There is a dignity common to Washington battling for liberty, and the Quaker pioneers serenely planning seven years before the Revolution for the freedom of the slave. But he was a Revolutionist, they were loyal to King George; he was a man of blood, brilliant in the garb of a warrior, and they were men of peace, dreaming only of the kingdom of God. He was fighting for a definite advance in liberty to be enjoyed at once; they were set on an enfranchisement that involved one hundred years; and a greater war at the end than his revolution. Their records contains no mention of his presence here, though his soldiers seized and fortified the Meeting House.[5] His letters never mention the Quakers, neither their picturesque abode, their dreams of freedom for the slave, nor their Tory loyalty.
Each cherished his ideal and staked his life and ease and happiness upon it. Each, after the fashion of a narrow age, ignored the other's adherence to that ideal. To us they are sublime figures in bold contrast crossing that far-off stage: Washington, booted, with belted sword, spurring his horse up the western slope of the Hill, to review the soldiers of the Revolution in 1778; and Paul Osborn, Joseph Irish and Abner Hoag, plain men, unarmed save with faith, riding their plough horses down the eastern slope in 1775, to plead for the freedom of the slave at the Yearly Meeting at Flushing.
What effect the beauty of the place had upon the pioneer settlers it is, of course, impossible to say, for they have left no record of their appreciation of its beauty. Probably their interest in the picturesque was the same as that of a Quaker elder, of fine and choice culture after the Quaker standards, who said to the author, with a quiet laugh: "People all say that the views from my house are very beautiful, and I suppose they are; but I have lived here all my life, and I have never seen it." A Quakeress confessed to the same indifference to the beauty of the Hill, until she had resided for a time in another state, and had mingled with those who had a lively sense of beauty of scene; returning thereafter to the Hill, it appeared beautiful to her ever afterward.
The land has been for several generations under a high state of cultivation. The keeping of many cattle has enriched the broad pastures; and the dairy industry has been carried on with constant fertilizing of the lands; so that the great fields, heaping up one upon another, high above the valley, and plunging down in steep slopes so suddenly that the falling land is lost from view and the valley below seems to hang unattached, are covered with a brilliancy of coloring and a variety of those rich tints of green and orange which spell to the eye abundance, and arouse a keen delight, like that of possessing and enjoying.
There is also a large dignity in the outlines of every scene, which constantly expands the sensations and gives, on every hand, a sense of exhilaration and a pleasurable excitement to the emotions, which seems in experience to have something to do with the industry and application characteristic of Quaker Hill.
With this the atmosphere has had much to do, no doubt, being dry and soft. The first sensation of one alighting from a train in the town is one of lightness and exhilaration. This sensation continues through the first hours of one's stay on the Hill.[6] After the first day of exhilaration come a day or more of drowsiness, with nights of profound sleep. In some persons a heightened nervousness is experienced, but in most cases the Hill has the effect upon those who reside there of a steady nervous arousal, a pleasure in activity, and a keen interest in life and work.
Whether the early settlers, in selecting the highest ground in this region, had a sense of this excellence of the 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.