Quaker Hill Part 3

The year after, not without due hesitation, a committee was appointed which "drew an Essay on that subject which was read and approved and is as follows: We are of the mind that it is not convenient (considering the circ.u.mstances of things amongst us) to give an Answer to this Querie, at least at this time, as the answering of it in direct terms manifestly tends to cause divisions and may Introduce heart burnings and Strife amongst us, which ought to be Avoided, and Charity exercised, and persuasive methods pursued and that which makes for peace. We are however fully of the mind that Negroes as Rational Creatures are by nature born free, and where the way opens liberty ought to be extended to them, and they not held in Bondage for Self ends. But to turn them out at large Indiscriminately--which seems to be the tendency of the Querie, will, we Apprehend, be attended with great Inconveniency, as some are too young and some too old to obtain a livelihood for themselves."

Here, then, is the first action in a legislative body in New York State, upon the freeing of slaves. The "Querie from Oblong" had secured a clear deliverance in favor of the essential right of the negro as a man, in favor of his being freed "where the way opened," and against the holding of man for the service of another. The only hesitation of the meeting was frankly stated; emanc.i.p.ation was not to be pushed to the point of division among Christians, and was not to be accomplished to the impoverishment of the negro.

Yet if this action seems to any one like "tr.i.m.m.i.n.g," it was followed by other deliverances increasingly clear and emphatic. Three years later Friends were forbidden to sell their slaves, except under conditions controlled by the Meeting. Throughout the communities of Friends the agitation was being carried on, and the meetings were anxious to purge themselves of the evil.

Finally in 1775 came the clear utterance of the Yearly Meeting in favor of emanc.i.p.ation without conditions: "it being our solid judgment that all in profession with us who hold Negroes ought to restore to them their natural right to liberty as soon as they arrive at a suitable age for freedom." At this meeting the Oblong was represented by Joseph Irish, Abner Hoag and Paul Osborn.

It only remains to picture the rest of the process by which slavery was purged away on Quaker Hill. In 1775 the practice of buying and selling slaves had come to an end, and no public abuse was noted by the Meeting in the treatment accorded to slaves by their masters. The next year there was but one slave owned by a member of the Meeting; and the day he was freed in the fall of 1777 was counted by the Meeting so notable that the clerk was directed to make a minute of the event. The owner had been Samuel Field, and the slave was called Philips. Another manumission in 1779 is recorded, but it was doubtless in the case of a new resident of the Hill, for it is recorded without signs of the joy exhibited in the freedom of Philips.

In the years 1782-3 the final act in emanc.i.p.ating the local slaves was taken, in the investigation by a committee of the Meeting into the condition of the freed slaves, and the obligations of their old masters to them. It was not very cordially received at first, but in the third year of the life and labors of the committee it was reported by them that "the negroes appear to be satisfied without further settlement." So the first American community to free herself from slavery required but sixteen years of agitation fully to complete the process.

[8] See "Some Glimpses of the Past," by Alicia Hopkins Taber, 1906; Quaker Hill Series.

[9] See Map II.

CHAPTER V.

AMUs.e.m.e.nTS IN THE QUAKER COMMUNITY.

The Quaker community had little time for amus.e.m.e.nts, and less patience.

The discipline of the Meeting levelled its guns at the play spirit, and for a century men were threatened, visited, disowned if necessary, for "going to frollicks," and "going to places of amus.e.m.e.nt." The Meeting House records leave no room for doubt as to the opinion held by the Society of Friends upon the matter of play.

An account is given elsewhere of the discipline of the Meeting in its struggle against immorality and "frollicking." The following quotation from James Woods' "The Purchase Meeting," vividly depicts the confused elements of the social life of that time: "On great occasions such as the holding of a Quarterly Meeting, the population turned out _en ma.s.se_. Piety and worldliness both observed the day. The latter cla.s.s gathered about the meeting house, had wrestling matches and various athletic sports in the neighboring fields, and horse races on the adjacent roads. The meetings regularly appointed committees as a police force to keep order about the meeting house during the time of worship and business."

The stories told by old Quaker Hill residents of the gatherings about the meeting house, even on First Day, or Sunday, confirm the above quotation. The field opposite the meeting house, for years after 1769, when the earliest meeting house was moved away from that site, was used as a burial ground, and later, no headstones being placed in those early days, as a s.p.a.ce for tethering horses. An old resident tells me that crowds of men were always about the meeting house before and after meeting, and even during meeting, and that in later years the resident of Site No. 32, who owned valuable horses, used to exhibit a blooded stallion on a tether, leading him up and down to the admiration of the horse-owners present, and to their probable interest.

These conditions seem to have continued through that whole century. The play spirit had no permitted or authorized occasions. It had to exercise itself with the other instincts, in the common gatherings. It was, as far as we can see, a time of asceticism. Men were forbidden rather than invited, in those days.

The Meeting not only provided no play opportunities, but it forbade the attendance of its members upon the "frollicks," which then were held, as nowadays they are held, in the country side. A gathering with plenty to eat, and in those days a free indulgence in drink on the part of the men, with music of the fiddler, and dancing, this was a "frollick"--that horror of the meeting house elders. Indeed, it was of incidental moral detriment; for it was outlawed amus.e.m.e.nt, and being under the ban, was controlled by men beyond the influence or control of the meeting. The young people of the Quaker families, and sometimes their elders, yielded to the fascinations of these gatherings. The unwonted excitement of meeting, the sound of music, playing upon the capacity for motor reactions in a people living and laboring outdoors, inflamed beyond control by rum and hard cider, soon led to lively, impulsive activities and physical exertions, both in immoderate excess and in disregard of all the inhibitions of tradition and of conscience. That there was a close relation of these "frollicks" with the s.e.xual immorality of the period is probable.

Of more concern to us here is the observation, which is made with caution, that the att.i.tude of the community to amus.e.m.e.nts was not conducive to moral betterment, because amus.e.m.e.nt was not specialized.

The repression of the play spirit, offering it no occasions, recognizing no times and places as appropriate for it, disturbed the equilibrium of life, forced the normal animal spirits of the population to impulsive and explosive expressions and deprived them of the regulative control of the community.

It is probable that that early period had modes of amus.e.m.e.nt the record of which is wholly lost. There are few sources existing to inform us of the amus.e.m.e.nts of laboring cla.s.ses. Hints occur in such records as that of the sale of powder and shot, of fishhooks and a quart of rum, at the Merritt store, in 1771, to the Vaughns. Seven years later the Vaughns were the Tory "cowboys," who robbed the defenceless neighborhood, until their leader was killed by Captain Pearce, during the Revolution.

It is probable that then the community wore the aspect which now it wears, of industry without play; and that members went elsewhere for their amus.e.m.e.nt, the acknowledged leaders in which were resident in other neighborhoods and communities.

The recreation of the body of working population of the Hill was incidental to the religious a.s.semblies. In these meetings they took an intense and a very human pleasure. Their solitary, outdoor labor was performed in an intense atmosphere of communal interaction. He who raised hogs was to sell them, not to a distant market, but to Daniel Merritt, or John Toffey, the storekeepers. He who made shoes went from house to house, full of news, always talking, always hearing. He who wove heard not his creaking loom, but the voice of the storekeeper or of the neighbor to whom he would sell. The cheeses a woman pressed and wiped in a morning were to be sold, not far away to persons unseen, but to neighbors known, whose tastes were nicely ascertained and regarded.

The result was that meetings on First Day and Fourth Day were times of intense pleasure, occasions of all-around interest: not mere business interest, but incidentally a large satisfaction of the play instinct, especially for the working and mature persons. The young, too, had their happiness and enjoyment of one another in a mult.i.tude of ways, in addition to those boisterous games described above by Mr. James Wood.

Their intense friendships and lively enterprises were probably not so easy to confine to the bounds of sober, staid meetings, but no less did their merry good spirits fill those a.s.semblies. The galleries of the old Meeting House were built in 1800 for the young, who were expected to sit there during meeting. The wooden curtains between the "men's part" and the "women's part" are especially thorough in their exclusion of even an eyeshot from one side to the other.

CHAPTER VI.

THE IDEALS OF THE QUAKERS.

In the Introduction to Professor Carver's "Sociology and Social Progress" is a pa.s.sage of great significance to one who would understand Quaker Hill, or indeed any community, especially if it be religiously organized. The writer refers to: "a most important psychic factor, namely the power of idealization. This may be defined, not very accurately, as the power of _making believe_, a factor which sociologists have scarcely appreciated as yet. We have such popular expressions as 'making a virtue of necessity,' which indicates that there is a certain popular appreciation of the real significance of this power, but we have very little in the way of a scientific appreciation of it.

"One of the greatest resources of the human mind is its ability to persuade itself that what is necessary is n.o.ble or dignified or honorable or pleasant. For example, the greater part of the human race has been found to live under conditions of almost incessant warfare. War being a necessity from which there was no escape, it was a great advantage to be able to glorify it, to persuade ourselves that it was a n.o.ble calling--in other words, a good in itself.

"Another example is found in the case of work. Work is a necessity as imperious as war ever was. Looked at frankly and truthfully, work is a disagreeable necessity and not a good in itself. Yet by persuading ourselves that work is a blessing, that it is dignified and honorable, our willingness to work is materially increased, and therefore the process of adaptation is facilitated--in other words, progress is accelerated. Among the most effective agencies for the promotion of progress, therefore, must be included those which stimulate this power of idealization. In short, he who in any age helps to idealize those factors and forces upon which the progress of his age depends, is perhaps the most useful man, the most powerful agent in the promotion of human well-being, even though from the strictly realistic point of view he only succeeds in making things appear other than they really are.

From the sociologist's point of view this is the mission of art and preaching of all kinds."

The quotation from Professor Carver bears the impression of incompleteness, or rather of suggestiveness. If "making a virtue of necessity" is idealization, is not symbolism also a form of "make believe." If the "ability to persuade oneself that what is necessary is n.o.ble or dignified or honorable or pleasant," is exhibited on Quaker Hill as a "most important psychic factor," so is also the idealization of the commonplace the "making believe" that peace and plainness, that simple, old-fashioned dress, and seventeenth century forms of speech are spiritual and are serviceable to the believing mind. The power of idealization is nowhere exhibited as a social force more clearly than in a Quaker community. Professor Carver's word, "make believe," is most accurate. Quakers act with all sincerity the drama of life, using costume and artificial speech, and attaching to all conduct peculiar mannerisms; casting over all action a special veil of complacent serenity; all which are parts in their realization of the ideal of life.

Their fundamental principle is that the divine spirit dwells and acts in the heart of every man; not in a chosen few, not in the elect only, but in all hearts. Quaker Hill to this day acts this out, in that every person in the community is known, thought upon, reckoned and estimated by every other. Towns on either side have a neglected population area, but Quaker Hill has none. Pawling in its other neighborhoods has forgotten roads, despised cabins, in which dwell persons for whom n.o.body cares, drunkards, ill-doers, whom others forget and ignore. Quaker Hill ignores no one. There are, indeed, rich and poor, but the former employ the latter, know their state, enjoy their peculiarities, relish their humor. It has apparently always been so. Elsewhere I have described the measures taken by popular subscription to replace the losses suffered by the humbler members of the community, in the tools of life (see Chapter VII). It need not be said that the poorer members bear the rich in mind.

Every person resident on the Hill has come to partake in this sense of the community, this practice of new Quakerism. No one is out of sight and yet there is no dream of equality behind this communal sense. It is as far from a communistic, as from a charitable state of mind. It is the result of years of belief in common men and common things.

This "make believe" that commonplace things are the spiritual things was a corollary of George Fox's life as much as of his doctrine. He opposed pomp and ritual, salaried priests, ordinations and consecrations; he disbelieved in "the imposition of hands." His followers therefore went so far as to find in plainness a new sanct.i.ty. They adapted at once the "plain garb" of the period of William Penn and Robert Barclay, and the generations of men who followed felt themselves morally bettered by a drab coat and breeches, a white neck-cloth, and a broad-brimmed brown hat; the women by dresses of simple lines, low tones of color, bonnets of peculiar shape, shielding the eyes on either side.

Of course in time this exceptional garb by its uniqueness defeated the very desire George Fox had for "plainness." It was not commonplace but extraordinary. Roby Osborn's garb is thus described by her biographer: "Her wedding gown was a thick, l.u.s.treless silk, of a delightful yellowish olive, her bonnet white. Beneath it her dark hair was smoothly banded, and from its demure shelter her eyes looked gravely out. Her vest was a fine tawny brown, of a sprigged pattern, both gown and vest as artistically harmonious as the product of an Eastern loom. Pieces of both were sewn into a patchwork quilt, now a family heirloom."[10]

For more than a century now "plainness in dress" has been extravagance in dress. A proper Quaker hat for man or woman costs twice or thrice what plain people of the same station in life would pay. But be it so.

In its day, which is now gone--for only one person now wears "plain dress" on Quaker Hill--it was a true expression of the "make believe" of sanct.i.ty in plainness. The quiet colors, the prescribed unworldliness involved a daily discipline, and infused into the wearer an emotional experience which mere economy and real commonness would never so continuously have effected.

The "plain speech" has the same effect. It is part of the same dramatic celebration of an ideal. It is a use of quaint and antique forms, not grammatically correct nor scriptural, in which "thee" takes the place of "thou" and you in the singular, both in the nominative and objective cases. It is not used with the forms of the verb of solemn style, but with common forms, as "thee has" instead of "thou hast." Another element of the "plain speech" is the use of such terms as "farewell" for "good day"--which is declared to be untruthful on bad days! The Quakers also address one another by their first names, and the old-fashioned Friends addressed everybody so, refusing to use such t.i.tles as "Mr.," "Mrs.," or "Miss."

Of late years the younger members of the Meeting, while maintaining their standing there, have used with persons not in the Meeting the ordinary forms of speech, as they have refused to a.s.sume the Quaker plain garb. With fellow-Quakers and with members of their own families they say "thee."

Before the period of the mixed community this power of idealization, of "making believe," had wrought its greatest effects, but it still has full course and power without the highest direction. The minds of the residents of the Hill are very suggestible; but the persons who have the power to implant the suggestion are no longer inspired as of old, with a sublime and unearthly ideal. They are only animated with an economic one. But the result is the same. It is social, rather than religious. It was one thing for the early Friends to cement together a community through the feeling that in every man was the Spirit of G.o.d. A wonderful appet.i.te was that for the a.s.similation of new members coming into the community. It was a doctrine that made all the children birthright members of the Meeting and so of the community.

But in our later time, between 1895 and 1905, this power of "making believe" had suffered the strain of a division of the meeting. It was harder to believe that the Spirit of G.o.d was in all men, when half the community was set off as "unorthodox." It had suffered the strain of seeing the wide social difference caused by money. Yet it bravely played the game. Children are not more adapt at "making believe" than were these old Friends. They deceived even themselves; and their "pretending"

a.s.similated into the communal life every newcomer. For it created underneath all differences a sense of oneness; it kept alive, in all divisions, many of the operations of unity. It compelled strangers and doctrinal enemies to "make believe" to be friends.

I find it difficult to describe this elusive force of the communal spirit in the place, just as the communal character of the place is itself evanescent, while always powerful. I know clearly only this, that it proceeded, and still on Quaker Hill proceeds from the old religious inheritance, and from the present religious character of the place; that it tends directly to the creation of the community of all men, of all different groups, and that it is ready at hand at all time, to be called to the a.s.sistance of anyone who knows how to appeal to that communal unity; and that it is a power of idealization, meaning by that "a power of making believe." In this power, I recognize this community as being more expert and better versed than any I have ever known.

The dramatic expression of an ideal has had great social power. Upon the casual observer or visitor it has wrought with the effect of a charm to impress upon them in a subtle way the ideal of Quakerism. Expressed in words, it would have no interest: acted out so quaintly, it awakens admiration, interest, and imitation, not of the forms, but always in some degree of the substance of the Quaker ideal.

Thus the Quaker ideal has given authority to the Friends, especially to the older and more conservative of them; has furnished a subtle machinery for a.s.similating new members into the community and thus has been an organizing power.

[10] "Richard Osborn--a Reminiscence," by Margaret B. Monahan; Quaker Hill Series, 1903.

CHAPTER VII.

MORALS OF THE QUAKER COMMUNITY.