Quaker Hill A Sociological Study   By: Warren H. (Warren Hugh) Wilson (1867-1937)

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?