Quaker Hill / A Sociological Study

by Warren H. Wilson

The "Tories" of the Revolutionary days furnish the substance of the stories of violence that are told about the fireside to Quaker Hill boys and girls. It is difficult, however, to persuade those who have heard these tales to relate them. Those who know them best are the very ones who cannot recall them in systematic or orderly form. I mention only one more of the free lances of the time. The chiefest of all bandit-leaders of those turbulent times was Waite Vaughn. It is related that this fellow was the head of a band of Tories, which means locally the same that the term "Cowboys" or "Skinners" means in the history of Westchester County. The latter were lawless bands who infested the regions in which the armies made civil life insecure, and subsisted by stealing cattle, plundering houses, robbing and often murdering citizens. "They seemed," says a writer, "like the savages to enjoy the sight of the sufferings they inflicted. Oftentimes they left their wretched victims from whom they had plundered their all, hung up by their arms, and sometimes by their thumbs, on barndoors, enduring the agony of wounds that had been inflicted to wrest from them their property. These miserable beings were frequently relieved by the American patrol."[23] Waite Vaughn lived in Connecticut in the part of New Fairfield known as Vaughn's Neck. Under the house, recently demolished, in which "Dr. Vaughn," his brother, is said to have lived during the Revolution, was found rotted linen below the cellar floor. Behind the great heap of the chimney also was found a secret cellar, for years forgotten, in which, among other rubbish of no significance, are said to have been found counterfeit coins of the Revolutionary period and other evidences of outlaw practices in that time.[24]

Vaughn used to ride at night with his troop to Quaker Hill, through Connecticut neighborhoods, which knew the sound of his passing. The Pepper family still relate the tradition of his riding up "Stony Hill," past the point where stands Coburn Meeting House, in the night, while they and their neighbors stayed discreetly indoors. This rendezvous was a place in the woods on Irish land, about half way between Sites 96 and 120, now known as "The Robber Rocks." Here the Vaughns are said to have concealed booty at times, and from this point they made forages upon farmhouses in the richest neighborhoods of this vicinity. Probably they spared the Quakers. I will speak later of the fact that Quakers have ways of their own for protecting themselves against intruders. Moreover, their men were not gone to the war.

The record of these years, on the pages of the clerk's minute-book, are a disappointment. One searches in vain for even the slightest trace of the presence in the Meeting House of the troops. There is no record of the presence in the Meeting House of the "Tories" or guerrillas of the Revolution; and not a word about the makers of the rifle-ports in the gables of this building which the present writer discovered there, unless it be the unruffled and serene utterance, under date of 8th Month, 9th, 1781, the very period at which the "Tories" must have been at their worst: "Samuel Hoag is appointed to take care of the Meeting House, and to keep the door locked and windows fastened, and to nail up the hole that goes up into the Garratt." The "Tories" robbed the store on Site 28. They had hidden for that purpose in the loft of the Meeting House and were discovered by some young Quakers who were skylarking in the Meeting House under pretense of cleaning it. The story is that one of the young men, being dared—of course by a maiden—to open the trap-door into the garret, and look for the Tories, found them hiding there. The bandits, being discovered, tumbled down the hole from the garret, and compelled their discoverers to go with them to the store; and proceeded at once to plunder it, relying no doubt on the non-resistant character of the people of the Hill. They stacked their arms at the door and went about their business in a thorough manner. But there was that in the blood of some Quakers there that could not contain itself within the bounds of non-resistance, and one of them, Benjamin Ferris, cried out, "Seize the rascals." In the scrimmage that resulted from the excitement of this remark, the leader of the Tories was recognized by the young lady who had by her challenge to the young man discovered them, and being taunted by her was so incensed that he stabbed her. It is only said in closing the story that the blood of both the fair and adventurous young Quakeress whose abounding spirit brought on all the trouble, and that of the leader of the "Tories," flows in the veins, of some who live on the Hill in the twentieth century.

Samuel Towner, a relative of Vaughn, resident in the region of Fredericksburgh (now Patterson), returning from a trip, once found Vaughn at his home, and urged him at once to leave, as his property would be confiscated, if Vaughn's presence there were tolerated.

Vaughn was once pursued by farmers near Little Rest, and was sighted and surrounded in a lonely road. He turned upon his pursuers coolly and said: "Now, gentlemen, you can arrest me, or kill me, but you must take the consequences; for I will kill some of you." Daunted by his resolution, they stood motionless while he crossed a fence and a field, and disappeared among the trees of a wooded hill.

Quaker Hill became known as Vaughn's rendezvous, and here he met his end, I think about 1781. His band had robbed the home of one of the Pearce family, then as now resident in the valley where Pawling village stands. The victim was hung up by his thumbs till life was almost extinct. The next day, Capt. Pearce, of the Revolutionary army, returned unexpectedly to his home, and set off with armed assistance for the Robber Rocks on Quaker Hill. Near that spot, in the fields east of Site 97, on the Wing lands, Vaughn and his men were resting, some picking huckleberries, and some playing cards on a flat stone. Pearce gave no warning, but opened fire at once. Vaughn fell mortally wounded. He was carried to John Toffey's residence, Site 53, where he soon died. He is buried under the trees outside the "Toffey Burying Ground," beside the brook, in the very heart of Quaker Hill, into which he had intruded because in that peaceful neighborhood he had for a time a safe asylum. With his death it is believed that his band dispersed, and their depredations ceased.

A peaceful people like the Quakers must find means of their own to protect themselves against intruders. No one can live long on Quaker Hill without knowing that they have done so. One may brusquely intrude once, but he will be a violent man indeed, not to say a dull one, who continues to enjoy invading the preserves of the "Friends." The fourth instance of a forcible invasion of the Hill was that of Washington's army, which encamped in the vicinity in the fall of 1778, the Headquarters being in John Kane's house, on a site now within the borders of Pawling Village. See on Map I, "HeadQrs."

On his arrival, September 19, 1778, Washington,[25] with his bodyguard, was entertained for six days at the home of Reed Ferris, in the Oblong, Site 99,[26] an honored guest, when he moved to the place designated as his Headquarters on his maps by Erskine. His letters written during his residence here are all dated from "Fredericksburgh," the name at that time of the western and older part of the town of Patterson. Washington's general officers were quartered in the homes of various residents of the neighborhood. One was so entertained by Thomas Taber, at the extreme north end of the Hill. It is natural to suppose that others were housed in nearer places. That Lafayette was entertained at the home of Russell, who lived at Site 25, now the Post-office, is reliably asserted. The brick house standing at that time was torn down by Richard Osborn, who erected the present house. That Washington, with other officers, was entertained at Reed Ferris's home is asserted by the descendants most interested, and is undoubtedly true.

The Meeting House was appropriated by the army officers for a hospital, because it was the largest available building. The only official record, says Mr. L. S. Patrick, is that of Washington's order, Oct. 20th, "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." Arguing from the date of Washington's order above, Oct. 20, and from that of Surgeon Fallon below, this use of the building for a hospital continued three and perhaps five months. Meantime the Friends' Meetings were held in the barn at Site 21, then the residence of Paul Osborn. This barn had been the first Meeting House erected on the Hill in 1742. It was removed to Site 21 in 1769, when it was used as a barn till 1884, when it was removed by the present resident.[27]

There is no mention, even by inference, in the records of Oblong Meeting that proves this occupation of their building by soldiers. It was not voluntarily surrendered; other records show that the use of the building was supported by force; its surrender was grudging, not a matter to be recorded in the Meeting. It is characteristic of the Friends that they ignored it.