of its termination. For one hundred years a
local ethical code prevailed. While they lived apart the Quakers in
their community life rejoiced in the unbroken sway of a communal code of
morals, the obedience to which made for survival and economic success.
When, with better roads to Poughkeepsie and to Fredericksburgh,
newcomers began to invade the community; when in 1849 the railroad came
to the neighborhood, immersing the Quakers in the world economy, the
Quaker code was insufficient, retarded rather than assisted survival,
and rather forbade than encouraged success. It therefore lost its force.
Only in a few individuals has it survived.

The residents of the Hill, from their earliest settlement in 1728 to the
time of the Division in 1828, knew no other government than that of the
Meeting. They accepted no other authority, hoped for public good through
no other agency, even read no other literature, than that of the Quaker
Monthly Meeting of the Oblong. The religious Meeting House was also the
City Hall, State House, and Legislature for the patriotism, as it was
the focus of the worship and doctrinal activity of this population. This
cannot be stated too strongly, for there was no limit to its effect. It
explains many things otherwise diverse and unexplained.

During all the periods of war the Quakers showed their separateness by
refusing to pay taxes, lest they contribute to the support of armies. In
the Revolution, the Meeting exercised unflinching discipline, for the
purpose of keeping members out of the patriot armies, and punished with
equal vigor those who paid for the privilege of exemption from military
duty and those who enlisted in the ranks. In every act of the discipline
of the Quaker Community appears the purpose of the Meeting, namely, to
keep its members to itself and away from all other moral and spiritual
control. This will appear in definite illustrations below.

The standard of morals which the Meeting thus upheld with jealous care
was a simple one, and logically derived from the distinctive doctrine of
the Society of Friends. That the Spirit of God dwells in every man was
their belief,[11] and from 1650, when Fox was called "a Quaker" before
Justice Bennett at Derby, England, to the Division in 1830, they applied
this doctrine in practical, rather than in metaphysical ways. They were
a moral, rather than a theological people. It will appear in this
chapter that only when the moral grip of the Meeti