Quaker Hill / A Sociological Study

by Warren H. Wilson

There is a story told in the Taber and Shove families, which prettily shows the customs in the Quaker century. Anne Taber, wife of Thomas Taber, substantial pioneer at the north end of the Hill, "had a fine reputation as a cheese maker." Being a New England woman, she was of the few who in Revolutionary days were in sympathy with the Colonies, and she gave forth that she would present a cheese to the first general officer who should visit the neighborhood. "One day, being summoned to the door," writes one of her descendants, "she was greatly surprised to find a servant of General Washington, with a note from him claiming, under conditions of the promise, the cheese. Of course it was sent, and the General had opportunity to test her skill in that domestic art."[31]

The Taber family did not preserve that note; but in the Treasury Department of the United States, among Washington's memoranda of expenditures, is the item under date of Nov. 6, 1778, "To Cash paid servant for bringing cheese from Mr. Taber, 16 shillings." It would seem that the fame of Anne Taber's cheeses had won her a market with the officers at Headquarters, for sixteen shillings was payment "for bringing cheese" in large quantity, and the date is six weeks after the arrival of Washington for his stay in the vicinity.

In the ledger of the Merritt store, under date of Nov. 6, 1772, Thomas Taber, Esq., is credited as follows: "By 29 cheses wd. 484 lb. at 6d., £12 2s." In that year Thomas Taber, Esq., satisfied his account with an ox, £6 16s.; cash, £10; three pounds and nine ounces of old pewter, 4s. 6d.; seven hogs, £20 11s. 6d., and the above 29 cheeses. So that approximately one-fourth of the "money crop" of this substantial farmer was in the form of a dairy product. In the year 1895, the average Quaker Hill farm was producing, as will be shown in Chapter III, Part III, ninety per cent. of dairy product, namely milk.

The second phase of the industry proper to Quaker Hill was that of raising fat cattle. This culminated at the end of the period of the Quaker Community. In this industry were laid the foundations of some large fortunes. It brought in its day more money into the neighborhood than any other occupation had ever brought. It disappeared with the coming of the railroad into the valley, bringing, in refrigerator cars, meat from western lands, and killed in Chicago. Then the cattle were fattened on these hills, in the rich grass, and driven to New York to be killed and sold there.

In "Some Glimpses of the Past," Miss Taber says: "But the chief business of most farmers was the fatting of cattle. The cattle were generally bought when from two to three years old, usually in the fall, kept through the winter and the following summer fattened and sold. They were the only things that did not have to go to the river to reach the market. From all over the country they were driven to New York on foot, and the road through the valley was the main thoroughfare for them. Monday was the market day in New York and all started in time to reach the city by Saturday. From Pawling the cattle were started on Thursday, and those from greater distances planned to reach this part of their journey on that day. It used to be said that the dealers could tell what the market would be in New York on the following Monday by watching the cattle that passed through Pawling on Thursday. The cattle were collected and taken to the city by drovers; theirs was a great business in those days. Hotels or taverns were provided for their accommodation at frequent intervals along the road. Ira Griffin was a drover and Mr. Archibald Dodge remembers when a boy going to New York with him and his cattle, walking all the way. There were also droves of cattle other than fat ones, on the road, some called store cattle, and the books of Mr. Benjamin V. Haviland, who kept one of the taverns, show that in the year 1847 there had been kept on his place 27,784 cattle, 30,000 sheep and 700 mules, and it is said that occasionally there would be 2,000 head between his tavern and that of John Preston's in Dover. When Mr. Albert J. Akin was a young man he was considered an expert judge and buyer of steers for fattening, and generally had the finest herd of fat cattle."

This reference is to the business at its height and applies to the years 1800-1850. In the books of John Toffey's store are frequent references to the business.

Interesting material is furnished for the study of the period of transition, in the records of the store kept by John Toffey at Site No. 53. These old day-books and ledgers are incomplete, but they cover spaces of time in the years 1814, 1824, 1833; and their account of the purchases made by John Toffey's customers furnishes a record, we may suppose, of the goods brought into the households on the Hill at that time, from other communities; as well as the actual exchange of commodities on the Hill, where at that time diversified industries were carried on.

The growth of trade in these respects, from the period 1814-1816 to the period 1824-1833 will be considered in four lines, as it is exhibited in the commodities: first of Costume, second of Food and Medicine, and third of Tools and Material for Industry, fourth, of House-furnishings. It is assumed that John Toffey kept a representative store, and that the growth in his trade corresponded to the growth in the commercial interchange in the community.

In 1814-1816 the imported goods kept and sold by John Toffey are cloth (perhaps in part locally manufactured), indigo, thread, cambric, penknives, knitting needles, spelled "nittenneedels," plaster, fine salt, molasses, tea, apple-trees, nutmeg, shad and occasionally other fish. The list is brief, and its proportion to the other commodities sold in the store evidences the simplicity of a community dependent chiefly upon itself, and living a life of rudeness and content.

Among prices which change in the twenty years recorded in John Toffey's books are those of molasses which was in 1814-1816 $2.00 per gallon, and fell to $1.25 and in 1824 to 35c. per gallon. "Tobago" was sold in 1814 at $2.75 per pound, and later for 62c. Flour was sold in 1814 for $18 per barrel, or 9c. per pound; wool hats at $4; fine salt 10c. per pound; plaster $3.25 per hundredweight; boots at $9.00; tea at $2.75 per pound.