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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 THE
DIVISION 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 FOUNDING
OF 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 PRESENT
TIME, 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 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
increasingly 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 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 relations 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.
The Transition follows the Division of the Quaker Meeting in 1828, the
building of turnpikes, and the coming of the railroad in 1849. A
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 earlier a perfect community,
now made a mixed population of Quakers, Irish Catholics and New York
City residents, into a community 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 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 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:
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 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 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 William H. Osborn. The minutes
of the Women's Meeting previous to 1807 are missing; one volume, from
9th Mo., 14th, 1807, to 3rd Mo., 16th, 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 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, the
record of births and deaths of the meeting, from 1810 to the present
day, following the line of the Orthodox society, is in the possession of
the Post family on Quaker Hill.
[2] LOCAL HISTORY SERIES.
David Irish--A Memoir, by his daughter, Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer, of Quaker
Hill, N. Y.
Quaker Hill in the Eighteenth century, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson, of
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Quaker Hill in the Nineteenth century, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson, of
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hiram B. Jones 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 Meeting, 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.