning, knitting andweaving; keeping alive all the primitive processes from the shearing ofsheep in her son's field to the completed garment. Axe-helves are stillmade by hand in the neighborhood. 

The practical arts of the community are agriculture, especially thecultivation of grass for hay, cooking and general housekeeping, and theentertainment of paid guests, as "boarders" in farmhouse and hotel. There is in addition on one farm, at Site No. 3, a slaughter-house, atwhich beef and mutton and pork are prepared for market, the animalsbeing bought, pastured, fattened and killed on the place, and the meatdelivered to customers, especially in the summer months, by means of awagon, which makes its journey twice a week, over the length of the Hilland in the country eastward. 

There is also a fish-wagon owned and maintained by the resident at SiteNo. 15, which buys fish during the year and maintains by means of awagon a similar trade. These two are the only food supply businessesmaintained on the Hill. 

Economic opportunity has always appealed strongly to the Quaker Hill manand woman. In 1740 John Toffey settled at the crossing of ways which iscalled "Toffey's Corners, " and began to make hats. Other industriesfollowed. 

In recent years, in almost every Quaker house boarders have been taken, and a better profit has been made than from the sale of milk. Fortwenty-five years the Mizzen-Top Hotel, accommodating two hundred andfifty guests, has represented notably this response to opportunity. Thebeautiful scenery, which the Quaker himself does not appreciate, becausehe has educated himself out of the appreciation of color and form, hasoffered him an opportunity of profit which he has been prompt anddiligent to seize. All through the summer every one of the six largestQuaker homesteads is filled with guests. The fact cited above that inthe summer there comes to the Hill a greater transient population thandwells there through the year, a population of guests, illustrates thislively economic alertness. 

The emigration from the Hill since 1840 of so many persons, notably theyounger and more ambitious, is in itself a token of this response. Therailroad brought the opportunity; the ambitious accepted it; many wholefamilies have disappeared. Their strong members emigrated; the weakerstock died out. The Merritt, Vanderburgh, Irish, Wing, Sherman, Akin, and other families offer examples. In the place of those who departedhave come others, to fill the total population. There were in 1905 onthe Hill twenty-five old families with seventy-five persons, andtwenty-five Irish Catholic families with one hundred persons. 

The response to economic opportunity has often been too keen, and theattempt too grasping. In 1891 wealthy New Yorkers offered for certainfarms so located as to command beautiful views, prices almost doublewhat they are worth for farming. The reply was a demand in every case ofone thousand dollars more than was offered; and the result was--no sale. 

Land is valued, though few sales are made, at $1, 000 per acre, near theHotel. The acre numbered 42, one mile from Mizzen-Top, on Map II, wassold in 1893 to a laboring man for $250. At 53, land was sold in 1903for $700 per acre. At 52, three acres were sold by sisters to a brotherin 1895, the asking-price being $1, 000 per acre, and the price paid $800per acre. For farming, this land is worth $50 and $75 per acre. Fourmiles further inland as good recently sold for $10 per acre. Quaker Hillhas not neglected its economic opportunities. 

Nearness to the soil has, under the influences of Quaker ethics andeconomic ambition, cultivated in this population a patient and steadfastindustry, which expresses itself in the milk dairy, a form of farming byits nature requiring early hours and late, with all the day betweenfilled by various duties. I have shown above that this industry islosing its hold on the farmers of the Hill, but for two generations ithas been the distinctive type of labor on the Hill. To rise at four oreven earlier in the morning and to prepare the milk, to deliver it atthe station, four to eight miles away, to attend to the wants of cowsfrom twenty to one hundred in number; to prepare the variousfood-products, either by raising from the soil, or by carting from therailroad, --these activities filled, ten years ago, the lives of onehundred and four of the adult males of the community; and theseactivities at present fill the time of sixty of the adult males of thecommunity. [34]

While "the milk business" is a declining industry, other things are notless engrossing. The land must be tilled, and is tilled. Hay is thegreatest crop, and the mere round of the seasons brings for a communityused to agriculture a discipline and a course of labor, which make liferegular and industrious. 

Farming, as stated above, is carried on with a view to the production ofmilk for the city market. It is a laborious and exacting occupation. Thedairy cow, generally of the Holstein stock, or with a strain of Holsteinin her blood, is the most common variety; though the grass of the Hillis so good that very rich milk is produced by "red cow, just plainfarmer's cow, " as the local description runs; and the demands of themiddlemen have brought in some Jersey cattle, which are desired, becauseof the greater proportion of cream they produce. The largest profit fromthe "making of milk" is secured by those farmers who keep as many cowsas can be fed from the land owned by them. But the more ambitiousfarmers rent land, and in a few cases on a small farm keep so manycattle that they have to buy even hay and corn. It is necessary for thefarmer, in order to meet the demands of the city market, to feed hiscattle on grains not raised on the Hill. One hundred years ago the landsof the Hill were planted in wheat, rye, corn and other grains, butto-day the farmers buy all grains, except corn, of which an increasingquantity is being raised, and oats, of which they do not raise enoughfor the use of their horses. There are no silos used on the Hill, thecity milkmen having a standing objection to the milk of cows fed onensilage. 

The labor problem created by the milk business is an acute one. One mancan milk not more than twenty cows, and he is a stout farm-hand who candaily milk more than twelve or fifteen. As a farmer must keep betweentwenty and forty cows to do justice to his acreage, on the average Hillfarm, there must be at least two men, and often there must be five orsix men employed on the farm. To secure this number of capable men, tokeep them, and to pay them are hard problems. Their wages have risen inthe past twelve years, from fourteen dollars a month and board totwenty-three dollars and board; or for a married man, who has houserent, wood, and time to cut it, garden and time to tend it, and a quartof milk a day, the wages have risen from twenty-eight to thirty-fivedollars a month. 

These men are recruited from a class born in the country, and of adrifting, nomadic spirit; and from the city, the latter a sinister, dangerous element, whom the farmers fear and suspect. On a large farm, with five men in employ, the farmer may expect to replace one man eachmonth; and to replace his whole force at least once a year. Sochangeable are the minds of this class of laborers. 

Those who are married are somewhat more stable; but of the others it isasserted by the farmers that out of their wages they save nothing. 

There has been a rise in the price secured by the farmers for their milkin the past ten years, but it has been only for limited periods. Thevariation was from 1. 9 cents and 2 cents, the price in 1895-98, to 3cents, the price paid in the winter of 1907. In the summer the price isalways lower. The farmers have no control over the price paid them formilk, nor have they control over the prices to be paid for labor, though of course in this matter, there is room for a certain skill inbargaining and for the lowering of the total wages paid on the farmthrough the skillful employment of the cheaper kinds of hands. 

There is also a difference in the price paid for milk by "the MilkFactory, " a plant established at the railway in the past ten years, ineach dairy-town. This establishment takes milk from the poorer dairiesunder conditions less exacting than are laid down by some buyers, and inconsequence pays a price correspondingly lower than the market rates formilk and the higher prices secured by the better farmers. 

One energetic farmer, who has in the past five years had large farms tomanage, on hire, or on shares, has prepared milk for hospital use in thecity, meeting the exactions of inspection, and the prescribed care ofstables, animals, workmen and receptacles in a way intolerable to theaverage farmer. He receives in return a price twenty per cent above themarket rate. 

The effect of the above conditions is seen in the fact that in thetwelve years under study nine owners of large farms have "given up themilk business, " have sold their cows, or keeping them have made butterand fatted calves for market. The profits to be made in dairy-farmingare so small, unless the farmer conduct his dairy in an exceptionalmanner, or on a very large scale, that the average man on the Hillcannot continue it. Indeed, the average farmer on the Hill is unablethrough lack of vitality or incapacity for application, to conduct anybusiness, successfully, against competition. The state of mind of suchmen, in the worst cases, is illustrated by the remark of one of them whoapproached a successful dairyman, saying: "I am going to cease to makemilk for the city market, and I thought I would come to you and find outsomething about the way to make butter--not the best butter, such as youmake, but a sort of second-class butter. "

[34] Mr. E. I. Hurd is my authority for the followingstatement. "In the total income of the farmers of Pawling, nine dollarsare paid them for milk for every dollar in payment for other products. "

CHAPTER III. 

NEW IDEALS OF QUAKERISM: ASSIMILATION OF STRANGERS. 

Quaker Hill has always been a community with great powers ofassimilation. The losses suffered by emigration have been repaired bythe genius of the community for socializing. Whoever comes becomes aloyal learner of the Quaker Hill ways. I think this is a matter ofimitation. Personality has here made a solemn effort to perfect itselffor a century and a half; and the characters of Richard Osborn, James J. Vanderburgh, Anne Hayes, David Irish and his daughter, Phoebe IrishWanzer, ripened into possession of at least amazing power of example. Imust be sparing of illustration here, where too rich a store is at hand. I will offer only this striking fact, observed by all who know the Hill:the Irish emigrant and his American-born children, of whom there are nowas many as remain of the original Quakers, have come to be as goodQuakers in character--though still loyal Catholics in dogma--as if theysaid "thee and thou, " and wore drab. They are peaceable, gentle folk, sober and inoffensive; and the transforming influence of Quakercharacter is seen in certain of them in a marked degree. 

The same statement may be made of the pervasive example of the Quakercharacter upon other areas of population; servants who come from thecity, summer guests, artistic people who love the Hill for its beautyand suggestiveness, ministers and other public teachers who come hither. 

The area to the southeast, called "Coburn, " settled to a degree by thosewho have worked on the Hill in times past as employees, is touched withthe same manner. Its meeting house, erected over sixty years ago, evenretains the Quaker way of seating the men and women apart. 

The Quaker Hill Conference, now in its ninth year, is anotherillustration of the charm and reach of the gentle influence of theQuaker Hill ideal upon personal character. 

Suggestion also explains much. In such a social whole, manners andcustoms are fixed. The newcomer is often fresh, ingenuous, and sometimesintrusive. Little by little he becomes socialized. Ways of action arefixed for him, and a range of performance comes to be his. In harmonywith this range, suggestion is very fertile; but one learns after a timethat there is a limit to its force beyond which individuals will not go. Suggestion, to be effective upon the many, must come from the sourceswhich embody the community's religious and economic ideal. 

Ideas, once broached, are usually, if they contemplate action, opposed, at least by inertness; but after a time they reappear as if native tothe minds which would have none of them by reasonable approaches. Thisprocess is accelerated if the suggestion begins to travel from mind tomind. Some individuals are less slow than others; and the leaders ofQuaker Hill thinking have always been able to work by the plan ofacademic proposal--to avoid rejection--followed by incitement of popularaction in particular quarters. Quaker Hill cannot bear to be divided;and that which comes to be successful in one quarter soon comes to beuniversal. Things can be done by social suggestion which could never beaccomplished by appeal or rational discussion. 

The word that has formed the social mind of Quaker Hill has been, not"the Spirit, " not "the inner light, " but "orthodoxy" or "plainness. " Forthis community, it must be remembered, had no great thinkers. Itdiscouraged study, stiffened reason in formulas and dissolved thinkingin vision. To its formulas the Hill has been exceedingly devoted. Hewho upheld them was accepted, and he who rejected them, as well as hewho ignored them, was to the early Quaker Hill as if he did not exist. 

This shibboleth has indeed always been religious. Even to-day the way ofdirect access to the common heart is a religious one. Catholic as wellas Protestant, Quaker no more and no less than "the world's people, "welcome religious approaches, respect confessions, and believeexperiences. Nothing can assemble them all which does not originate inreligion and clothe itself in religious sanction. History is religioushistory. Business prosperity is approved when the prosperity hasfollowed religious profession. 

I do not mean to say that there are not other symbols than those ofreligion. Prosperity has spoken its shibboleths as well as orthodoxy. "Business is business" on Quaker Hill. Not "to save money" is anunforgiven sin--and a rare one!

Much has been done in forming the common mind of Quaker Hill byantipathies and sympathies, chiefly again of a religious order modifiedby the economic. The community is markedly divided into rich and poor, and into orthodox and not-orthodox. These have no inclination one toanother. Each group has its symbols and pass-words, and whileneighborly, and answering to certain appeals to which the community hasalways responded, each resident of the Hill lives and dwells in his owngroup and has no expectation of moving out of it. So long as a man staysin his group he is, by a balancing of antipathy and sympathy, respectedand valued. If he venture to be other than what he was born to be, hesuffers all the social penalties of a highly organized community. 

Authority, working along the lines of belief and dogma, has almostirresistible force for the Quaker Hill social mind. A visitor to theHill said "These are an obedient people. " Any barrenness of the Hill isto be attributed rather to the lack of leaders who could speak to thebeliefs and in harmony with the dogmas, than to lack of willingness toobey authority. From the past the families on the Hill inherit theirwillingness respectively to command and to obey. This is true sociallyof certain families and religiously of others. That to-day some are notled is due solely to the decadence of initiative in the householdswhich, by reason of wealth or dogmatic rectitude, inherit and claim thefirst place. 

It was said above that Quaker Hill has shown great power of assimilatingforeign material, and of causing newcomers to be possessed of thecommunal spirit. The agency which from the first accomplished this wasreligious idealization, embodied in the meeting, the dress, language andmanners of Friends. Generally the Meeting was recruited from births, andmembers were such by birthright. In former times the community and theMeeting were one. This assimilating of foreign material by socialimitation to the Quaker type, and into organic subjection to the QuakerHill community, was wrought by six agencies. They were language, manners, costume, amusements, worship, and morals. In each of these theQuakers were peculiar. In the use of the "plain language" the Quakershad a machinery of amazing and subtle fascination for holding theattention, purifying the speech, and disciplining the whole deportmentof the young and the newcomer. No one has ever been addressed with theuse of his first name by grave, sweet ladies and elderly saints, withoutits beginning an influence and exerting a charm he could not resist; themore so that the Quaker in so doing is guarding his own soul, ratherthan seeking to save his hearer. 

The grave manners of the Quakers, both in meeting and without, areframed upon their belief that all days are holy, and all places sacred. Their long and triumphant fight against amusements is a tribute to thegravity of life. The contest to which I have elsewhere referred for puremorals, in matters of sex, of property and of speech, was a victoriousbattle. 

In all these matters Quaker Hill was a population socialized byreligion. Central to it all was the worship of the Meeting on First Day, and on other occasions; and the great solemnity of the annual QuarterlyMeeting. Fascinated by that "silence that can be felt, " men came fromfar. They would come as readily to-day. They went away under thedomination of that idea of pure and spiritual faith, which kept a wholehouseful of men silent for an hour in communion. 

As I have looked into this matter it has seemed to me that the inductionto be drawn from the history of Quaker Hill is this: Religion was a trueorganizing power for this social population. Whatever the meetingdeterminedly strove to do it accomplished. If it had tried to do more itwould have succeeded. 

This was a gain, moreover, without corresponding losses; a total netgain in all the moralities. The whole area on which this meeting exertedits influence was by it elevated to a higher moral and social tone, andorganized into a communal whole, characterized by a loftier and cleanerstandard than that of surrounding populations. 

Why, then, did it die out? First, because of the bareness of itsworship, the lack of music, color and form; through which it lost in thenineteenth century some of its best families. Then through dogmaticdifferences, of no interest to human beings, it lost its primacy in thecommunity and so its authority. 

In the chapter on "Ideals of the Quakers, " I have dwelt upon theirdramatization of life. They "made believe" that "plainness" wassanctity. They fixed their minds upon the commonplace as the ideal. Itis probable that the early population were men and women of no suchtalents as to disturb this conviction; and the variations from plainnessin the direction of gayety were sternly denounced as immoral. Also thestruggle with the wilderness occupied and exhausted the powers of theexceptional as well as of the average man. But when with wealth cameleisure, there were born sons of the Quakers who rebelled against thediscipline of life that repressed variation, who demandedself-expression in dress, in language, in tastes, and in pleasures. Gradually but surely, as the outside world was brought nearer, thesepersons were influenced in their restiveness by books and examples, byimitation and other stimuli from new sources, until they cast off intheir minds the Quaker ideal of plainness. To be ordinary no longerseemed to them a way of goodness. They were oppressed and stifled by theban of the meeting upon variation. And though the ideal of plainness hassubtly ruled them even in their rebellion and freedom, it has done so byits negative power, in that the community has never furnishedexceptional education. The positive dominion of the meeting broken, thenegative "plainness" of the community rules all the children of the Hillto this day. So few are the sources of individual variation furnished, in the form of books, music, education, art, that no son or daughter ofQuaker Hill has attained a place of note even in New York State. Theideal of "plainness" has been an effectual restraint. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE COMMON MIND. 

The common mind has been formed to a great degree by strongpersonalities; for the common mind has held an ideal of perfection in aperson. The force which at the beginning assembled its elements waspersonal. The type represented by George Fox, as interpreted by Barclay, embodied this influence. In all the history of the place response tostrong personality has been immediate and general. The past is a historyof names. William Russell led the community in erecting a Meeting House, and then a second one--which still stands. Ferriss, the early settler, located the meeting house on his land, as later Osborn located theOrthodox Meeting House, at the Division, on his land. Judge Daniel Akin, in the early Nineteenth Century, was a leader of the economic activitiesof this Quaker community, then differentiating themselves from thereligious. So, too, his nephew, Albert Akin, in the last half of thatcentury was a leader, gathering up the money of the wealthy farmers toinvest in railroads, founding the Pawling Bank, the Mizzen-Top Hotel, and launching Akin Hall, with its literary and religious basis. 

David Irish, the preacher of the Hicksite Meeting in the middle of thenineteenth century was leader and exponent of the most representativephases of Quakerism, for at that time it was still possible for thebusiness and the religion of Quakerism to be united in the minds of themajority; Unitarian Quakerism was the result, and of this David Irishwas the ideal embodiment. 

The respect paid by the community to leadership is shown in the placeassigned to Admiral John L. Worden, commander of the "Monitor, " whomarried a Quaker Hill woman, Olive Toffey, spent the summers of hislife on the Hill, and is buried in the Pawling Cemetery. There wasuniversal pride in his charming personality, interest in his sayings, and no pious condemnation of his warlike deeds. His nautical names ofthe high points on the Hill have been generally accepted; so that theHill rides high above all surrounding lands, her heights labelled likethe masts of a gallant ship: "Mizzen-Top, " "Main-Top, " "Tip-Top. "

There is indeed by contrast a corresponding unwillingness to beimpressed by great personality. The residence of Washington with histroops in the neighborhood left no impression on the records of theMeeting, though he turned out the worshippers and filled the place withsick soldiers; no impression upon the devout tradition, except the storyof his being seen once in the woods alone on his knees in prayer; and noimpression upon the social tradition, except the cherished claim of onefamily that he used their residence as his headquarters. Washington wasthe embodiment of all that this community opposed, and he was ignored. 

Another instance of grudging allegiance was the following given to a NewYork broker, who set out to build a modern schoolhouse, and waspermitted only by a packed school-meeting, and by paying two-thirds ofthe expense himself, to build in 1892 the comely structure at 43, withwhich Quaker Hill is content. 

The same resident was discouraged from further acts of public service, in 1894, by the declining of his offer made to the town of Pawling, tobuild one mile of macadam for every mile built by the town. He hadconstructed in 1893, at 113, a sample piece of such road, covering athis own expense an ancient sink-hole in the highway, through whichduring two months in every year for a century and a half Quaker Hill hadwallowed; and he desired with this object-lesson to convince thetown, --to win the support of at least his neighbors, --to the proposalto transform the highways into good roads. But there was never aresponse, and even his neighbors on the Hill, who cheerfully enjoy hissmooth stretch of stone road over the ancient wallow of their fathers, manifested no active appreciation of his generosity. The generousresident had purchased a stone-crusher and other necessaries for thework; but they have been used only on private grounds. 

The most conspicuous instance of following leadership in recent timeshas been the measured devotion given by the community to the activitieswhich have centered in Akin Hall and in the institution known as HillHope, on Site 35. The leaders in this activity have been themselvesunder the influence of New York city ideas. Two of the three mostconspicuous persons are of this neighborhood, but have resided in NewYork for years, returning to the Hill for the summers. The third is aNew Yorker by birth, and trained in Presbyterian religious experienceand especially in charitable activity. 

Akin Hall has in the years 1892-1905 expressed the leadership inreligious confession and worship, after the forms of the ReformedChristian order, and has embodied this leadership in the conventionalactivities of a vigorous country parish. 

For ten years Hill Hope, supported personally by the third member ofthis group of leaders, was, until it was closed in 1904, a country homefor working girls. By a liberal policy it became also a center of muchinterest and of a pervasive influence to the neighborhood. Meetings of asocial and devotional character were held there, to which the residentswere pleased to come, and in which the young women from the city met andmingled with the Protestant residents of the Hill, especially with thoseof the Quaker stock. The influence of Hill Hope was very marked, and itspower in representing to people of a narrow experience the ideals of aricher and broader life was obvious to any one who saw the place it heldin the interests of the whole resident community. 

These influences, thus compounded of the humanitarian, theliberal-orthodox and the devotional, but in all things confessedlyreligious, exerted themselves for the ten years named, unbroken. Thedeath of one member of this group of leaders, the head of one of thethree households peculiarly identified with its work, appreciablyweakened the group. But in the thirteen years of its influence, itunited the whole community in the formation of a church, to some ofwhose services came all the Protestant population; in whose membershipwere representatives of all groups of the Protestant residents; andwhich was able at least once a year to call the Catholics also togetherat Christmas festivities. 

To this group of leaders a guarded, though at times cordial followingwas given by Orthodox Friends, the Hicksite group, the farmer class, laborers, Catholics and Protestants, and summer people. It was generallyinert and negative in spirit, seldom actively loyal. At its best it waswilling that leaders should lead and pay the price, and be more admiredthan upheld. At its worst it was alert to private and blind to publicinterests, peevish of change, incapable of foresight. 

I do not think that Quaker Hill people have much expectation of benefitfrom social life. They are habitually skeptical of its advantages, though eager to avail themselves of those advantages when proven. Almostevery person on the Hill, however, is a member of some secret society, to which he is drawn by anticipations of economic advantage, or of moralculture. 

Nor can I say that there is prompt or general reaction to wrongdoing, either of one or of many. I might illustrate with two cases. In one arich man perverted a public trust, openly, to his own advantage; and aconspiracy of silence hedged his wrong about. In the other, a youthentered in one winter every house on the Hill in succession, and therewas no one to detect or to punish him. 

The Hill does not exhibit the highest type of social response in therecognition of impersonal evil, in the quest of knowledge, or in freediscussion. Almost two centuries of dogma-worship, with itscontemplation of selected facts, has made it now impossible to securefrom one thoroughly socialized in the spirit of the place the exacttruth upon any matter. It seems to be reserve which conceals it, but itis rather the effect of continued perversion of the sense of right andwrong, and indifference to knowledge for its own sake. 

The ideal of the common mind of Quaker Hill is the practice of inner andimmaterial religion. It looks for the effects of certain dogmas, effectsexpressed in emotions, convictions, experiences. The ideal contains nothought of the community or of its welfare. It is purely individual, internal and emotional. 

It was expressed in the comment of one excellent representative citizenupon another, "He does not seem to me to be the man he once was. He doesnot say in meetings the things he used to say. He used to be veryhelpful in his remarks. " This was said at a time when the citizencommented on was laboring heroically for a public improvement by whichthe citizen speaking would chiefly be benefited. 

The Quaker Hill man and woman desire to make money. They instinctivelylove money, though not for any other purpose than saving. They cherishno illusions of an unworldly sort about it. This is true of Quaker andCatholic, laborer and summer resident. It is true of the small class ofcultivated intellectual-aesthetes, who might be expected to be lessmercenary. They all value money; but not for display, not for luxury, scarcely for travel; not for books or the education of children. QuakerHill men and women would accumulate money, invest and manage it wiselyand live in respectable "plainness. " This characteristic is writtenlargely over the whole social area. It is an instinct. 

The emotional nature of this population has been by long-continuedapplication of an accepted discipline, economic and religious, restrained and schooled. More beautiful personalities than some of theQuaker and Irish women of the Hill, schooled in a discipline whichproduces the most charming manners, the gentlest kindness, one may neversee. There is no cloud in the sky of these women's justice, truthfulness, goodness. One may remember, even with them, a day ofanger, of indignation; but it was a storm restrained; the lightningswere held in sure hands, and the attack was eminently just. 

But this very discipline has resulted, in other persons, in an explosiveemotionality. One person suffers this explosion in a periodic lawsuit--arare action for the Hill; another in an almost insane family quarrel, another in an occasional fury of futile violence, another in periods, increasing in frequency as he grows older, of causeless and uncontrolledanger, or extravagant grief; and when weightier occasion is lacking, intorrents of language poured forth from the treasuries of an exhaustlessmemory. The very serenity and placidity which Quaker worship andindustry produce in the true Quaker have resulted in the emotional ruinof some, and in the subconscious volcanic state in others. 

Strange to say, the immigrants, Irish and American, have in thisconformed to the better type; so that gentle manners, placidity ofcharacter and restraint of emotion may be said to prevail among them. 

As for judgment, on economic questions and matters of benevolence thejudgment of Quaker Hill people is sound. They use money sanely and withwisdom. They act wisely in matters of poverty and need, or appeal onbehalf of the dependent. On other matters, outside the range of thesocial discipline in which the community has been to school, not so muchcan be said. 

The judgment of the community is not determined by evidence in any othermatters than economic. The Quaker Hill mind works subjectively on thelines of instincts and habits inherited and inbred. Auto-suggestion hasbeen a great force in this community. Men and women have had animpression, "a leading, " believed to come from the Divine Spirit, andhave acted upon it and have led others with them. So that the prevailingdetermination of the social judgment has been by personal suggestion, and the appeal of inner convictions, fortified by alleged divineinfluence. It must be said that this is a disappearing habit. Even thoseborn Quakers, now that the Hicksite Meeting has been discontinued since1885, and the Orthodox since 1903, and the Quarterly Meetings of bothsocieties have ceased to come to the Hill, do not so often see visionsor act upon "leadings. " The influence of non-Quakers in the place hasbeen of late to quarantine such "leadings" and prevent social contagion. 

Frugality is universal. Almost every resident laboring man has a bankaccount. Indeed, these laborers have done more in saving than have thefarmers. But the tastes of all are simple. Clothing is never showy orexpensive, and housekeeping is carried on with the most sparing use ofpurchased articles. 

Cleanly most of the people of the Hill are, in person and in their careof house and grounds, of carriages, horses and other properties. Thehouses and barns are always freshly painted, and an appearance ofneatness pervades the community. 

For reasons which I will mention in a later paragraph the men and womentrained under Quakerism are not orderly, either in the use of their timeor in the management of their labor, or in anything, save in thediscipline of their religion and in the economic system to which theygive themselves. 

The community has grown in compassion since the days when SurgeonFallon's soldiers were starved and neglected in the Meeting House. To-day I am sure no class of men in real need could appeal to thecommunity, or to any constituent group of it, in vain. The growth hasbeen along lines which, beginning in a group-compassion that has fromearliest days recompensed any poor member of the Meeting in his suddenlosses of property, have widened first to Quakers of other places, thento other Christians, then to other men, and last of all to Quakers ofthe other Quaker sect; and from Protestant to Catholic and Catholic toProtestant. 

Property seems to be sacred. Doors of houses and barns do not requirelocks, but one winter there was a series of house-breakings, in whichalmost every summer residence on the Hill was entered. Contents wereinspected, but nothing was stolen. But the honesty here is a passivehonesty. It is not the aggressively just fulfilment of obligation whichone finds in New England. 

The Hill is a community with a high level of chastity. This may be saidof all classes, though not uniformly of all. Yet it was not always so. The first century of the life of the Quakers here is recorded in theminutes of Oblong Meeting as one long struggle of Quaker disciplineagainst unchastity. There is an amazing frankness about these records, and a persistence in the exercise of discipline, a frequency ofaccusation, proof, conviction, expulsion from the Meeting, which isastonishing to the twentieth century reader. The best families furnishedthe culprits almost as often as they supplied the accusers andprosecuting committees. So many are the cases and so frequent theexpulsions, often for matters which might better have been ignored, butgenerally for substantial offences, that one wonders who was left in theMeeting. But men often confessed and were received again, and theMeeting held its ground. In general it may be said that often in theeighteenth century there were more cases of unchastity dealt with in ayear by the Meeting, in a population no larger than the present, thanhave come to public knowledge in the past ten years in this community. The change shows also in a reserve of speech upon these matters. 

The characteristic pleasures of the community, as a whole, are few. There is a group of women of leisure, of course, devoted tobridge-whist, who come in the summer and do not go far from the Hotel. Young men go hunting, and a few grown men are fond of fishing. Thetypical person provides himself with no pleasures outside of his familyand home. Men and women are too busy to play, and the Quakers educatedthemselves out of a playful mind. 

There are a few pleasures which are native and general. One of these ispublic assembly, with an entertaining speaker as a central pleasure. Quaker Hill audiences are alert and keen hearers, and indulgent criticsof a public speaker. There are only two other forms of publicentertainment more pleasing to them. The first is a dramaticpresentation. Many of the Quakers are excellent actors, and the Irishare quite their equals, while the other newcomers are equallyappreciative. The Christmas play in Akin Hall is a great annual event, assembling all the people on the Hill of all classes and groups, for itembodies very many of the appeals to characteristic pleasure. Only oneother attraction is more generally responded to; I refer to a dinner. Something good to eat, in common with one's neighbors, in a placehallowed by historic associations, under religious auspices--here youhave the call that brings Quaker Hill all together. On such a day therewill be none left behind. 

Of all these sorts is the attraction the Quaker Hill Conference has forthe people of the neighborhood. It is a universal appeal to the capacityfor pleasure in the community. It presents famous and eloquent speakersthrough the days of the week. Matters of religion, farming, morals, literature, are discussed, by men of taste and culture; and theclosing day is Quaker Hill Day. On this day, after an assembly in theold Oblong Meeting House, erected in 1764, at which the neighborhood haslistened to papers descriptive of the past of the Hill, all adjourn fora generous dinner under the trees of Akin Hall, or latterly under a tentbeside the Meeting House, partaken of by four hundred people, of allgroups and classes, and followed by brisk, happy speeches by visitorspresent. This, after almost two centuries of keen interest in thequestion of amusements, is the last and most perfect expression of thecapacity for amusement in the community. 

[Illustration: OBLONG MEETING HOUSE]

[Illustration: MEMORIAL STONE]

Of active pleasure-taking, Quaker Hill, purely considered, is incapable. 

It should be said that the Roman Catholic Church in Pawling provides itspeople with a yearly feast, parallel with the Conference, which was foryears held in a grove on the borders of Quaker Hill. 

Traits of character which are general or even common among Quaker Hillpeople are worthy of mention under the heads of regular industry, frugality, cleanliness, temperance, chastity, honesty as to property, and compassion. 

Politically the Hill was until the year 1896 inclined to be Democratic. For years a number of the Protestants on the Hill have beenProhibitionists. 

Primitive notions of morals survive in spite of what has been saidearlier, in isolated instances, or tend to recur in certain families. Until twelve years ago members of certain families maintained the rightto catch fish with a net in Hammersley Lake. Over the line inConnecticut this practice, and that of taking fish with a spear, survivein spite of law. But this primitive method was forcibly ended by theattempt to arrest the chief offender. He made his escape from theofficers, but has never returned, and the practice has not till thisdate, 1905, been resumed on Quaker Hill. 

Primitive moralities of sex appear in certain families, in which in eachgeneration there appears one illegitimate child, at least; as it were areminder of their disorderly past. The chari-vari survives among thebetter class of working people, a strange, noisy outbreak for a Quakercommunity, with which a newly married pair are usually serenaded. 

I find also no animistic ideas, or practices; no folk-lore and no magic. The Quaker Hill imagination has been disciplined. 

The preferred attainment in this community is neither power, splendor, pleasure, nor ceremonial purity; nor yet justice, liberty orenlightenment; but rather, first of all, prosperity, a well-being inwhich one's good fortune sheds its favors on others; secondly, righteousness, to be enjoyed in religious complacency; and thirdly, equality. This last is one of the few elements of a social idealactually realized. Even among the women of the place there is a simpleand unaffected democracy in the religious and communal societies, whichis quite unusual in such a place. 

Of sacred places there are avowedly none. But the historic sense of thecommunity is reverent, almost religious, in its regard for the past; sothat the Oblong Meeting House, cradle of the community, and for over acentury its home and house of government, is chief in the affections ofall. In the summer of 1904 this place was marked for all time by theplacing there of a boulder of white feldspar, bearing a bronze tabletinscribed with the important facts of the history of that spot. 

Quaker Hill does not desire to expand. The type of community preferredis the simple, small, and exclusive. In this all agree, whether theyconfess it or not. No expansion will ever come by native forces orconscious purpose. 

Quaker Hill reveres leaders, not heroes; and not saints, for men havebeen cherished for their leadership in dogmatic activities, rather thanfor their abstract goodness or human value. The type of the social mindthat has been most esteemed is the dogmatic-emotional. Even Albert J. Akin, whose dogma was the union of all Christians, had no patience withany divergence in religious experience from this, his dogma. 

The forms of complex activity that are chiefly cherished are, first, theeconomic arts; second, religion; third, morals; and fourth, thingspertaining to costume. The institutions chiefly prized are the familyand marriage, the economic system and the cultural system, especiallythe church. 

Social welfare is conceived of under forms of peace, the increase anddiffusion of wealth, industry, and by a minority, culture. High moralityis most valued as an element in the social personality. Next after it isa highly developed sociality. Social policies would be favored on theHill as they represented authority and individualism. Conversion is theaccepted means of modifying type. 

Practical politics may be said to be foreign to Quaker Hill, for reasonsdrawn from its isolation and religious offishness. An exception was inthe early part of the nineteenth century, when Daniel Akin, apparentlyin consequence of mercantile position, was elected County Judge. Afterhim, his brother Albro was appointed to the office. 

The consciousness of kind on Quaker Hill is stronger in the group thanin the community. Yet the general sense of "unity" is very strong and itoften comes into play. 

The chief social bonds which unite the whole community are, first ofall, imitation, in which process it seems to me the Quakers are apeculiarly subtle people. Second, a good-will which pervades the Hilllike a genial atmosphere. Third, kindness, which on certain occasionsdraws the whole community together in unusual acts of helpfulness tosome member in need. 

CHAPTER V. 

PRACTICAL DIFFERENCES AND RESEMBLANCES. 

The prevailing type of mind among Quaker Hill folk is theIdeo-Emotional; for these folk are a gentle, social sort of persons, ready of affection, imaginative and analogical in mental process, weakand complacent in emotionality, with motor reaction rather inconstant, and of slow response. Of these I find thirty-seven families. 

The next category is that of the Dogmatic-Emotional, in which I observetwenty-two families. These are composed of persons in whom austere anddomineering character proceeds from a dogmatic fixity of mind, andexpresses itself in the same inconstant application shown by the formerclass. 

A few of the more notable of the personalities produced by Quaker birthand breeding belong, I think, in the Ideo-Motor class. I find only sevenfamilies of that type, but the forceful character, of aggressive bent, moderate intellect and strong but well-controlled emotion, is distinctlypresent; and this class has furnished some of the most successful of thesons of Quaker Hill. 

I have known only six persons resident on the Hill in the twelve yearsunder study who could be described as Critically-Intellectual. Of these, four have been bred in the larger school of the city, and only two havelived their lives upon the Hill. Of these six, five are women. 

There is, of course, only one language spoken in Quaker Hill. Indeedonly one or two persons have any other than English as their nativetongue. [35] And very few have acquired any other as a matter of culture. The vocabulary used is limited. An intelligent observer says: "Thevocabulary of the native community is the meagerest I have ever known, except that of the immigrant. " There are, however, very fewilliterates; none, indeed, in the literal meaning of the term. 

Manners on the whole are uniform for the resident population. Of coursethe summer people have the conventional manners, or lack of manners, ofthe city. So far as religion has shaped the manners of the old Quakergroup, they are often gentle and refined; but as often blunt andimperious. The Irish have the best manners, I observe, and the moretransient summer people and farm-hands the worst. In both the last twoclasses there is too often a pride in rudeness and vulgarity which thenative of mature years never exhibits. The Quaker and the Catholic areequally ceremonious in inclination. The latter always desires to please. The Quaker, when he desires to please, is capable of very fine courtesy;but he does not always desire, and he has less insight into the essenceof a social situation. 

The community has had a history, of course, in the matter of costume. The Meeting House law made costume a matter of ethics for a century. Butto-day there is great diversity. Probably this is a sign of thetransition from the Quaker to the broader human order. But all one cansay upon costume is that there is now no dress prescribed for anyoccasion. At one extreme there are a few, in 1905 only three, in 1907only one, who wear the Quaker garb. At the other extreme are outsiderswho dress as the city tailor and milliner clothe them. And between thesethere is liberty. 

The dispositions again are varied. One finds the aggressiveness of fivestirring men and three capable women sufficient to give character to theplace. Many functions of the community are still vigorously upheld, yetthe number of aggressive spirits is diminishing. The instigative type ispresent in three, and its processes give pleasure to all who behold. Thedomineering type is present in eight members, especially in thosefamilies which claim by right of inheritance either social or religiousleadership. And, as to others, as I quoted an observer above, "They arean obedient people. " I do not know any creative minds, much less anyclass with original initiative. If there had been any such, Quaker Hillwould have produced artists, great and small, and writers, not a few. There is a consciousness of material for creation, and in certainfamilies the culture which creation presupposes; but something inQuakerism has quieted the muse and banked the fires. 

As to types of character, there are forceful persons, a very few, nineat the utmost being of this type. Austere persons, who have in the pastgiven to the Hill much of its character, have almost disappeared, notmore than four being within that category, among the population understudy in this part of the book. 

The number of the rationally conscientious is as small as is that of theconvivial. The Meeting, which was for over a century the organ ofconscience for the community, denied to the convivial their license, andreleased the conscientious from any obligation to be rational. TheMeeting has now but recently passed away, and its standards of characterspeak as loudly as ever. I find three women who may be called rationallyconscientious, one a Quakeress, one a New Yorker, and one of Quakerbirth and worldly breeding. I find also three who are truly convivial intype, one a son of Quakers, and two who are Irish Catholics; whileto these might be added two whose designation ought to beIndustrious-Convivial, hard-working men who are fond of social pleasureas an end of life. 

A few in certain households, three in number, are intellectuallyaesthetic in a passive way, fond of art and books, but creating nothing. Two artists of note have in the past twelve years come to the Hill, bought places and made it at least a summer home. 

It must not be inferred from the foregoing that there is not a widerange of mental difference among Quaker Hill men and women. In thematter of quickness and slowness of action this variation appears evenamong the members of any one group. In the same family are two brothers, both farmers, both tenants. One is able to farm a thousand acres moresuccessfully than the other can cultivate two hundred. The one isinstant in judgment, swift in action, able to compress into an hourheavy physical labor and also the control of many other men. The otheris leisurely, indolent in movement, though a diligent man, and is asmuch burdened by increase of responsibilities as the former isstimulated. These two men are not exceptional, but typical. The extremeof slowness is indeed represented in one man whose tortoise pace in allmatters dependent on the mind and will is oddly contrasted with hisvigor and energy of manner. His movements are a provocation of delightedcomments by his neighbors; I think partly because they are felt to berepresentative of what is latent in other men, and partly because he issurrounded by others more alert. Such men are the outcropping of a veinof degenerate will. It is not immoral degeneracy, but its weakness isincapacity for action of any kind, inability to see and do the specifictask. This degenerate will does not extend to traditional morals, anddoes not always affect whole families. But its pervasive effects areseen in almost all the representatives of three large families of theold Quaker stock. Contrasted to these are some of the old stock, whothough slow of thought and barren of mental initiative, are swift ofaction, sure in synthesis of a situation, and instant in performance ofprecisely the requisite deed. 

One finds on the Hill many examples of native administrative ability ofa high order--for a farm is as complicated a property as a railway is. There are fully as many others who would be burdened with the cares of aticket-chopper. 

Not a few on the Hill are like the farmer who, sent on an errand tobring some guests from a train to a certain house, spent half an hourafter meeting the guests in conversation with them in the railwaystation before mentioning his errand; and would have made it an hour hadthey not inquired of him for a conveyance. Yet a neighbor of his, in thesame social group, closely related, has unusual capacity for affairs. 

The instincts of the people of the Hill are not, I think, so varied. They involuntarily respect religion, when expressed with sincerity, andincarnated in strength of character. It must have the authority, however, of strength, at least passive strength, to appeal to localinstinct. 

[35] In 1905-7 six Swedes and Poles also have come, as laborers. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 

The members of the community have organized themselves into associationsfor the carrying on of special forms of activity to a degree which isworthy of record. As one might expect, the societies of most vigor arethose maintained by the women, since the men have never been ablespontaneously to organize, or to maintain, any society on the Hill. 

Central to all this organization, through the period of the MixedCommunity, has been Akin Hall Association, created by one man, andendowed by him. Under its shelter a church and library live, and ayearly Conference is maintained for five days in the month of September. In this chapter we will consider first the incorporated, then theunincorporated societies. 

The chief incorporated institution on Quaker Hill is Akin HallAssociation, founded in 1880 by Albert J. Akin. It was his intention tocreate an institution of the broadest purpose, through which could becarried on activities of a religious, literary, educational, benevolentand generally helpful order. "Albert Akin endowed, " said a visitor, "nota college or a hospital, but a community!" The charter of theAssociation, which was from time to time, on advice, amended, up to thetime of Mr. Akin's death in 1903, provided for the most catholicendowment of Quaker Hill, in every possible need of its population. 

The particular directions in which this endowment has been used are two. A library and a church are in active use by the neighborhood, the formersince 1883, and the latter since 1895, of which I will speak in detailhereafter. 

Akin Hall Association is a corporation consisting of five trustees, aself-perpetuating body, and eleven other "members. " The number oftrustees was originally sixteen, but Mr. Akin early yielded to legaladvice in concentrating authority in five persons; while continuing theremaining eleven as a quasi-public to whom the five report their doings, and with whom they regularly confer. The annual meeting of theAssociation is upon the birthday of the founder, August 14th. At thattime the trustees assemble at two p. M. For the transaction of business, election of members and of officers; and at 3 p. M. The members' meetingis called to order, the officers of the trustees being officers of thewhole body. Members are permitted and expected to inquire as toactivities of the Association, its funds and its work in general, and tovote on all matters coming before the body for its action. Only noaction involving the expenditure of money, or the election of trustees, shall be valid without the concurrence in majority opinion of a majorityof the trustees. 

The chief interest of the trustees has always been the care of theproperty of the Association, which includes invested funds, and thefollowing buildings, with about thirty acres of land: a hotel, havingrooms for two hundred guests, a stone library, a chapel, and sevencottages. The hotel is usually rented to a "proprietor, " and the dutiesof the library and church are laid upon a minister, the earliest ofwhom, Mr. Chas. Ryder, was called the "Agent. "

The Akin Free Library, consisting of about three thousand books, selected with uncommon wisdom by committees of ladies through abouttwenty-five years, was originally established by the ladies of the Hill, in the early eighties, through a popular fund. It has ever since beenfunded by the Akin Hall Association, who have also given it quarters, and care, in the Chapel known as Akin Hall. It will soon be moved intothe stone Library, erected in 1898, but only finished in 1906, and it isreasonable to suppose that it will there have a wider scope and anincreasing use. 

The Library has been managed primarily for the use of "the Summerpeople, " and the books have the excellence of their selection, as wellas the proportion of certain kinds of books, determined by thepreferences of the Summer residents. No adequate records are kept of thebooks used; so that it is impossible to give statistics of the specificutility of the library. But it occupies a real place in the community, and is drawn upon by families from every section of the population. 

The fact that it was originally assembled by popular subscription, andonly later sustained by the Akin endowment is a token of the exceptionallatent interest in literature, and the passive culture, to which tributehas been paid in this study of the Quaker Hill population. It is fair tosay, however, that such interest has been confined to a small group ofthe population, now fast disappearing. 

There is a small corporation, formed for the purpose of holding andcaring for the "Old Meeting House. " It is known as Oblong Meeting House, Incorporated. To this corporation, consisting of three trustees, aself-perpetuating body, the Yearly Meeting of Friends[36] handed over in1902 the building and grounds known as the "Old Meeting House, " at Site28. This ancient building, erected in 1764, is probably the oldestedifice on the Hill, and is the embodiment of the religious andhistorical traditions of the community. These trustees attend to therepair of the Meeting House, which is maintained in exactly thecondition in which it was used for over a century. No meeting of worshipis held now in this building, the "monthly meeting" having been "laiddown" in 1885. The building is, however, the center of frequentpilgrimages during the summer, by the visitors to the Hill and boarders, who delight in its quaint interior. It is used for occasional "sales"for the "benefit" of some public interest. Once a year at the close ofQuaker Hill Conference, it is the place of "Quaker Hill Day" exercises, at which addresses and papers are presented, in celebration andcommemoration of the past history of the community. 

The Hill has record of few revivals. Quaker ways preclude surprises, andrevivals usually arise from new things. There was, however, during fiveyears, 1892-1897, a religious awakening, prolonged month after month, for five years with undiminished force. The cause of it seems to havebeen the study of the Bible in the historic method; a new mode ofawakening traditional religious interest. During that time the wholecommunity was keenly alive, old and young; and in certain cases a changeof life became permanent. In many young persons a definite religiousimpulse was the result. 

This quickened religious interest involved all the Quaker influence, both Orthodox and Hicksite, and it was reinforced by several strongpersonalities from outside the Hill, persons trained in church work inNew York and elsewhere. It crystallized in the organization of "Christ'sChurch, Quaker Hill, " in the Spring of 1895, which received at thebeginning adherents of all the religious groups represented on the Hill. Within three years it had grown to a membership of sixty-five, amongwhom were members or adherents of the following religious bodies, Protestant Episcopal Church, Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches, Quakers, Hicksite and Orthodox, Presbyterian, Baptist, MethodistEpiscopal, Congregational, Disciples and Lutheran. 

This church is served by the minister employed in Akin Hall, and it hastherefore a peculiar place. Its membership is drawn from the populationresident on the Hill. Its doctrinal truths are simple, namely theApostles' Creed. Its ordinances are elastic, baptism being waived in thecase of those who, being trained as Quakers, do not believe in waterbaptism; and by the conditions affixed to Mr. Akin's endowment, that nodenominational use should ever be made of Akin Hall, it is withoutsectarian connections. 

The religious services in Akin Hall have in Summer been attended since1880 by numbers of "summer people, " from Mizzen-Top Hotel and theboarding-houses. A Sunday School was maintained from 1890 to 1905, aChristian Endeavor Society from 1894 to 1903. Both have beendiscontinued, owing to lack of members. 

The church has also a diminished membership, especially since 1903, owing in part to mere removal of population; and even more to the deathand removal from the Hill of persons of forceful, aggressive type, andthe impoverishment of the population in respect of initiative andcoherence. 

The other agency carried on under the patronage of Akin Hall Associationis the Quaker Hill Conference. Founded in 1899 by Mr. Akin, entertainedby Miss Monahan, this assembly has made September of each year a focalpoint in local interest. For five days of public meetings, Bible study, addresses upon religion, social and economic topics, culminating in agreat dinner, of which four hundred partake, it is the modern successorof the now extinct Quaker Quarterly meetings. It expended in 1907 about$1, 400, of which about half was contributed by Akin Hall Association, and the remainder by individuals. 

The groups in which the women of the Hill are associated are of greatinterest. The Roman Catholic women have only their kinship associations, and no voluntary associations, being generally in the employ ofProtestants, and having their church center away from the Hill inPawling village. 

The King's Daughters is the largest association, and most representativeof the Hill, both in its numbers, frequency of meetings and variety ofinterests; though it is not the oldest. It has a membership of forty, and is actively devotional, charitable and benevolent. It serves also auseful purpose in providing social meetings, bazaars, sales and otheroccasions throughout the year which bring neighbors together; and usestheir assembling for the assisting of the poor, ignorant or needy. 

This society, as well as the one to be mentioned next, exemplifies thereal democracy in which the women of the Hill meet and plan for commonlocal interests; a fine spirit and practical efficiency characterizingtheir meetings, and each woman, however, humble, having a part with thebest in the general result. 

The Wayside Path Association is smaller in number of members, as well asolder than the King's Daughters; indeed, it has perhaps no fixedmembership, but is an assembling of the women of the place about a smallgroup as a working center for a yearly duty. Its purpose is to maintaina dirt sidewalk, over three miles in length, which follows the roadnorthward and southward, from the Glen to the Post Office, withbranches. Once a year the Association meets, gathers funds by a "sale"or by subscription, hires a laborer to repair the Wayside Path; then fora year lies dormant. In 1898 there was a general effort made totransform this association into a general Village Improvement Society, with diversified interests, into which men would come, but it failed, and no such society exists. 

The West Mountain Mission is an association of ladies of the Hill, whothrough sales and bazaars, supplemented by gifts, contribute to thesupport of a chapel of the Protestant Episcopal Church, two miles westof Pawling. This association draws its membership from the hotel guestsand from residents in the cottages; and but little from the essentialQuaker Hill households. 

The same may be said of whist clubs maintained in the summer at thehotel and cottages. 

[Illustration: ROBY OSBORN RICHARD OSBORN]

[36] The Hicksite or Unitarian body held possession of theMeeting House in 1828, and until the above action. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE SOCIAL WELFARE. 

Quaker Hill is an example of the working of a religious and economicsystem toward its inevitable results in social welfare. The resultsconsciously sought were mainly personal. They were not seeking cultureor security or equity, and not attempting to create a community, thoseearly Quakers; but they sought with all their heart and mind afterprosperity, individual and communal; after vitality, morality and thatself-expression which is in the form of self-sacrifice or altruism in"the service of others. " The conscious mind of the Quaker fathers ofthis community was other-worldly, except in the matters of business--ofwhich more later. That "spiritual" state of mind was intenselyindividual. All the interests it regarded were of the self, conceived asan inner, immaterial duplicate of the body, destined for heaven afterdeath, and now enjoying interchanges of experience, especially ofemotion and intelligence, with the Deity, during life. 

It was a mind consciously framed to serve personal development, with nothought of public or common interests. Yet subconsciously the Quaker wasacutely aware of common interests. A Quaker frequently uses theexpression "I feel myself in unity with them. " Their doctrine of theindwelling of the divine in every man made them quick to feel commonemotion. Their group-sympathy was lively and strong. They felt thecommunity, though they never thought upon it. Subconsciously, though notconsciously, they were public-spirited. They acted upon a fine socialspirit, thought they taught no social gospel. 

"The supreme result of efficient organization, "[37] says Professor F. H. Giddings, "and the supreme test of efficiency is the development ofthe personality of the social man. If the man himself becomes lesssocial, less rational, less manly; if he falls from the highest type, which seeks self-realization through a critical intelligence andemotional control, to one of those lower types which manifest only theprimitive virtues of power; if he becomes unsocial, the socialorganization, whatever its apparent merits, is failing to achieve itssupreme object. If, on the contrary, the man is becoming ever better asa human being, more rational, more sympathetic, with an ever broadeningconsciousness of kind, then, whatever its apparent defects, the socialorganization is sound and efficient. " Let us consider whether QuakerHill has met this test. It has been well organized. It has had definitepurposes. What has been the type of welfare enjoyed as a result? Whatkind of man has emerged from almost two centuries of cultivation of areligious and economic ideal?

In economic operations the Quakers dwelt in this world. They sought aliving and they sought wealth--not for the services wealth can render inculture and education, but to accumulate it, possess it, invest andmanage it, and to live "in plainness. "

Yet they subconsciously did also seek after a prosperity that should begeneral. Not closely, not in any declarations or definite teachings oftheir code, but still in a real way, as a by-product of their code oflife, they acted so that none in their community should be in want. Thisthey did with profound wisdom--for they taught no communal doctrine--andthe details of their action toward weaker members of the neighborhoodwere uncommonly shrewd and sensible. I will show later the effects ofthis in the fact that the population under our study shows the absenceof defective classes in a significant degree. There are no idiots, nodefective, no criminal, no pauper classes among the Quaker Hillpopulation. 

The mind of the community had, indeed, an active interest in liberty andthe contribution noted above (see Ch. IV. Part I) in the agitation forthe abolition of slavery in this state was an act of public spirit alongthe lines of a great national experience. The fact that the meeting ofFriends in 1767 was held on Quaker Hill, which initiated effectiveaction against slave-holding, is much cherished on the Hill, and iscommemorated in a stone and bronze memorial at the Meeting House. 

Equality of suffrage and universal suffrage are jealously believed in, owing to the Quaker teaching as to woman's parity with man. Yet in theschool-meeting, in which women have the same right to vote that menhave, there are seldom any women present. Indeed, except for a packedmeeting once in a decade, to decide some agitated question, few womenattend school-meetings. 

The size of the holdings of land on the Hill, and the curve of increaseand decrease for seventy years, are exhibited in Table II. 

TABLE II. 

_Land-Holdings on Quaker Hill: Acreages on which Owners are taxed. _

 Years 1835 1845 1865 1875 1890 1900 1906 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ No. Owners 31 26 39 51 48 53 42 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Highest Acreage 610 540 445 420 540 540 540 Higher Quartile 378 260 225 225 183. 5 222. 5 265 Average 222 206 150. 5 147. 8 137. 8 154 184. 2 Median 187 150 131 120 104 120 155. 5 Lower Quartile 80 100 59 52 43. 5 57 90 Lowest Acreage 1 42 3 6 5 1 6

The above table gives in a graphic manner the tendency of wealth toincrease, on the Hill, so far as wealth is represented in land. It is tobe noted that these figures, taken from the Tax-Lists of the town ofPawling, are not precisely accurate, especially in the lower ranges. There is an evident inaccuracy in the reporting of the smaller places. Yet from them the following may be inferred: First, that from thebeginning of the reports, which was about the end of the period of theQuaker Community, there was a shrinkage in the size of the land-holdingson the Hill; and from the beginning of the period of the Mixed Communitya rise in the general averages. The lowest of the curve is about 1890, in the Median, the average and in each of the quartiles. Second, theincoming of the Irish immigrants, who began to be land-holders about1850, multiplied the number of small holdings of land. 

Just what cause has operated in the years 1890-1906 to increase the sizeof the holdings of land it is hard to say, unless it be the expectationthat land would have a value, which is aroused by the presence on theHill every summer of visitors to a number equal to the numbers of theresident population. It is evident at the present time, when the "milkbusiness" has been reduced to half in the past five years, that thefarmers are holding their lands with a hope of selling. 

It is worthy of remark that the tax-list of the town furnish no otherdata of reliable value, or even of suggestion, being obviouslyinaccurate and uneven in their reports of the values of land, and of theholdings of personal property. 

The fact that is not recorded in the above statistics is this: thatcertain owners, associated in close family ties, own all the land ofgreatest value. Seven family groups possess, in the names of eleven ofthe above owners, all the land near the Hotel, all the land for whichany one has ever thought of charging more than fifty dollars an acre. These eleven owners of all the land of greatest value possess probablynine-tenths of the personal property. 

Holdings of property on Quaker Hill are very unequal. The smallest ownerof real estate has an acre, and the largest about six hundred acres. Contrasts here are sharp and permanent. The same families have possessedcertain properties for many decades, often for two centuries; andgenerally Quaker Hill families do not sell till they all die or moveaway. 

Wealth is increasing on Quaker Hill in the slow course of years, andprobably along the lines of present growth, will increase. It isdistributed with marked inequality. The tendency, especially in centralterritory, is toward increasing inequality. There is "a small group at ahigh degree. "

Yet the community is generally prosperous and well-to-do. There are nonepoor. Indeed, the wealthy women who began to come to Mizzen-Top Hotel in1880, looking about for some poor to assist, were obliged to go off theHill to the south, and lay hold of a lonely female with a curiousnervous malady but self-respecting withal, and deliberately pauperizeher. To this process, after some initial struggles, she has submittedthrough these intervening years. She has now for years been pensioned bythe church in Akin Hall through the year, visited in summer by people incarriages, has maintained an extensive begging correspondence throughthe mails all winter, and has been generally despised by her neighbors. But she has represented to interested clergymen and charity workers ontheir summer vacations the fascinating and mysterious problem ofpoverty. [38]

Very few indeed have been the defectives. I know of none in ten years. The prevailing vitality of the community is high. There were living twoyears ago five persons past ninety; and one of them died in hishundredth year. Octogenarians drive the roads every day, and managetheir estates with ripe discretion and unabated interest in affairs. Thereligious revival referred to (see Chapter VI) brought into the churchan active man of great wealth of ninety-five years of age. 

There are no blind persons. One old man, who suffered from cataract, lost an eye in an operation at eighty-five years of age; and refused tosubmit the other eye-ball to the surgeon. There are no deaf and dumb. 

People on Quaker Hill are well-born. I suppose this may be in part dueto the high morality of their fathers. I attribute it, in view of thecontrast in this respect to the contiguous population in Sherman, Conn. , to the highly organic communal life of Quaker Hill. Connecticut people, some of them of the same original Quaker stock, have settled on smallholdings of lands, and held them till isolation and poverty have driventhem to suicide, insanity or other miseries. Quaker Hill was from thebeginning differentiated into a healthier diversity, and it has been thebetter for her people. 

There are few mentally abnormal persons in the community. One maydesignate three persons as unbalanced, two of them unmarried women; andanother such as probably insane, though residing at home. But even theaged do not die first in the head. There are no idiotic persons. 

The prevailing morality is high. Very few would be classified asimmoral, by the public disapproval of their conduct. Individuals havecommitted theft, or an act of cruelty, or adultery, in the years1895-1905. They do not constitute classes. 

The sociality of Quaker Hill seems to the writer relatively high. Response to a case of real need is prompt, wise and abundant; and commonaction for others is heartily begun and completed. There are nounsocialized persons; neither paupers, criminals, nor degraded, in thecommunity; at least no class or classes of such. There is a man whoperhaps drinks too much and too often; but even he is too far from thesaloon to attain to the dignity of neighborhood drunkard. 

Quaker Hill has not been of a mind to contribute institutions orresources to the public. Toward war hostile, toward the state alwaysimpassive, sometimes actively disloyal in times of war, Quaker Hill haslived a life apart. 

Common school privileges are offered to all in the three school housesat Sites 12, 43 and 101 (school districts No. 1, 3, 4) and theadvantages offered are generally studiously appropriated by the young. In the ten years under study two families alone have been unwilling totake full advantage of the school opportunities. 

In the school at Site 43, for which alone an improved, modern buildinghas been erected, there was, beginning in 1893, a determined effort madeto provide a school better than the ordinary country school. By theco-operation of certain farmers with children in school, and throughcontributions of citizens of means who had no children, better teacherswere employed, at increased expense, for the space of twelve years. During two years the school was graded, employing two teachers. But theeffort in this direction seems to have ceased with the close of the year1905-1906. This school has had, for the years 1904-6, only oneProtestant child, in an enrollment of twenty to thirty. 

The other school-districts are maintained "in the old back-country way, "their attendance is small and no effort is made to raise the standard ofteaching. 

It has been accepted for generations among the authoritative leaders onQuaker Hill that "higher education was not good for the poor. " Of thisdoctrine, Albert Akin, generally progressive, was a firm believer. Heinsisted, and other representatives of the leading families have donethe same, that "to offer them higher education only makes themdiscontented"; "they won't work if you get them to studying--andsomebody must do the work. "

It seems in strict harmony with this opinion, which I never heardopposed on the Hill, that Quaker Hill has never until 1904 sent a youngman or woman through the college or university. Albert J. Akin, 2d, wasa member of class of 1904 of Columbia University, but he was not born onthe Hill, and never long resided there. Indeed, the town of Pawling hasnot another college graduate among its sons. There have been, however, afew who have gone to school to the grade of high school and no normalschools. In the past ten years ten young men and women have done so. Oneyouth all but completed a college course in 1906. Two young women arejust completing courses as nurses. 

Personality is the field in which the conscious purpose cherished onQuaker Hill would have wrought its best efforts. But personality wasalways on Quaker Hill inhibited, restrained and schooled intomediocrity. Variation was repressed. Spontaneity was forbidden. Ingenuous spirits were firmly and effectively directed into channelsbelieved to be harmless. 

The result has been that mediocre people have both lived on the Hill, and gone away from it, in voluntary exile from its beautiful scenes, butnot in exile from its spirit of plainness. No person of brilliant mindor of uncommon talents has ever come of the Quaker Hill population. There is not among the sons or daughters of this place one whose name isof lasting interest to any beyond the limits of Pawling. No artist orpoet has ever ventured to express the intense feeling of the aestheticwhich pervades the place, but has always been hushed from singing, restrained from picturing. 

I think the end for which the Quaker Hill population have lived could becalled Individual-Social. They are consciously individual, andunconsciously, inevitably social. These people have sought generationafter generation for personal salvation and personal gain. "And that, "says a resident, "that is why the place is dying. " Yet the commoninterest was a logical corollary of the Quaker doctrine of God in everyman, and therefore a community was formed, a community indeed which wasno one's conscious care. In the chapter upon "The Common Mind, " above, I have showed that all the leaders of the community as a whole, saveone, have been outsiders, who came to see the integrity of the communitywith eyes of "the world's people, " and these leaders in communal servicehave been grudgingly followed. 

That one, Albert J. Akin, who founded Akin Hall Association, lived awayfrom Quaker Hill, in New York City, the most of the months of fiftyyears, 1830-1880, and fell under the influence of outsiders. [39]

Indeed, a rare beauty characterizes these children of the old QuakerCommunity; and a fine harmony blends the members of the Mixed Communityinto one another. The type of country gentleman and lady was perfectlyembodied in James J. Vanderburgh, who died about 1889, in his residenceat Site 30. He was a good man, hospitable, large-minded, well read, humane; he was sufficiently reverent to be good neighbor to theOrthodox; and he was sufficiently wealthy to express the Quaker economicideal. He had the Quaker genius of thrift expressing itself in bounty. 

Mrs. Zayde Akin Bancroft, resident at Site 32, who died in 1896, was anexample of the ideal Quaker Hill lady. A woman of leisure and culture, accustomed to the possession of wealth, and enjoying it in books andtravel, she surrounded herself for several of her last years with anatmosphere, and secured for herself enjoyment, of the highestaspirations of the Quaker Hill economic ideal. 

No one quite so much embodied that ideal as Albert J. Akin, who died inhis hundredth year, in January, 1903. His fortune, which amounted at hisdeath to more than two million dollars, was the culmination of thewealth of his family, acquired since his great-great-grandfather, DavidAkin, the pioneer, came to Quaker Hill about 1730. He was a far-seeingand brilliant investor, and through his long business life, which lasteduntil 1901, he followed the growth of railroads in the United Stateswith steady optimism, and almost unvarying profit. After the year 1880he came to live on Quaker Hill, in the interest of his health, moreconstantly than he had in the preceding fifty years. He at onceinterested himself in local enterprises, and Akin Hall Association andMizzen-Top Hotel were at that time founded by him and others. Until hisdeath, twenty-three years later, he was the leading citizen and the mostinteresting personality among this social population. Such was his placeand so masterful as well as constructive his influence that it was atrue expression of the feeling of all which one resident wrote at thattime to another: "The king is dead, the man on whom we unconsciouslyleaned and whom none of us thought of disobeying, though only hispersonality held us to allegiance, is gone from us. And I for one feelthat I have lost a dear friend. "

[Illustration: ALBERT JOHN AKIN BORN 1803, DIED 1903]

These three illustrations will serve to indicate both the kind ofpersons who have come of the Quaker Hill community, and one of itstendencies. They illustrate also the spirit of the community toward itsleaders. 

Personalities of the austere type, men and women of the devotional sideof Quakerism, may be cited in the cases of [40]David Irish and[41]Richard T. Osborn. The former was the last minister of the HicksiteSociety of Friends on the Hill. His preaching covered the years of itsseparate existence, for he was made a minister in 1831, three yearsafter the Division, and he died in 1884, at the age of ninety-two. Oneyear after his death the Meeting was formally "laid down, " in OblongMeeting House, and from a place of worship it became a house ofmemories. 

David Irish was austere. Believing that slavery was wrong, "he made hisprotest against slavery by abstaining, so far as possible, from the useof slave-products ... Made maple to take the place of cane sugar, andused nothing but linen and woolen clothing (largely home-spun). Thisabstaining he continued for himself and family until slavery wasabolished. " Yet "he never felt free, " continues his daughter andbiographer, "to join with anti-slavery societies outside his own, believing that by so doing he might compromise some of his testimonies. "He welcomed in his home the fugitive slave fleeing from the South, and"there must never be any distinction made in the family on account ofhis color; he sat at the same table and was treated as an equal. "

David Irish was equally opposed to war, and to capital punishment. Hewrote, "testified" and "suffered" for these principles. "In the time ofthe Civil War he allowed his cattle to be sold by the tax-collector, notfeeling free to pay the direct war-tax. " His biographer enumeratesfurther his hospitality, his fondness for books, his humor, and mentionswith a pride characteristic of the Quaker that he "was often entrustedwith the settlement of estates, showing the esteem in which his businesscapacity and integrity were held by the community. "

Richard T. Osborn was the Elder of the Orthodox branch of the Friendsduring the same period, subsequent to the Division, as that covered byDavid Irish's life. Born in 1816, he was conversant as a child with theperiod of the Division. The seceding members of the Meeting met in hisfather's house and barn until the Orthodox Meeting House could beerected on the land upon which, at his marriage in 1842, he erected hishouse. Richard Osborn was "the head of his family. " Strong of will, austere, convinced, he lived in the world of Robert Barclay and WilliamPenn, and for years never hesitated to rebuke young or old Quakers or"world's people, " whom he found violating "the principles of truth. " Asummer boarder who played a violin upon his premises was silenced, andthe singing of a hymn in the Meeting House of which he was Clerk wasonce sternly "testified against. "

But Richard Osborn was kindly. He had a gentle and appreciative humor;and about 1890 there come influences in the presence of neighbors towhom he was strongly drawn, as well as the constant presence in hishouse of boarders from New York; so that his later years were spent in amellower interest in dogma, and an ever keener interest in the historyof Quakerism and of the community in which he lived. His wife, Roby, wasa Quakeress of rare sweetness and exquisite gentleness of character. Together this strong, dominating man and his gentle wife constituted aninfluence, while they lived, which held the community together, anddisseminated their principles more successfully than if he had beeneloquent, instead of terse, and she an evangelist instead of a meek anddemure Quakeress. 

These persons were conspicuous examples of the best social product ofQuaker Hill. They were not famous, nor great. Their philosophy was oneof self-repression and required them to reduce their lives and those ofother men to mediocrity. Quaker Hill taught and practiced the preventionof pauperism--and the prevention of genius! The ideals of the placediscouraged higher education. The leading personages distinctly opposedthe offer of higher education to the young. 

Therefore this community, which has been exceptionally wealthy for onehundred and fifty years, has done nothing for general education; and hasnot educated its own sons. As noted above, no person born on Quaker Hillever completed the courses for a degree in college or university, andthough the community has had for a century families with aesthetic andliterary tastes, no member of the community has painted a picture, written a song, or published a book. 

The personages briefly described above are named for another reason. Their deaths, with the deaths of certain others whom they represent, have brought to an end the period of Quaker Hill's history which I havecalled "The Mixed Community. " The others who with them made up thisgroup were Jedediah and Phoebe Irish Wanzer, Anne Hayes, Olive ToffeyWorden, and six other persons still living, of whom four are past eightyyears and two are very near one hundred years of age. This group ofpersons were the center of that Mixed Community. They possessed theactual authority which this population always has required in itsleaders. The piety, the austerity, the forcefulness, the ownership ofthe land of greatest value, and even the available wealth of thecommunity, were so largely possessed by this group that in the years1890-1900, in which this group was still intact, its leadership was suchas to unite the community and consolidate the whole population forwhatever interests the leaders of this group approved. Of that period itwas said: "Everybody on Quaker Hill goes to everything!"

With the death of those who have passed away in the latter part of theperiod under study the power of initiative has gone. New proposals arehushed. Variation is discouraged; the rut of custom and convention ispreferred. And a subtle stifling air of the impossibility of all activepurposes pervades social and religious and business activity on theHill. 

Religiously speaking, attendance upon public services have decreased bytwenty per cent. , while the Protestant population has only decreasedfive per cent. 

In business activity reference is made above to the fact that the numberof milk dairies has decreased from eighteen to nine, a decrease of fiftyper cent. At the same time the largest dairy on the Hill which in thedecade 1890-1900 "was milking one hundred cows, " has for the years1903-1907 "made milk" from only forty and fifty cows, although the ownerhas more land than his predecessor. 

The population which now remains on Quaker Hill contains only a fewpersons of force and leadership, and they are no longer so grouped as tocommand. The majority have no ability to follow unless authority be anelement in the leadership; and authority to command the whole communityhas not existed since 1903. "The king is dead. "

[37] Descriptive and Historical Sociology, p. 541. 

[38] S. P. Died 1906. 

[39] An analysis of the sources of Mr. Akin's leadership, written for the Memorial Service after his death in 1903, is of interesthere, as showing the influence of persons upon him who were not ofQuaker Hill ancestry or of Quaker breeding:

"In all the years he lived on the Hill he had to do with every movementand was in touch with every person on the Hill. He made himself a partyto every public interest. When the building of the Hotel was suggested, he put himself at the head of the movement, invested the most money init, and later obtaining entire control, deeded it to his Akin Hallfoundation. When the library enterprise was broached, which has growninto Akin Free Library, he organized and incorporated the institutionrequired, endowed it generously; later reorganized it, upon legaladvice; thus accepting ideas from Admiral Worden, William B. Wheeler, Cyrus Swan, Judge Barnard, and others of his neighbors, and contributinghis own patient and unflagging executive faculty. When it was thoughtbest, in 1892, to continue the church services throughout the winterunder the leadership of Mrs. Wheeler and of Miss Monahan, and the growthof the Sunday school and permanent congregation seemed to require theemployment of a resident pastor, Mr. Akin acquiesced; at first as afollower, but steadily and increasingly as a leader, he identifiedhimself more and more every year until his death, with the religiouslife of Akin Hall and Christ's Church. He was a good leader, for heconfessed himself a follower in the enterprise which he was in aposition absolutely to control. He eagerly availed himself of thesuggestions of others, took a quiet and lowly place with entire dignity, and exerted without arbitrariness a determining influence. 

"When Mr. Akin was about sixty years of age, he bought a residence inNew York, and went there to live in the winters. He had as a neighbor aQuaker preacher named Wright, who was accustomed to come to OblongMeeting in the course of the year. With him Mr. Akin had manyconversations on matters of duty and worship. 

"He began also to attend the Oblong Meeting in the summer, though theSunday meetings were not at that time largely attended. 

"Later when his residence was at Fifty-sixth Street he became the fastfriend and devoted admirer of Dr. John Hall, who used often to call uponhim. For years Mr. Akin was carried into Dr. Hall's Church; but afterDr. Hall died, and even before, he had ceased from that custom. 

"The growth of the church on Quaker Hill, under the leadership of Mr. And Mrs. William B. Wheeler and Miss Margaret B. Monahan took stronghold on Mr. Akin's heart, and exerted over no one a more vital influencethan on this old man. "--Albert J. Akin--A Tribute, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson, Quaker Hill Conference, 1903. 

[40] David Irish--A Memoir, by Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer, QuakerHill Conference, 1902. 

[41] Richard Osborn--A Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan, Quaker Hill Conference, 1902. 

Part IV. 

Appendices: Original Family and Church Records. 

APPENDIX A. 

A List of the Heads of Families in the Verge of our Monthly Meeting heldon the Oblong and in the Nine-Partners Circularly taken in the 3 mo. 1760. (This date should be 1761. The Monthly Meeting directed the listto be made 4, 16, 1761. [42])

 1st At New Milford Dobson Wheeler and his Wife Aaron Benedick and his Wife Joseph Ferriss Gaius Talcott James McKenney Lydia Norton Anna Philips

 2d At Oblong John Bull and his Wife Wing Kelley and his Wife Oliver Tyron and his Wife John Wing and his Wife John Hoag ye 2d and Wife Benjam Hoag and his Wife Abner Hoag and Wife Philip Allen and Wife Moses Hoag and Wife George Soule and Wife Wm. Russell and Wife David Hoag and Wife Ebenezer Peaslee and Wife Nehemiah Merritt and Wife Nehemiah Merritt Junr. And Wife Elijah Doty and Wife Henry Chase and Wife Abraham Chase and Wife Benjam Ferriss and Wife Timothy Dakin and Wife Elisha Akin's Children Reed Ferriss and Wife Zebulon Ferriss and Wife John Hoag, Senr. And Wife John Hoag, Junr. And Wife Jedidiah Wing and Wife Josiah Akin and Wife Stephen Hoag and Wife James Hunt and Wife Prince Howland and Wife Isaac Haviland and Wife Nathn. Birdsall and Wife Nathn. Birdsall, Junr. And Wife Daniel Chase and Wife Edward Wing and Wife Abraham Wing and Wife Israel Howland and Wife David Akin and Wife Jonathan Akin and Wife Joseph Jinnins and Wife Robert Whitely and Wife Nathanael Stevenson Joseph Hoag Abraham Thomas Isaac Bull Patience Akin Desire Chase Mary Allen, Widow Mersey Fish Margaret Akin Margery Woolman Dinah Gifford, Widow Elizab Hunt, Widow Abigail Gifford Phebe Boudy Ann Hepbern Sarah Davis Ann Corban Hannah Birdsall

 3dly At Nine Partners Peter Hallock and Wife Moses Haight and Wife Aaron Haight and Wife Joshua Haight and Wife George Soule and Wife William Palmer and Wife Reuben Palmer and Wife Nehemiah Reynolds and Wife Peter Palmer and Wife Aaron Vail and Wife Joseph Haight and Wife John Lapham and Wife Jonathan Holmes and Wife Jonathan Hoag and Wife Israel Devil and his Wife John Kees and Wife Nathaniel Brown and Wife Anthony Arnold and Wife Caleb Norton and Wife Micah Griffin and Wife Jacob Haight and Wife John Haight and Wife Stephen Haight and Wife Micah Palmer and Wife Andrew White and Wife Stephen Hicks and Wife Daniel Tobias and Wife Ezekiel Hoag and Wife William Haight Joseph Reynolds Obadiah Griffin Solomon Haight Benjam White John Hallock David Arnold Nathan Bull Hannah Thorn Hannah Tripp Margaret Allen Rose Barton Sarah Collins Bersheba Southerlin Sarah Jacocks Ruth Mabbit Patience Green

 4thly At Oswegoe Samuel Dorland and Wife Richard Smith and Wife Joseph Smith and Wife Samuel Hall and Wife Allen Moore and Wife John Thomas and Wife Lot Tripp and Wife Ebenezer Shearman and Wife Joshua Sherman and Wife Daniel Shepherd and Wife John Thomas and Wife Josiah Bull Zebulon Hoxsie Ichabod Bowerman David Irish Andrew Moore Joseph Waters Eliah Youmans Othniel Allen John Carman Jesse Irish Deborah Reed Martha Gifford Abigail Adams Mary Moore Catharine Leaven Mary Youman Mehetable Devil

 5thly At Peach Ponds Samuel Field and Wife Elias Palmer and Wife David Palmer and Wife Samuel Coe and Wife Stephen Field and Wife Solomon Field and Wife

Additional names which occur in the minutes of Oblong Meeting, in theyears 1742-1780 (obviously an incomplete list of members):

 Akin, Nathan Fields Akin, James Akin, Timothy Birdsall, Timothy Briggs, Zebedy Brundige, Edward Bunker, Annie Chase, Johnan Chase, Phynehas Clement, James Comstock, Thomas Dakin, Preserved Dickerson, Isaac Dickerson, Henry Mehitable Devil, Devill, Duvall or Deuell Franklin, Thomas Falyer, Abraham Haviland, Daniel Haviland, Benjamin Hoag, Enoch Hoag, Samuel Hall, Joseph Hunt, Josiah Irish, Joseph Irish, Jessee Jenkns, Volunteer Lancester, Aaron Lester, Murray Laurelson, Aaron Mosher, Wm. Moore, Allen Norton, Robert Osborn, Paul Osborn, Isaac Peckham, Jos. Sherman, Joshua Smith, Denten Shove, Edward Stedwell, Roger Sweet, Elnathan Benony Sweet Taber, Jeremiah, married Delilah Russell Wanzer, Moses Wing, William Wing, Elisabeth Wing, Daniel Whiteley, Pardon Wood, Drusilla, married Israel Howland of Purchase. 

[42] Correction of date is by John Cox, Jr. , the Librarian ofthe Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends, 315 Rutherford Place; inwhose charge is the original. 

APPENDIX B. 

The following are the names of those who had accounts at the store ofDaniel Merritt, on Quaker Hill, in 1771, as the names appear in hisLedger:

 Akin, John, Esq. Akin, David, Jr. Akin, Thomas Allen, Mary, George's mother Akin, James Akin, Josiah Akin, Elisha Akin, Stephen Akin, Jonathan Akin, Abraham Akin, Timothy Allen, Ephraim Allen, Alexander Allen, Moses Allen, Samuel Allen, Thomas Allen, George Allen, Daniel Allen John, Elisha's son Allen, John Taylor Allen, Elizabeth, widow Allen, Mary, Elisha's mother Allen, Mary, Elisha's daughter Allen, Elisha Allen, Sarah, George's wife Ashby, Anthony Arnold, Joseph Arle, Nath. , II Ackley, David Arle, Rebecca Andras, Thaddeus Alderman, Elisha Arnold, Nathaniel Briggs, Edward Briggs, Jeremiah Briggs, William Briggs, Henry Briggs, Elkanah Briggs, Phoebe, widow Briggs, Zepheniah Briggs, Edward, Junr. Briggs, Jeremiah Briggs, Thomas, Senr. Briggs, Prince Briggs, Thoms, Junr. Briggs, Anthony Briggs, John Birdsall, Nathan Birdsall, Nathan, Junr. Birdsall, James Birdsall, Thomas Birdsall, Benjamin Birdsall, Lemuel Bennet, Benj. , of Patent Brownson, Libe Bostwick, Daniel. Boult, John, Senr. Barnum, Timothy Benedic, Aron Bowdish, Nathaniel Buck, Lydeal, Junr. Bostwick, Daniel, Junr. Brown, John Bennet, Benjamin Barnum, David Buck, David Betts, William Birdsley, Johiel. Beardsley, Josiah Barnum, Zadoc Burret, Daniel Barley, Abigail Boult, John, Junr. Billings, Increase Brush, Thos. , Esq. Bosworth, Nathanael Beach, David Bump, Stephen Bowdy, Nathanael Bennet, Henry Brush, Thomas, Junr. Beardsley, Nehemiah Boom, Sarah Burdick, Ephraim Brown, Joseph Burtch, Nathanael Bull, Abraham Brownell, William Barlow, David Bass, Thomas Burrett, Israel Burtch, Increase Birchard, Jonathan Beers, James Brayton, Gideon Burdick, Nathan Brady, William Bostwick, Ichabod Botheford, Joel Bowdy, Moses, Junr. Bennet, Richard Bush, John Newfair Bostwick, Amos Benson, Benj. Bull, Isaac, Junr. Barley, Daniel Brownson, Peter Bennet, Amos Birdsall, Lemuel Brown, Wm. , schoolmaster Burdick, Jessee Brownin, Benj. Benedic, Abner Bracket, John Bull, Thomas Butler, Nathanael Butler, Truelove Buck, John. Bacon, Wm. Bradshaw, James H. Beardsley, Elihu Brownen, Wm. Batchford, Jonathan Batchford, Joel Brown, Wm. (Dover) Buck, Isaac Buck, Lydeal Burten, Oliver Bump, George Bowdy, Moses, Junr. Barnes, James Burteh, Jonathan Bennet, David Beemus, Thomas Brownson, Sarah Burtch, Jonathan, 2nd constable Burtch, Isaiah Bostwick, Robert Burdick, Robert Burdick, Ephraim Bangs, John Bruce, James Chase, Daniel, Senr. Chase, Daniel, Junr. Calkin, Elijah Close, Reuben, Senr. Close, Reuben, Junr. Church, Ebenezer, hat maker Congo, Joseph Chase, Henry Chase, Benjamin Corbin, Peter Covel, Micajah Cook, Thomas, laborer Camp, Enos Croch, Widow Campbell, Archabel Chase, Joseph Chase, John Chase, Nathan Caswell, John Clarke, Richard Conger, Jessee Conger, Joel Campbell, Dunkin Corbin, Sarah Conger, Joel Close, Gideon Corbin, Thomas, Junr. Cary, Rhoda Chase, Benj. , Junr. Caswell, Reuben Collins, Amos Covel, Zacheus Caswell, Amey Carey, Lucy Caswell, Robert, Senr. Caswell, Robert, Junr. Cary, Nathan Cary, Rhoda Crowfoot, Gideon Covel, Seth Chase, Stephen Coller, Elisha Calkin, David Chase, Phinehas, Junr. Curtis, John Cook, Abial Chamberlin, John Chase, Elizabeth, widow Cummins, Isaac Calkin, John Doet, doctor Canfield, Zarobabel Crouch, William Churchel, Joseph Collins, Caleb Calkin, Simon Calkin, Nathaniel Cary, Lemuel Corbin, Thomas, Senr. Corbin, Sarah, widow Cummins, John Caswell, Robert Crane, Daniel Caswell, Nathan Coon, Matthew Chase, Abner Cummins, John, Ten Mile Hills Calkin, James Dakin, Thomas Deaveal, Joseph Dakin, Ruth Dakin, Timothy Dakin, Preserved Dakin, Wooster Dakin, Mercy Dakin, Simon Deaveal, Phillip Deaveal, George Deaveal, Hannah Deaveal, Benj. , Junr. Deavil, Jonathan Deaveal, Abigail Deaveal, Michael Deaveal, Benj. , Senr. Deaveal, John Deaveal, Abraham Doty, Elijah Dunk, Thomas Darling, Ebenezer, Junr. Dutton, Joel Dowglass, Thomas, Senr. Dowglass, Thomas, Junr. Dowglass, Jonathan Daviss, Paul Dowgleess, Dominy Daviss, Henry Daviss, Deliverance Daviss, Wm. Daviss, Benjamin Deen, Samuel Drinkwater, George Dolph, Edward Dwalfe, Ezra Dubois, Matthew Evens, John Elliott, David, Senr. Elliott, David, Newfairfield Elliott, Benj. , Senr. Elliott, Benj. , Junr. Elliott, John Elliott, David, Junr. Elliott, Jonathan Elliott, Daniel Edwards, Talmage Eastman, Joseph Eastman, Benjamin Eastman, Azariah Eastman, Azariah Eldeston, Joseph Eastman, Hezekiah Evens, Thomas Eady, Joshua Ellwell, Sam. Sen Eldridge, Elisha Ferriss, Benj. , Senr. Ferriss, Benj. , Junr. Ferriss, Benj. , 3rd Ferriss, Zebulon Ferriss, Joseph, Junr. Ferriss, Matthew Ferriss, Zachariah Ferriss, Zebulon Ferriss, Gilbert Ferriss, Reed Ferriss, David Field, John Field, Samuel Finch, Reed Finch, Ebenezer Flint, Asa Franklin, Walter Franklin, John Fisher, Nathaniel Foster, Josiah Fuller, Jonathan Fairchild, Eleazer Fairchild, Alexander Giddings, Joseph Giddings, Jonathan Giddings, Zebulon Gregory, Samuel Gregory, Ralph Gregory, Rivevias Gregory, Jeremiah Graves, Jedediah Graves, Russell Gifford, Benj. , Senr. Gifford, Benj. , Junr. Gifford, Gideon Gifford, Joseph Gaylord, Ebenezer Gaylord, Benjamin Gaylard, William Gaylard, Aaron Gaylard, Phebe Griffin, Phillip Gillet, Hezekiah Gourham, Ichabod Garlick, Reed Gray, William Garrett, Thomas Green, David Halaway, John Halaway, William Howland, Azariah Howland, William Howland, Israel Howland, Prince Howland, Nathaniel Howland, Sarah Howland, Charles Howland, Cook Howland, Nathaniel, Junr. Howland, Peleg Howland, Samuel Howland, John Howland, Silvey Howland, Anne Hunt, William Hunt, Samuel, farmer Hunt, Stephen Hunt, Elizabeth Hunt, Abel Hunt, Daniel, Junr. Hunt, Timothy Hunt, Daniel, Senr. Hall, James Hall, Lewis Hitchcock, John Herrington, Moses Hatch, Maltier Hatch, Benj. Holister, Nathaniel Holister, Abel Holister, Jonathan Howard, Edward Howard, Edward, Junr. Howard, Stephen Howard, John Hoag, Lydia, Benj. Daughter Hoag, Amos Hoag, David, Junr. , carter Hoag, Abner, 2 Hoag, Samuel Hoag, John, merchant Hoag, Abner, 1 Hoag, William, carter Hoag, Timothy Hoag, Elijah Hoag, Abigail Hoag, Stephen Hoag, Joseph Hoag, John, merchant Hoag, John, 1st Hoag, John, 2nd Hoag, John, 5th Hoag, Ruth S. , daughter Hoag, Enoch Hoag, Peter Hoag, Elisha Hoag, Sarah N. , Benj. Daughter Hoag, Ebenezer Hoag, Abbigail Hoag, Wm. , Joseph's son Hoag, David, Senr. Hoag, John, D. Son Hoag, Daniel Hoag, Paul Hoag, Tabithy Hammond, Jonathan Hammond, William Hammond, Samuel Hammond, Jonathan, Junr. Hammond, Benj. , cooper Hammond, Mary Hammond, Elizabeth Happern, Anne Happern, George Hubbell, Gaylard Hubbell, Dennis Hubbell, Shadrick Hubbell, John Hubbell, Ephraim Hubbell, Eleazer Hubbell, Gideon Holdridge, Thomas Hungerford, Josiah Hungerford, Thomas Hungerford, Samuel Hungerford, Miriam Hurd, David, tailor Hurd, George, doctor Hurd, William Howard, Ruth Hill, Anne Hill, George Hill, Henry Hill, John Hill, Stephen Haviland, Dan Hill, Caleb, carter Haviland, Isaac Haviland, Susannah Haviland, Solomon Haviland, Mary Haviland, Joseph Haviland, John Haviland, Stephen Haviland, James Holaway, Joseph Haviland, Roger Haviland, Benj. Haviland, Jacob Hull, Daniel Hains, Solomon Hadden, Bartholemew Hendrick, John Haws, Edmund Hilks, Edmund Holmes, Thadford Hollister, Joseph Halms, Thadford Hart, Lydia Hatfield, Barns Hicks, John Hicks, Benjamin Hawley, Isaac Hillerd, Nathan Handy, Jude Irish, Joseph, farmer Irish, Isaac Irish, John Irish, Jedediah, Senr. Irish, Jedediah, Junr. Ingersol, Daniel Ingersoll, Josiah Jewett, Jedediah Jewit, Aaron Jewit, Isaac Johnson, John Johnson, Sabin Jeffers, Robert John, June, Jr. Joyce, John Kelly, Wing Keeler, Ezra, carter Kaysson, James, wheelwright Kane, John, merchant Ketcham, Elihu Kent, Seth Knapp, Moses Knapp, Moses Lake, Thomas Lake, Judah Lake, Thomas, Junr. Loveless, Joseph Lee, John Lee, Asahel Lee, John, Jr. Leach, Ebenezer Leach, Ephraim Leach, John Leach, James Leach, Ichabod Leach, Miriam Lee, Catherine Leach, Simeon Leach, Amos Leonard, Moses Leonard, Isaac Leonard, David Luddington, Henry Langdon, John Lester, Murray Lewis, Sam. Lamphire, Jessee Lamphire, Elisha Lamphere, John Lowrey, John Lancaster, Aaron Lum, Samuel Lacey, Seth Loveless, Joseph Martin, Aggrippa Martin, Ephraim Marten, Manasah Martin, James Mosher, Benj. Mosher, Daniel Mosher, Lavinia Mosher, Jonathan Mosher, Hannah Mosher, Mary Millerd, Phebe Millerd, Joshua Millerd, Joshua Millerd, Jonathan Millerd, John Phillips Millerd, Robert, Jr. Millerd, Jacob Menzies, Thomas Morgan, Joseph Menzies, Alexander Menzies, Thomas Morgan, Consider Miles, Sam. Marsh, John Marsh, Elihu Marsh, Eunice Morison, Malcum Marsh, Samuel Munroe, Sam. , Jr Munroe, Nathan Mead, Daniel, Jr. Mead, Jessee Man, Sam. Man, Dependence Merritt, Nehemiah, Jr. Millerd, Benajah Munroe, Daniel Morehouse, John Mead, Daniel, Senr. Malary, Caleb McHerty, Mancey Marsey, Ebenezer Milk, Job McMan, Cornelius Noble, Asahel Northrop, Amos Northrop, Abraham Northrop, Salmon Northrop, Amos, Jr. Northrop, Johannah Northrop, Moses Northrop, Thomas Northrop, David Noble, Zadoc Noble, Thaddeus Noble, Stephen Noble, Morgan Noble, David Noble, Gideon Negro, Sip, slave Negro, Tone, slave Negro, Kajah, slave Negro, Jethro, slave Nicholas, Rowland Nicholas, John Nicherson, Seth Nickerson, Seth, Jr. Norton, Rowland Norton, Lydia Neerings, John Odle, Daniel Osborn, Jonathan, Senr. Osborn, Paul, potter Osborn, Isaac Osborn, Jonathan, Jr. Osborn, Amos, potter Osborn, Aaron Osborn, Stephen Price, John Peasely, Ebenezer Picket, Benjamin Pickett, Ebenezer Peasely, John Peasely, Isaac Potter, James Potter, William Potter, Judah Pepper, Stephen Parce, Jonathan Perce, Wm. Pepper, John, Jr. Pepper, John Page, Jonathan, Senr. Page, John Page, William Page, Lydia Page, Sarah Prindle, Aaron Prindle, David Prindle, John Prindle, Gideon Prince, Job Parks, Whiten Parks, Richard Pendegrass, William Perry, Sam. Perry, Rowland Prindle, Dan, Jr. Peasely, John Prindle, Samuel Pourham, John Perry, John Perry, George Parks, Daniel Penfield, Peter Platt, Samuel Penny, Ammial Phillips, Samuel Patterson, James Patterson, Andrew Penny, William Phillips, Mifford, Jr. Pennen, Wright Patterson, Alexander Palmer, Phinehas Putnicholos, Nathan Porter, Joshua Phelps, Barney Phelps, William Peek, Phinehas Peek, Samuel Prosper, Ichabod Palmeter, Silvenus Pearce, Nathan, Esq. Precinct by Andrew Morehouse Quinby, Ephraim Russell, Elihu Russell, William Russell, Margaret Russell, Samuel Russell, Elizabeth Ross, Zebulon Ross, Daniel Ross, Zebulon, Jr. Ross, Matthias Ross, Hugh Richardson, William Rennolds, Jeremiah Ruggals, Lois Ruggals, Joseph Rundle, Joseph, Senr. Stephens, Thomas Stevens, Benj. Stephens, Joseph Shaw, Phallice Shaw, Joseph Shaw, Benannuel, farmer Shaw, Benj. Stewart, Lemuel Stewart, James, Jr. Stewart, James, Senr. Stewart, Alexander Stewart, Alexander, 2nd Stewart, Samuel Stewart, Nathaniel Sweet, Ezekiel Sweet, Charles Sweet, Benedic Scribner, Abel Scribner, Abraham Springer, Richard Springer, John Scribner, Zadoc Springer, Elizabeth Sherwood, Daniel Stephens, William Sherwood, Nathan Stevens, William, Jr. , carter Stillson, Nathan Stillson, Enoch Stillson, Moses Stillson, John Smith, Mary Smith, John Smith, Daniel Sprague, John Stevens, Peter Smith, Richard Soule, George Soule, Nathan, Jr. Soule, John Soule, Elizabeth Soule, Nathan Soule, Joseph Shearman, Benj. , farmer Shearman, Jabez Shearman, Justin Shearman, Mary W. Shearman, Job Shearman, Joshua Stephenson, Nathaniel Stephenson, Nathaniel, Jr. Shelden, Isaac Shelden, George Shelden, John Shelden, Joseph Shelden, Gideon Shelden, Benj. Sheldon, Thomas Sheldon, Potter Sheldon, Sarah Seelye, Nathaniel Seelye, Benj. , Senr. Seelye, Ebenezer Seelye, Eleanor Seelye, Abel Seelye, Bradley Seelye, Elizabeth Spaulden, Nathan Spalden, Samuel Spaulding, Abijah Sill, Elijah Starke, William Shannon, George Slocum, Abraham Sill, Uriah Slocum, Elizabeth Sill, & Bangs Slocum, Benj. Stephenson, James Shove, Edward Sturdevant, Jonathan Sturdevant, Nathan Sturdevant, John Sturdevant Esther Smith, Noah Smith, Gaius Starke, James Starke, Christopher, Jr. Slone, Sam. Salsbury, Sarah Salmon, Hannah Storker, Seth Seamen, Stephen Stedwell, James Stedwell, Gilbert Salmon, John Sweet, Benedic Sabin, Jeremiah, blacksmith Seaman, Moses Stone, Eathael Starke, Aaron Shed, Martha Sabin, Jeremiah, Senr. Shapparoon, Peter Stone, Ebenezer Thomas, John Thomas, Benj. Thomas, Abraham Thomas, Lewis Tripp, John Tripp, Experience Tallcott, Gaius Tripp, Lott Towner, Dan Towner, David Towner, Lois Towner, Sam, Senr. Towner, Mary Towner, Zacheus Thatcher, Partridge Taber, Job Taber, Hannah Taber, Thomas, Esq. Tuttle, Ebenezer Truman, Jonathan Tryon, James Tryon, Asahel Trowbridge, Seth Trowbridge, Billey Trowbridge, Caleb Towner, Sam, Jr. Trim, Moses Thornton, John Tayler, Nathaniel Tyler, Bezaleel Tryon, Elisabeth Ter Boss, Daniel Toffey, John, hat maker Terry, Peter Vaughn, William Vaughn, Joseph, weaver Vaughn, Benjamin Veal, Michael Wing, Elisabeth Wing, Elihu Wing, Thomas Wing, Gershom Wing, Edward Wing, Elisha Wing, John Wing, William Wing, Abram Thomas Wing, Prince Wing, Russell Wing, Daniel Willcox, Louis, laborer Willcox, Thomas Willcox, Eunice Willcox, Joshua Willcox, Stephen Willcox, Rebecca Willcox, Rebecca Willcox, Jeffrey Willcox, Handy Willcox, Isaac West, Mary West, Elijah West, Delight West, Aaron West, Clement West, Sarah, Clement's wife West, Benajah Welch, Paul Willcox, Mary Willcox, Antras Willcox, Sarah Willcox, Amos Wheeler, Enoch Wheeler, Joseph Wheeler, Samuel Wright, Samuel Wright, Kent Wright, Dennis Wright, Deborah Wright, Mary Wright, Uriah Wright, Abigail Wright, Samuel, Jr. Weed, Jacob Weed, Judah Wanzar, Moses Wanzar, Abraham Wanzar, Anthony Wanzar, Abigail Wanzar, Abraham, Jr. Wanzer, Chester Wanzer, Darkis Wanzer, Elizabeth Warner, Lemuel Warner, Oliver Warner, Orange Wood, Wilber Wickham, David Wickham, Phebe Wilkinson, Ebenezer Wickham, Gideon Whitely, Robert Wickham, John, weaver Woodward, Jonathan Whitely, Martha Weed, Jacob Woodard, Joseph Woodard, John Woodard, Elisabeth Woodard, Ephraim Williams, Daviss Wallace, Nathaniel Walsworth, William Wade, Jonathan Wallups, Jonathan Wheeler, Hezekiah Washburn, Joseph Woolman, Hannah Waldo, Jonathan Welch, John Wilkerson, Robert Williams, Marke Willmut, Lemuel Yates, Paul

APPENDIX C. 

PACKAGE OF DEEDS OF OBLONG M. M. PROPERTIES. 

Discovered 1906 by WILLIAM RYDER, of Brewster, N. Y. 

DEED. 

Zebulon Ferriss, of Oblong, to Benjamin Ferriss, David Akin, EbenezerPeaslee, David Hoag, Joseph Irish, Nehemiah Merritt and Abraham Wing, all of Beekman's Precinct, Dutchess County, 5280 square feet, being 132feet frontage on north side of road, and 40 feet deep, east of ZebulonFerriss' acre lot. Consideration four (4) pounds. Dated, 4. 16. 1764. "Recorded in the First Book of Friends' Records for Dutchess County inthe Province of New York, the 24th of ye 4th Mo. 1764, in Folio 89, 90. "

DEED. 

William Russell of Oblong, to same grantees, 40 square rods, being 5rods frontage on north side of road, opposite Friends' old meetinghouse, and 8 rods deep. Consideration 8 pounds. (These two deeds seem toconflict as to direction and area. )

Recorded 4. 24. 1764 in same volume, page 87 and 88. 

WARRANTY DEED. 

Joseph Ferriss and Nathan Gaylor, both of Town of New Milford, Litchfield Co. , Conn. , to Dobson Wheeler, and Gaius Talcott of sametown, Benjamin Ferriss, David Akins, Henry Chase, Timothy Dakins, GeorgeSoule, Abraham Wing, Reed Ferriss and Zebulon Ferriss, of YorkGovernment, land in New Milford "in the Common Field, by the side of theGreat River at the south end of the Indian Field lots, a top of the hillEast of the road, as goes to Danbury. The Meeting House of the Peoplecalled Quakers' Stands, on the said land. We had it of Benjamin Ferrissand David Noble the quantity to be seen on the records and it all theLand we are possessed of on the East Side of that Road bounded North andWest on the road that goes to Danbury, East on the River. " Dated July6th, 1762. 

CONSIDERATION RECEIVED. 

Acknowledged before John Hitchcock, J. P. Recorded July 7, 1762, in NewMilford, 9th Book of Records, page 667. 

DEED. 

Nicholas Wanzer of New Fairfield, Fairfield Co. , Conn. , to "the societyof people called Quakers, " one acre in New Milford, with Meeting House, etc. Thereon. Consideration 2 pounds, 10 shillings. Dated 11. 21. 1788. Recorded in New Milford, 16th Book of Records, page 484. This does notseem to be the property described in above deed of Joseph Ferriss, thisbeing on the "west side of the Grate Rode that goes north and souththrough the plain. "

Daniel Haviland of Southeast precinct, Dutchess County, to Joseph Irish, Edward Shove, Reed Ferriss and Wing Kelley, of Pawling's precinct andElnathan Sweet and Joseph Lancaster, of Beekman's precinct and BenjaminFerriss of New Milford, Conn. , for the people called "Quakers, " one acreand 70 rods, in South East precinct. Consideration, love of the Society. Dated 8. 12. 1782. Not recorded. 

DEED. 

Roger Haviland, of New Fairfield, Conn. , to same grantees, one acre and30 rods in South East precinct. Consideration, love of the Society. Dated 8. 12. 1782. Not recorded. This would seem to join the propertygiven by Daniel Haviland. 

DEED. 

John Hoag, of Pawling's precinct, to Nathan Soule, Edward Shove andThomas Haight, of Pawling's, 42 rods, on East Side of the highway innorth end of Lot 38 of the Oblong. Consideration, love of the Society. Dated, 2. 12. 1784. Recorded in Oblong M. M. Minutes for 2nd month, 1784. 

DEED. 

Isaiah Hoag, of Pawling's precinct to Nathan Soule, Edward Shove, AbnerHoag, Thomas Haight, Azariah Howland and Isaac Osborn, of Pawling'sprecinct, 1-1/2 acres in Pawling's precinct, for pasturing Friends'horses, etc. Consideration 10 pounds. Dated 7. 30. 1786. Not recorded. (Branch Meeting House. )

DEED. 

Daniel Wing, of Pawling's precinct, to same grantees as above, 45 rods, for building a meeting house, etc. Consideration 5 pounds. Dated9. 18. 1786. Not recorded. (Branch Meeting House. )

DEED. 

Abner Hoag of Town of Dover, Dutchess Co. , to M. M. Of Oblong, 27 rods, adjoining the meeting house lot, "now called Branch Meeting. "Consideration $7. 50. Dated 5. 21. 1811. Not recorded. 

List of Deeds belonging to Oblong M. M. 5th Mo. , 1788. 

VITA. 

The author of this dissertation was born May 1, 1867. He received fromOberlin College the degree of A. B. In 1890, and that of A. M. In 1894. He graduated from Union Theological Seminary in 1894, and has sinceserved as an active pastor at Quaker Hill and in Brooklyn, New York. While in the Seminary and also during the years 1903-1905 he was agraduate student in Columbia University, having especial interest in thelectures of Professor Franklin H. Giddings; to whom as to his associateson the Faculty of Political Science, he owes a debt of gratitude for aconception of the common life of men on the earth.