Quaker Hill; a sociological study

CHAPTER I. Sources 5

CHAP'iiiR n.

The Locality 8

CHAPTER HI.

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 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 Mceting-Housc Lands 167

INTRODUCTION.

Fourteen years ago the author came to Quaker Hill as a resident, and has spent at least a part of each of the intervening years in interested study of the locality. For ten of those years the fascination of the social life peculiar to the place was upon him. Yet all the time, and increasmgly of late, the disillusionment which affects every resident in communities of this sort was awakening questions and causing regrets. Why does not the place grow ? Why do the residents leave ? What is the illusive unity which holds all the residents of the place in affection, even in a sort of passion for the locality, yet robs them of full satisfaction in it, and drives the young and ambitious forth to live elsewhere?

The answer to these questions is not easily to be had. It is evident that on Quaker Hill life is closely organized, and that for eighteen decades a continuous vital principle has given character to the population. The author has attempted, by use of the analysis of the material, according to the "Inductive Sociology" of Professor Franklin H. Giddings, to study patiently in detail each factor which has played its part in the life of this community.

This book presents the result of that study, and the author acknowledges his indebtedness to Professor Giddings for the working analysis necessary to the knowledge of his problem, as well as for patient assistance and inspiring interest. The gradual unfolding of the conclusions, the logical unity of the whole, and the explanation of that which before was not clear, have all been the fruit of this patient field-work.

The study of human society is at the present time little more than a classifying of material. Only with great reserve should any student announce ultimate results, or generalize

2 INTRODUCTION

upon the whole problem. For this period of classifying and analyzing the material, such study of limited populations as this should have value. The author makes no apology for the smallness of his field of study. Quaker Hill is not even a civil division. It is a fraction of a New York town. Therefore no statistical material of value is available. It is, moreover, not now an economic unit, though it still may be considered a sociological one. This study, therefore, must be of interest as an analysis of the working of purely social forces in a small population, in which the whole process may be observed, more closely than in the intricate and subtle evolution of a larger, more self-sufficient social aggregate.

The descriptive history of Quaker Hill, which it is my purpose in this book to write, comprises three periods ; and the descriptive sociology records two differing yet related forms of social life, connected by a period of transition. This study will then be made up of three parts : First, the Quaker Community ' second, the Transition ; and third, the Mixed Community. The periods of time corresponding to these three are : The Period of the Quaker Community, 1730 to 1830; second, the Period of Transition, 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 years following the settlement of the Hill, presents the social history of a homogeneous 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 lelations of mutual dependence through a diversified industry ; knowing no government so well as the intimate authority of their Monthly Meeting; and after a century suffering absorption in the commerce and thinking of the time through increased freedom of communication.

INTRODUCTION 3

The Transition follows the Division of the Quaker Meeting in 1828, the building of turnpikes, and the coming of the railroad in 1849. ^ cultured daughter of Quaker Hill, whose life has extended through some of those years, has called them "the dark ages." It was the middle age of the community. The economic life of the place was undergoing change, under the penetrating influence of the railroad; the population was undergoing radical renovation, the ambitious sons of the old stock moving away, and their places being filled at the bottom of the social ladder by foreigners, and by immigration of residents and "summer boarders" of the "world's people." Above all, the powerful ideal of Quakerism was shattered. The community had lost the "make-believe" at which it had played for a century in perfect unity. With it went the moral and social authority of the Meeting. Two Meetings mutually contradicting could never express the ideal of Quakerism, that asserted the inspiration of all and every man with the one divine spirit. This schism, too, was not local, but the Monthly Meeting on the Hill was divided in the same year as the Yearly Meeting in New York, the Quarterly Meetings in the various sections, and the local Monthly Meetings throughout the United States.

The Period of the Mixed Community, from the building of Akin Hall and the Mizzen-Top Hotel in 1880 to the year 1905 has been studied personally by the present writer; and it is his belief that during this short period, especially from 1890 to 1900, the Hill enjoyed as perfect a communal life as in the Period of the Quaker Community. The same social influence was at work. An exceptionally strong principle of assimilation, to be studied in detail in this book, which made of the original population a century and a half eariier a perfect community, now made a mixed population of Quakers, Irish Catholics and New York City residents, into a community

4 INTRODUCTION

unified, no less obedient to a modified ideal, having its leaders, its mode of association, its peculiar local integrity and a certain moral distinction.

This period appears at the time of this writing, in 1907, to be coming slowly to an end, owing to the death of many of the older members of the Quaker families, and the swift diminution — with their authority removed — of the Quaker influence, which was the chief factor in the community's power of assimilation.

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

Part I

The Quaker Community, from its Settlement in 1 728, 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 of whom have died in the period under direct study in this paper ; and second, the written records mentioned below. At no time was Quaker Hill a civil division, and the church records available were not kept with such accuracy as to give numerical results ; so that statistical material is lacking.

The written sources are :

I. 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.*

• The oldest records of Oblong meeting are contained in the records of Purchase Meeting, the mother society, from the earliest date, about 1741, at which Oblong is mentioned, to 1744, when it became an independent monthly meeting. Most of the early settlers on the Oblong came through Purchase, married there and left their names on its pages. From the year 1744 Oblong Meeting was a meeting of record, but for thirteen years the minutes were written on loose sheets, which have been lost. They may indeed be in existence, for in 1760 the meeting directs Clerk Zebulon Ferriss to record the minutes for the time he has been clerk; and appoints two to record the previous minutes from the establishment 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 of records from 1744 to 1757, whose value is beyond calculation. The minutes of the Meeting from 1757 until the division, and from that date until the Hicksite Meeting was laid down in 1885, are in the

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

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

4. Daybooks and ledgers of the Tofifey store of dates 181 5, 1824, 1833.

5. The "Quaker Hill Series" of Local History, publications of the Quaker Hill Conference. In particular Nos. H, 111, IV, VIlT VIII, IX, X, XI, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI and XVII.*

6. Maps of Fredericksburgh and vicinity by Robert Erskine

possession of John Cox, Librarian of the Yearly Meeting (Hicksite). From 1828, the year of the division, until the present year, the minutes of the Orthodox Friends are in the possession of Vv'illiani IL Osborn. The minutes of the Women's Meeting previous to 1807 are missing; one volume, from 9th Mo., 14th, 1807, to 3rd Mo., i6th, 1835, is with John Cox. In the same place are three volumes of the record of Births, Marriages and Deaths: one from 1745 to 1774; then, after a gap, due to the absence of a volume, is the second, from 1786 to 1866; and a third volume of births and deaths alone from 1828 to 1893. Volumes lacking in this collection are the records of births and deaths previous to 1828: and of marriages from 1774 to 1786.

The records of the present Orthodox Meeting in full, as well as the following two volumes of the records of the Preparative Meeting of Ministers and Riders at Oblong, are in the possession of William H. Osborn on Quaker Hill; first from loth month, T2th, 1783, to ist month, i3t!i, 1878; and second from 1878 to present time. Last of all, the record of births and deaths of the m.eeting, from 1810 to the present day, following the line of the Orthodox society, is in the possession of the Post family on Quaker Hill.

* LOCAL HISTORY SERIES.

David Irish — A Memoir, by his daughter, Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer, of Quaker Hill, N. Y.

Quaker Ilill in the Eighteenth Century, bv Rev. Warren H. Wilson, of Brooklyn, N. ^^

Quaker Hill in the Nineteenth Century, liy Rev. Warren H. Wilson, of Brooklyn, N. Y.

Hiram R. Tones and His School, by Rev. Edward L. Chichester, of Hartsdale, 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, of Quaker 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 iMeeting, by James Wood, of Mt. Kisco, N. Y.

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

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

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

THE SOURCES 7

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 x'Ymerica."

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 ol 1778.

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

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.

Chapter II. Thu Locality

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

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

Before the railroad came, Quaker Hill was obliged to go to Poughkeepsie for access to the world, over the precipitous sides of West Mountain, and all supplies had to be brought up from the river level to this height. At present Quaker Hill, in its nearest group of houses at the Mizzen-Top Hotel, is three miles and three-quarters from the railroad station at Pawling. Other houses are five and seven miles from Paw-

THE LOCALITY g

ling. On the east the nearest station of the New York, New- Haven and Hartford Railroad, New Milford, is nine miles away. The "Central New England" Branch of the N. Y. N. H. & H., running east and west, is at West Patterson or West Pawling, seven and eight miles.

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

The mean elevation is about i,ioo feet above the sea. The highest point being Tip-Top, 1,310 feet, and the lowest point 620 feet. The Hill is characterized by its immediate and abrupt rise above surrounding localities, being from 500 to 830 feet above the village of Pawling, in which the waters divide for the Hudson and Housatonic Rivers. On its highest hill rises the brook which becomes the Croton River. From almost the whole length of Quaker Hill road one looks ofif over intervening hills to the east for twenty-five miles, and to the west for forty miles to Minnewaska and Mohonk; and to the north fifty and sixty miles to the Catskill Mountains.

One's first impressions are of the green of the foliage and herbage. The grass is always fresh, and usually the great heaving fields are mellowed with orange tints and the masses of trees are of a lighter shade of green than elsewhere. The qualities of the soil which have made Quaker Hill "a grass country" for cattle make it a delight to the eye. Well watered always, when other sections may be in drought, its natural advantages take forms of beauty which delight the artist and satisfv the eve of the untrained observer.

lO QUAKER HII.L

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

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

Quaker Hill possesses natural advantages for agriculture only. No minerals of commercial value are there ; although iron ore is found in Pawling and nearby towns. On the confines of the Hill, in Deuell Hollow, a shaft was driven into the hillside for forty feet, by some lonely prospector, and then abandoned; to be later on seized upon and made the traditional location of a gold mine. The Quaker Hill imagination is more fertile and varied than Quaker Hill land. No commercial advantages have ever fallen upon the place, except those resultant from cultivation of the fertile soil in the way of stores, now passed away ; and the opportunity 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 of peculiarly dramatic interest. It is beautiful with a rare and satisfying dignity and loveliness of scene; and it is

THE LOCAUTY II

the choice central spot of a region bathed in a saUibrious atmosphere which has had much to do with its social character in the past, and is to-day very efifective in making the place a summer settlement of New York people. The population is increased one hundred per cent, in the summer months, the increase being solely due to the healthful and refreshing nature of the place.

The history of the locality is associated with the quaint name, "The Oblong." This was the name of a strip of land, lying along the eastern boundary of New York State, now part of Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess Counties, and narrowing to the northward, which was for a century in dispute 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. Then followed a half century of dispute as to the boundary between sister colonies, which are now New York and Connecticut. As soon as this was settled in 1 73 1 the immigration flowed in, and the history of Quaker Hill, the first settlement in the Oblong, begins. It was granted to New York ; and in compensation the lands on which Stamford and Greenwich stand were granted to Connecticut after a long and bitter dispute. The end of the dispute and the first settlement of the Oblong came, for obvious reasons, in the same year. The first considerable settlement of pioneers was made at Quaker Hill in 1731, by Friends, who came from Harrison's Purchase, now a part of Rye.*

The historical interest of the locality dwells in the contrast between the simple annals of Quakerism, which was prac-

* Mr. James Wood, in his Bicentennial Address in 1895, thus described the Oblong:

The eastern side of the country had been settled by Presbyterians from Connecticut, and the western side along the Hudson River by the Dutch. The feeling between tlieni was far frotn ff;pnd'^^ T''"-r tlisnutes 'i^d been very bitter, and Rye and Bedford had revolted from New York's jurisdiction. Their whipping-posts stood ready for the punishment of any from- the river settlements who committed

12 QUAKKR HILL

ticed there in the eighteenth century, and the miUtary traditions which have fallen to the lot of peaceful Quaker Hill, The "Old Meeting House," known for years officially as Oblong Meeting House, experienced in its past, full of memories of men of peace, the violent seizures by men of war. That storied scene, in the fall of 1778, when the Meeting Hous? was seized for the uses of the army as a hospital,* has lived in the thoughts of all who have known the place, and has been cherished by none more reverently than by the children of Quakers, whose peace the soldiers invaded. Both the soldier and the Quaker laid their bones in the dust of the Hill. Both had faith in liberty and equality. The history of Quaker Hill in the eighteenth century is the story of these two schools of idealists, who ignored each other, but were moved by the same passion, obeyed the same spirit. It is said that a locality never loses the impression made upon it by its earliest residents. Certain it is that the roots of modern things are to be traced in that earliest period, and through a continuous self-contained life until the present day.

In the eighteenth century Quaker Hill was the chosen asylum of men of peace. Yet it became the rallying place of periodic outbursts of the fighting spirit of that warlike age ;

even slight offenses within their limits. As the two peoples naturally repelled each other they had left a strip of land, comparatively unoccupied, between them. This continued in nearly a north and south line, parallel with the river, and a little more than midway between it and the Connecticut and Massachusetts lines, as far as they extended. Into and through the strip of land the Quaker stream flowed, like a liquid injected into a fissure in the rocks. Each Quaker home as it settled became a resting place for those who followed, for it was a cardinal principle of Quaker hospitality to keep open house for all fellow members, under all circumstances.

* "One First Day morning, in the mellow October days of that year, the worshipping stillness of the Friends' Meeting was broken by the tramp of horses, and the jangling of spurs, as a band of soldiers rode up, dismounted and entered the building. They remained quiet and reverent, till the handshaking of the elders closed the meeting; then the commanding officer rose, and in the name of the Continental Congress took possession of the building for a hospital for the troops, and as such 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 by soldiers stationed in the place, who listened attentively to the speaking, and left quietly at the close of the meeting." — Richard Osborn — a Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan, Quaker Hill Local History Series, No. \'III.

THE LOCALITY 1 3

and it was invaded during the great struggle for national independence by the camps of Washington.

There is a dignity common to Washington battling for liberty, and the Quaker pioneers serenely planning seven years before the Revolution for the freedom of the slave. But he was a Revolutionist, they were loyal to King 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 was fighting for a definite advance in liberty to be enjoyed at once ; they were set on an enfranchisement that involved one hundred years ; and a greater war at the end than his revolution. Their records contains no mention of his presence here, though his soldiers seized and fortified the Meeting House.* His letters never mention the Quakers, neither their picturesque abode, their dreams of freedom for the slave, nor their Tory loyalty.

Each cherished his ideal and staked his life and ease and happiness upon it. Each, after the fashion of a narrow age, ignored the other's adherence to that ideal. To us they are sublime figures in bold contrast crossing that far-ofif stage : Washington, booted, with belted sword, spurrmg his horse up the western slope of the Hill, to review the soldiers of the Revolution in 1778; and Paul Osborn, Joseph Irish and Abner Hoag, plain men, unarmed save with faith, riding their plough horses down the eastern slope in 1775, to plead for the freedom of the slave 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 their appreciation of its beauty. Probably their interest in the picturesque was the same as that of a Quaker elder, of fine and choice culture after the Quaker standards, who said to the author, with a quiet laugh : "People all say

* In the garret of the Meeting House rifle-ports, cut through the original planks, were discovered by the present writer.

that the views from my house are very beautiful, and I suppose they are; but I have Hved here all my life, and I have never seen it." A Quakeress confessed to the same indifference to the beauty of the Hill, until she had resided for a time in another state, and had mingled with those who had a lively sense of beauty of scene ; returning thereafter to the Hill, it appeared beautiful to her ever afterward.

The land has been for several generations under a high state of cultivation. The keeping of many cattle has enriched the broad pastures ; and the dairy industry has been carried on with constant fertilizing of the lands ; so that the great fields, heaping up one upon another, high above the valley, and plunging down in steep slopes so suddenly that the falling land is lost from view and the valley below seems to hang unattached, are covered with a brilliancy of coloring and a variety of those ricli 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, which constantly expands the sensations and gives, on every hand, a sense of exhiliaration and a pleasurable excitement to the emotions, which seems in experience to have something to do with the industry and application characteristic of Quaker Hill.

With this the atmosphere has had much to do, no doubt, being dry and soft. The first sensation of one alighting from a train in the town is one of lightness and exhilaration. This sensation continues through the first hours of one's stay on the Hill.* After the first day of exhilaration come a day or more of drowsiness, with nights of profound sleep. In some persons a heightened nervousness is experienced, but in most cases the Hill has the effect upon those who reside there of a steady nervous arousal, a pleasure in activity, and a keen interest in life and work.

THE LOCALITY Ic

Whether the early settlers, in selecting the highest ground in this region, had a sense of this excellence of the climatic effect we do not know ; but their descendants believe that such was their reason for settling the highest arable land on the Hill before the valleys or the lower slopes were cleared. It is the common tradition that they settled on the Hill first, and on its highest parts, in order to avoid the malaria of the lowlands ; as well as because they thought the hill lands to be more fertile.

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

* "Bodily functions are facilitated by atmospheric conditions which make evaporation from the skin and lungs rapid. That weak persons whose variations of health furnish good tests, are worse when the air is surcharged with water, and better when the weather is fine; and that commonly such persons are enervated by residence in moist localities but invigorated 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 ASSExMBLING OF THE QUAKERS

The social mind of the Quaker Hill population was formed, at the settlement of the place, in a common response to common stimuli. The population was congregated from Long Island and Alassachusetts settlements, by the tidings of the opening of this fertile land of the Oblong for settlement in 1 73 1. I infer from the fact that settlements were previouslymade on both sides, at Fredericksburgh on one side, and at New Milford on the other, — at New Milford there was a Quaker Meeting established in 1729, fifteen years before Quaker Hill — that the value of the lands in the Oblong was well advertised. From the fact noted by James Wood (The Purchase Meeting, p. 10) that "the first settlement in any considerable numbers was upon Quaker Hill in the Oblong," I infer that the uncommon promise of this hill land had been made known to the Quakers then assembling at this "Purchase in the Rye Woods," and that Quaker Hill was settled in response to the stimulus of valuable, fertile lands offered for occupation and ownership.