THE. OBLONG MEETING HOUSE Quaker Hill, Pawling, N. Y. by Mrs. N. Edward Mitchell* * Mrs. N. Edward Mitchell, the President of the Historical Society of Quaker Hill and Vicinity, was educated in Canada and France in Interior Design. Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell live in an 1800 farm house near Pawling, New York, during the summer months and in New York City in the winter. Mrs. Mitchell does a great deal of volunteer work in New York, especially at the Brick Presbyterian Church, Bellevue Hospital and the Junior League of New York.
Almost everyone in Dutchess County knows that the Pawling vicinity is a historic neighborhood with many fine early American homes and sites where important events in colonial history took place. Not• many people, however, are familiar with the work of the Historical Society of Quaker Hill and Vicinity in preserving and maintaining these landmarks. The Society, which was incorporated 60 years ago on March 6th, 1912, owns the Oblong Meeting House on Quaker Hill and, with an extremely modest budget, exhibits and maintains this building, the Historical Museum in the Akin Library and historic site markers in this area. Built in 1764 by the Quakers, the Oblong Meeting House is deeply interwoven with the history of the whole community. Before there was a Village of Pawling, there was a thriving and prosperous settlement on the Hill. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, this area, known as "the Oblong", a scenic plateau approximately six miles long and two miles wide, was a part of no-mans land between New York and Connecticut. It was claimed by the Dutch in New York and also by the English in New England. The entire Oblong extended from Ridgefield, Connecticut to the Massachusetts border and when the dispute was finally settled, Connecticut gave this property to New York State. Three men from each colony were assigned as the surveyors and one of them, Nathan Birdsall, a young Quaker 48
