Quaker Hill / A Sociological Study

by Warren H. Wilson

The hospitality of the Quakers is worthy of a treatise, not of the critical order, but poetic and imaginative. It cannot be described in mere social analysis. It has grown out of their whole order of life, and expresses their religious view, as well as their economic habits. I showed in Chapter VII, Part I, that the hospitality of the Friends acquired religious importance from their belief that in every man is the Spirit of God. With the simplicity, and direct adherence to a few truths, which characterized the early Friends this belief was practiced, and became one of the religious customs of the Society. They entertained travellers, "especially such as were of the household of faith." They made it a religious tenet to house and welcome "Friends travelling on truth's account."

With equal directness they proceeded further to welcome every traveller, and to endure often the intrusions of those who would not be desired as guests, because they believed that such might be acting by the divine impulse.

The hospitality, therefore, of such a community is very beautiful. For they have their ways of asserting themselves, in spite of non-resistance. They open their doors, they set their table, with a religious spirit. A thoroughness characterizes all their household arrangements, a grace is given to all their housekeeping, which infuses an indescribable content into the experiences of a guest in these homes. Their hospitality to one another has been therefore a powerful enginery for continuing and for extending the domains of Quakerism.

On Quaker Hill the living generations have known this hospitality in two notable ways only, in the Quarterly Meetings, and in the transformed hospitality of the boarding-house. The Quarterly Meeting is now gone from the Hill. Both the Hicksite Meeting, which was "laid down" in 1885, and the Orthodox Meeting, which ceased to meet in 1905, brought in their day to the Hill, once in the year, an inundation of guests, who stayed through the latter days of a week, and then went their way, to meet quarterly throughout the year, but in other places, until the season came again for Quaker Hill.

The Quaker Hill Quarterly was in August, and "after haying." "The roads were full of the Quakers going up to the Meeting House." In every Quaker home they were welcomed, whether they had written to announce their coming, or whether they had not. All through the days of the Meeting, they would renew the old ties, and discuss the passing of the Society, the interests of the Kingdom, as they saw it, "the things of the spirit."

They meet no more. In the Quarterly Meeting, which comprises the Monthly Meetings of an area comparable to Dutchess County, there are still some Friends, and some meetings which are not "laid down." But they come no more, at "Quarterly Meeting time" to Quaker Hill. Many of the older members are dead. Of the younger members many have only a passive adherence to Quakerism, only sufficient to excuse them from undesirable worldliness, and from irksome responsibility in other religious bodies.

The hospitality of the old Quaker assemblings has passed over into the business of boarding city people. The same table is set, the same welcome given; but to the paid guest.

The passing of the old hospitality of the Friends was illustrated in the years of the writer's residence on the Hill, in the person of an old peddler, known as Charles Eagle. It had been the ancient custom to entertain any and every wayfarer; and Eagle journeyed from South to North about once a month in the warmer seasons, for many years. He had enjoyed the entertainment of the Quakers, following the ancient line of their settlements along the Oblong, and stopping overnight in their ample, kindly households. He carried a pack on his back and another large bundle in his hand. His pace was slow, like that of an ox, but untiring and unresting, hour after hour. His person, sturdy and short, was clothed in overall stuff, elaborately patched and mended. At first sight it seemed to be patched from use and age; but closer inspection showed that the patches were deliberately sewed on the new material. He wore a straw hat in summer, decorated with a bright ribbon, in which were flowers in season. He wore also a red wig, tied under his chin with a ribbon. His face was like that of an Indian, with broad cheek-bones and small shifting eyes.

Eagle was French, and professed to be a refugee, a person of interest to foreign monarchs. On the inner wrapping of his pack was written large, "Vive le Napoleon! Vive la France! Vive!" He had little hesitation about speaking of himself, though always with stilted courtesy, and always furtively.

He made a study of astronomy, and every night would ask his hostess, with much apology but firm insistence, for a pitcher of water, and for the privilege that he might retire early to his room, open the window and view the stars. Strange to say, in this he was not merely eccentric; for his reading was of the latest books on the science, and he exchanged with Akin Hall Library a Young's Astronomy for a Newcomb's, in 1898. He accompanied the presentation of the later book, in which was the author's name inscribed with a note to Mr. Eagle, with a demonstration of a theory of the Aurora Borealis.