ning from south to north by N. N. E. and intersected by four roads
running from east to west. The households located on this road for one
hundred and sixty years constituted a community of Quakers dwelling near
their Meeting House; and until the building of the Harlem Railroad in
the valley below in 1849, had their own stores and local industries.

Before the railroad came, Quaker Hill was obliged to go to Poughkeepsie
for access to the world, over the precipitous sides of West Mountain,
and all supplies had to be brought up from the river level to this
height. At present Quaker Hill, in its nearest group of houses at the
Mizzen-Top Hotel, is three miles and three-quarters from the railroad
station at Pawling. Other houses are five and seven miles from Pawling.
On the east the nearest station of the New York, New Haven and Hartford
Railroad, New Milford, is nine miles away. The "Central New England"
Branch of the N. Y. N. H. & H., running east and west, is at West
Patterson or West Pawling, seven and eight miles.

The natural obstacle which does more than miles to isolate Quaker Hill
is its elevation. The "Mizzen-Top Hill," as it is now called, is a
straightforward Quaker road, mounting the face of the Hill four hundred
feet in a half-mile. The ancient settler on horseback laid it out; and
the modern wayfarer in hotel stage, carriage or motor-car has to follow.
Quaker Hill is conservative of change.

The mean elevation is about 1,100 feet above the sea. The highest point
being Tip-Top, 1,310 feet, and the lowest point 620 feet. The Hill is
characterized by its immediate and abrupt rise above surrounding
localities, being from 500 to 830 feet above the village of Pawling, in
which the waters divide for the Hudson and Housatonic Rivers. On its
highest hill rises the brook which becomes the Croton River. From almost
the whole length of Quaker Hill road one looks off over intervening
hills to the east for twenty-five miles, and to the west for forty miles
to Minnewaska and Mohonk; and to the north fifty and sixty miles to the
Catskill Mountains.

One's first impressions are of the green of the foliage and herbage. The
grass is always fresh, and usually the great heaving fields are mellowed
with orange tints and the masses of trees are of a lighter shade of
green than elsewhere. The qualities of the soil which have made Quaker
Hill "a grass country" for cattle make it a delight to the eye. Well
watered always, when other