The Friends Meeting House

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

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came to the Hill with his wife and baby and became the first settler. Their second child was the first white person to be born on Quaker Hill.

When it was announced that the area had been given to New York, the Birdsalls were followed by several other Quaker families from the Purchase (N. Y.) meeting. This locality was ideal for these people, who wished to live apart that they might practice their own religion and follow their customs. As more families came in, and they prospered, the need for a Meeting House became apparent.

The first Meeting House was soon over-crowded and permission was granted by the parent meeting in Purchase, for the erection of the present edifice in 1764. The thrifty Quakers had wanted to build their Meeting House of brick, but such was the discipline of the Quakers that word was received that it should be built of lumber and the dimensions were to be "45 feet long, 40 feet wide and 15 foot stud to admit of gallerys". The actual cost was listed as £697.9s ( a considerable sum for those times). There were seats for two hundred and fifty people on the ground floor and 150 more in the gallery.

The interior of the Meeting House followed the custom of many early English Meeting houses. The men and women sat apart, the men on one side of the middle aisle and the women on the other. The mens' side was separated from the womens' side by wooden curtains, which could be raised or lowered, so that the whole building could be one auditorium, with galleries; or the curtains could be so lowered that no man on the ground floor could see any women, unless she was a speaker on the "facing seats". The galleries were used for the young people and they also were separated so that no person in the gallery could see any one of the opposite sex; yet a speaker would be heard in all parts. The curtains could be pulled enabling two independent meetings to be held, each in its own auditorium.

It was the custom for the women to have delegated to them certain religious functions, at Monthly Meetings and Quarterly and Yearly Meetings, on which they deliberated before submitting them to the whole meeting.

It is interesting to note that the Quaker women were considered "equal" to the men, and great emphasis was put on their education. Although their main role was that of the housekeeper, as with other settlers, each family had a special room for the "teacher" and often it would be the eldest daughter of the family. This also is the explanation of the fine speakers at the women's meetings, although there was little intellectual exchange of ideas between men and women in the social sense and the exchange of ideas were usually confined to one sex.

In 1767, just three years after the building of the present Meeting House, the Oblong Meeting took a positive position in regard to slavery — One hundred years before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, it was the first action on this continent for the abolition of slavery. The significance of this action by the people on Quaker Hill has gone unnoticed by many historians of the slavery question. It is recorded that the population of Dutchess County in 1731 was 1727 of whom 262 were colored slaves. By

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1777 the last slave owned by a member of the Meeting was freed and the influence of this action was carried to the Friends Meeting in Flushing, N. Y.

When the American Revolution broke out, the Quakers took a stand against the war. The Quakers as a sect strongly disapproved of war and physical force. Philosophically, they were pledged to a policy of passive resistance and most were Tory in sentiment. Therefore, when Washington's Continential Army took over the Quaker Meeting House for a hospital, the Quakers were reluctant to be of any assistance. They continued their worship at the home of a nearby Quaker and refused to permit the bodies of soldiers to be buried in the Quaker cemetery, but rather on the other side of the house.

The Quakers rule of simplicity and plainness was evident also in their cemeteries where no headstones were used to mark their graves. Thus we do not have positive proof of the number of soldiers buried in the cemetery which is across from the present Meeting House. However, in Washington's records there are several mentions of soldiers being buried on the Hill.

The records of those years on the Quaker Clerk's Minute Book are a disappointment. There is no mention of troops using the Meeting House, nor is there a record of the presence in the Meeting House of the "Tories" or guerrillas of the Revolution. There is a legend that suggests the Tories used the garret as a hiding place for men and supplies which may be the explanation of the "rifle ports" in the gables.

The Quakers had an excellent relationship with the local Indians and managed to live in peace with them. Thus the Quakers were stunned to be plunged into the very action of this Revolution and to be closely involved in the bloodshed, deprivation and horrors of a, war in which they had no desire to participate. They felt that this was a forcible invasion of the Hill and their privacy. However, one of the characteristics of the Quakers was their sense of hospitality and when Washington arrived in September of 1778, he was entertained as an honored guest and every courtesy was shown to him. His letters, written during his residence here, were all dated from "Frederickburgh", the name at that time of the western and older part of the Town of Patterson. His general officers were housed in the homes of various residents of the neighborhood, and his headquarters were at different times in the Reed Ferris House and the John Kane house. This latter is on a site now within the borders of the Village of Pawling. That Washington and Lafayette were also entertained in several other Quaker homes on the Hill is very likely.

It should be noted that the reason for the Meeting House being appropriated by the Army officers for a hospital was because it was the largest building in the vicinity.

The only official record is that of Washington's order, October 20th, that "No more sick to be sent to the Hospital at Quaker Hill without first inquiring of the Chief Surgeon there, whether they can be received, as it is already full".

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The use of the building for a hospital continued three and perhaps five months. The Meeting House had not been voluntarily surrendered; its use was given grudgingly and not a matter to be recorded in the meeting. It was characteristic of the Friends that they ignored it.

Many of those who at first were not interested in the Revolution later changed their minds and, after the War, life in the community returned to all of the normal pursuits. A few, who had felt strongly about their Tory ideals, went to Canada to live.

Each farm had to be as nearly self supporting as possible. New homes were built to house the married sons and daughters. Large families were customary. The Meeting House was the focal point of the community. Two services were held each week — one on Sunday or "First Day" and one on Wednesday or "Fourth Day". It was customary for the Quakers to dress in their "visiting" clothes for the services on "First Day". On the mid-week "Fourth Day", everyone wore their clean work clothes and hurried away as soon as the service was over. 'The Friends settled all problems of "well fare", business and government at these meetings. The rules of conduct were strict and violation was punished by expelling the offenders. The "First Day" was the social event of the week.

Eventually, stores opened in the neighborhood and, in 1838, a Post Office was opened nearby. The mail was delivered twice weekly on a route from Poughkeepsie to New Milford, Conn.

Although the settlers were all landowners and farmers, they also carried on other businesses successfully in their desire to be a self-contained community. There were hatters, tanners, pottery makers, millers, harness makers, a wagonmaker who also made coffins, a blacksmith and even a butcher who had no store but killed once a week and loaded his wagon and made the rounds along the Hill.

Of course, when the Harlem Division of the New York Central Railroad was completed in 1848 and the Village of Pawling developed seven miles away in the Valley, many changes were to take place on Quaker Hill. The Quakers turned from farming to dairying and Pawling soon became one of the largest milk shipping stations in the State. With the increased interest in the village and the discontinuance of most of the stores on the Hill, the people went to the Valley for their supplies and the young Quaker girls were exposed to the young gallants in Pawling. The results, of course, were that many young Quaker girls married men of the Village and vice versa. Non-Quakers for the most part were "read out of the Meeting". At about this time there was a growing discontent with the strict regulations and principles of Quakerism all around the country. In the Meetings in New York and Philadelphia a new movement was developing to liberalize these precepts. Elias Hicks became the leader of this new movement. He travelled around to all the Friends Meetings protesting against the strict dogma of the Quakers. Gradually, the schism widened between the thinking of the Orthodox and the more liberal minded and, in 1828, the Orthodox Friends left the Oblong Meeting and started a second meeting in another

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building around the corner. The Hicksite Quakers continued their reformed meetings in the Oblong Meeting House. For some time, the two sections carried on and feelings were bitter. Actually, their differences were not to be resolved by the Quakers until the late 1950's. Eventually, the "Orthodox Friends", which was composed mostly of elderly people, disbanded when their members were too depleted by deaths to carry on. The Hicksites carried on for half a century until the 1880s when their meeting was "laid down".

It is almost a century now that the Meeting House has stood alone and unused except for a yearly meeting on the third Sunday in July. It is a dramatic monument to the early life of this community, beloved and treasured by all who live in the area and revered by the vast number of visitors, not only from other parts of this country, but many times from all corners of the world, who sign its guest book. Everyone asks the same question, "Why did it die out?" Perhaps the best answer was given by James Wood, who was quoted in an article in the Pawling Chronicle of July 14, 1933 — "As a church the Quakers here missed their great opportunity. As settlers came among them in increasing numbers, the Friends became very solicitous to preserve the strictest moral observances among their members. They withdrew from contact and association with the world about them and confined their religious influence and effort to themselves. The strictest watch was maintained over the deportment of old and young. Members were dismissed for comparatively trivial offences. Immigration further reduced their numbers. Hypercriticism produced disagreements among themselves. Finally, doctrinal differences arose which resulted in a disastrous separation into two bodies in 1828. They felt that a peculiar combination of circumstances placed in their hands was lost and their moral influence, high and pure and strong, was all that remained for them to give to the communities about them".

The people of Quaker Hill shared with the Friends the care of this ancient landmark until the 1930s when the Historical Society of Quaker Hill and Vicinity became its sole owner.

It is dramatically obvious that a building of such age has required many repairs over the years and the present Board of Trustees of the Historical Society has been conducting a "save the Meeting House" campaign for the last six months. As soon as the thaw begins in the spring of 1972, we anticipate that the work will begin. Major repairs are needed if this structure is to survive. Foundations, supporting members, window frames, shingles and roof are all "weary with the years". We are dedicated to preserving this shrine for the future families who may live in this lovely section of Dutchess County and for all those who come to visit on this charming Hill "mid-way between the Valley and the Stars".

Bibliography "Quaker Hill" by Warren H. Wilson "History and Traditions of Pawling, N. Y." by Jennie T. Green "Pawling Chronicle-Supplement" Friday July 14, 1933 Mrs. Fred Daniels, Historian of Historical Society of Quaker Hill and Vicinity for her help and encouragement.

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