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.

CHAPTER III.

THE ASSEMBLING 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 Massachusetts settlements, by the tidings of the opening of this fertile land of the Oblong for settlement in 1731. I infer from the fact that settlements were previously made 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.

It seems to have been the desire of the first settlers to form a community where they could live apart, maintain their form of religion and possess land fertile and rich. The Quakers are always shrewd as to economic affairs, and the business motive is never lost sight of in the spiritual inner light. In choosing Quaker Hill soil they selected ground which after one hundred and sixty-seven years is the richest in the region, sustains the best dairies, and is able longer than any other in the neighborhood in time of drought to afford abundant green grass and verdure.

To this place thus secluded, came Benjamin Ferriss in 1728, and Nathan Birdsall. They settled upon the sites marked 31 and 39; which are 1,200 and 1,100 feet above the sea, and very near the highest ground for many miles. There was at this time, 1729, a meeting of Friends at New Milford, nine miles away; but these two men came from Purchase Meeting in the town of Rye, forty miles directly to the South. There soon followed others, bearing the names, Irish, Wing, Briggs, Toffey, Akin, Taber, Russell, Osborn, Merritt, Dakin, Hoag. In ten years the tide of settlement was flowing full. In forty years the little community was filled with as many as could profitably find a living.

Complete records of the sources of this immigration are not available. John Cox, Jr., Librarian of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, says "the records do not show in any direct way where the members came from. A few came from Long Island meetings by way of Purchase, but most of them from the East, and I believe from Massachusetts. Indirectly the records show that the members occasionally went on visits into New England, and took certificates of clearance there (to marry)." Dartmouth, Mass., a town between Fall River and New Bedford, was the original home of so many of them that it easily leads all localities as a source of Quaker Hill ancestry. The Akin, Taber, Briggs families came from Dartmouth, which was in a region of both temporary and permanent Quaker settlement. Quaker Hill, R. I., is within fifteen miles of Dartmouth. The residents of Quaker Hill, New York, preserve traditions of the returns of the early Friends "to Rhode Island." There is a Briggs family tradition of the first pair of boots owned on the Hill, which were borrowed in turn by every man who made a visit to the ancestral home at Dartmouth.

It is probable also that some of the original residents came from Long Island, though from what localities I do not know. The minutes of Purchase Meeting at Rye, through which meeting most of the Quaker Hill settlers came, indicate in only a limited number of cases that the immigrant came from a farther point; and leave the impression that the Friend so commended to the Oblong was already a resident of "the Purchase," or of its related meetings at Flushing on Long Island. An example is the case of William Russell and his wife, notable pioneers, the earliest residents of Site 25, whose letter from Purchase Meeting in 1741 indicates only that they came to Oblong from Purchase.

The settlement of the Hill continued from the early years, 1728-1731, at which it began, until 1770, when the community may be said to have been complete. The land was supporting by that time all it would bear. Since that time the number of houses on the Hill has remained about the same, as will be seen from a comparison of the Maps 1 and 2, the one made for Washington in 1778-80 and the other being a tracing of the map of the Topographical Survey of the United States Government of recent date.

The extent of this population resident upon the Hill is shown in the lists of persons whose names appear in Appendix A, which is a census of the heads of families in the Meeting in the year 1761; added to which is a list of names which appear in the minutes of the Meeting in years immediately following. These lists show the growth of the population under study, in the years from 1761 to 1780, for there are whole families omitted from the list of 1761, who are named in the minutes in succeeding years. An instance is that of Paul and Isaac Osborn, who came from Rhode Island in 1760.[7]

As this list of members of the meeting shows the actual size of the population resident upon the Hill in 1761, the other list published in Appendix B, containing the names of those who traded at the Merritt store in 1771, exhibits, with startling vividness, the importance of Quaker Hill at that time. Little as the place is now, and geographically remote and hard of access always, it was evidently in the years named a center of a far-reaching country trade. This list is published in full, exactly as the names appear on Daniel Merritt's ledger, to convey this impression;