The economic activity of the early Quaker Community was varied. All they consumed they had to produce and manufacture. Though the stores sold cane sugar, the farmers made of maple sap in the spring both sugar and syrup, and in the fall they boiled down the juice of sweet apples to a syrup, which served for "sweetness" in the ordinary needs of the kitchen.
Every man was in some degree a farmer, in that each household cultivated the soil. On every farm all wants had to be supplied from local resources, so that mixed farming was the rule. The land which its modern owners think unsuited to anything but grass, because it is such "heavy, clay soil," was made in the 18th century to bear, in addition to the grass for cattle and sheep, wheat, rye, oats and corn, flax, potatoes, apples. Of whatever the farmer was to use he must produce the raw material from the soil, and the manufacture of it must be within the community.
Two lists which come to us from early days cast light on the population and occupations of the early period. One is the sheriff's list of landowners in Dutchess County in 1740, on which is no name of any farmer then resident on Quaker Hill. The other list is that of those who claimed exemption from military duty in 1755; 38 are from Oblong and 21 from Beekman, many of them being Quakers resident on the Oblong. This list is as follows:
Joshua Shearman, Beekman Prec'nt, shoemaker; Moses Shearman, Beekman Prec'nt, laborer; Daniel Shearman, Beekman Prec'nt, laborer; Joseph Doty, Beekman Prec'nt, blacksmith; John Wing, Beekman Prec'nt, farmer; Zebulon Ferris (Oblong), Beekman Prec'nt, farmer; Joseph Smith, son of Rich'd, Beekman Prec'nt, laborer; Robert Whiteley, Beekman Prec'nt, farmer; Elijah Doty, Oblong House, carpenter; Philip Allen, Oblong, weaver; Richard Smith, Oblong, farmer; James Aiken, Oblong, blacksmith; Abrah'm Chase, son of Henry, Oblong, farmer; David Hoeg, Oblong, ——; John Hoeg, Oblong, farmer; Jonathan Hoeg, Oblong, blacksmith; Amos Hoeg, son of John, Oblong, laborer; William Hoeg, son of David, Oblong, farmer; John Hoeg, son of John, Oblong, farmer; Ezekiel Hoeg, Oblong, laborer; Judah Smith, Oblong, tailor; Matthew Wing, Oblong, ——; Timothy Dakin, Oblong, farmer; Jonathan Dakin, Oblong, laborer; Samuel Russell, Oblong, laborer; John Fish, Oblong, farmer; Reed Ferris, Oblong, shoemaker; Benjamin Ferris, Junr., Oblong, laborer; Joseph Akin, Oblong, blacksmith; Israel Howland, Oblong, farmer; Elisha Akin, Oblong, farmer; Isaac Haviland, Oblong, blacksmith; Nathan Soule, son of George, Oblong, farmer; James Birdsall, Oblong, laborer; Daniel Chase, Oblong, farmer; Silas Mossher, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; William Mosher, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Silvester Richmond, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Jesse Irish, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; David Irish, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; William Irish, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Josiah Bull, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Josiah Bull, Junr., Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Allen Moore, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Andrew Moore, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; William Gifford, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Nathaniel Yeomans, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Eliab Yeomans, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; William Parks, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer.
This list mentions six occupations: the farmer, blacksmith, tailor, shoemaker, carpenter and laborer. With these six a frontier community could live, for every man of them was a potential butcher, tanner, trader. There is record of others in later years, when the communal life had become differentiated. There were at various times in the Quaker century stores at four places on the Hill. The Merritt store, at Site 28, descended to the sons of Daniel Merritt, and finally to James Craft. There was a store in Deuell Hollow, kept by Benjamin and Silas Deuell for several years. There is extant one bill of merchandise purchased by them of Edward and William Laight, merchants of New York, the amount being £200 and the date Feb. 25, 1785. The Akin stores at Sites 47 and 46, were kept by Daniel and Albro Akin, and the store at Site 53, by John Toffey. These stores during the period of the Quaker community were in trade largely by barter, taking all the commodities the farmer had beyond his immediate use, and selling sugar, coffee, cloth and other commodities which after 1815, as will be shown later, rapidly increased in number and in quantity. The use of money increased at the same period. The phrase still lingers in Quaker Hill speech: "I am going to the store to do some trading," though the milk farmer has engaged in no barter for fifty years.
In the culminating period of the Quaker Community, which followed the Revolutionary War, the following were some of the occupations practiced on the Hill, the record or remembrance of which is preserved:[8]
Abram Thomas was a blacksmith, at Site 14,[9] and is said to have made the nails used in building the Meeting House. George Kirby, at Site 99½, had a blacksmith shop; there was another at Site x100, now abandoned on Burch Hill, kept by Joel Winter Church, where Washington's charger was shod, and the bill was paid at the close of the war.
But the most notable smithy was at Site 41, where now stands one of the oldest houses on the Hill. Here Davis Marsh wrought in iron, and the sound of his trip-hammer audible for miles smote its own remembered impression upon the ears of those ancient generations. Doubtless the favored location of Marsh's shop in the neighborhood most central, as is shown in Chapter III, Part III, gave it greater use. There was at one time a forge in the Glen at Site 66, to which magnetic ore was hauled from Brewster to be worked.
A "smith shop" is also noted on Erskine's map for Washington in 1778 at Site x111. The most important manufacturing business of the community, however, was the wagon-worker's shop at Site 45, kept by Hiram Sherman. Under the general title of wagon maker he manufactured all movables in wood and iron, from fancy wagons to coffins.
Other trades were of increasing variety as the century of isolation proceeded. Shoemakers went from house to house to make shoes for the family, of the leather from the backs of the farmer's own cattle, tanned on the farm or not far away. Reed Ferris was a shoemaker, in whose residence at Site 99 Washington was entertained in September, 1778, until he took up Headquarters at John Kane's. Stephen Riggs was a shoemaker. Three tanneries were maintained on the Hill in the bloom of the Quaker community by Ransom Aldrich about Site 13; Amos Asborn, at Site x21, who also made pottery there; and Isaac Ingersoll, at Site 134.