[4] "One First Day morning, in the mellow October days of that year, the worshipping stillness of the Friends' Meeting was broken by the tramp of horses, and the jangling of spurs, as a band of soldiers rode up, dismounted and entered the building. They remained quiet and reverent, till the handshaking of the elders closed the meeting; then the commanding officer rose, and in the name of the Continental Congress took possession of the building for a hospital for the troops, and as such it was used all that winter. After this meetings were held in the 'great room' in the house of Paul Osborn, and were often frequented by soldiers stationed in the place, who listened attentively to the speaking, and left quietly at the close of the meeting."--Richard Osborn--a Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan, Quaker Hill Local History Series, No. VIII. [5] In the garret of the Meeting House rifle-ports, cut through the original planks, were discovered by the present writer. [6] "Bodily functions are facilitated by atmospheric conditions which make evaporation from the skin and lungs rapid. That weak persons whose variations of health furnish good tests, are worse when the air is surcharged with water, and better when the weather is fine; and that commonly such persons are enervated by residence in moist localities but invigorated by residence in dry ones, are facts generally recognized. And this relation of cause and effect, manifest in individuals, doubtless holds in races."--Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Vol. I, p. 21. CHAPTER III. THE ASSEMBLING OF THE QUAKERS. The social mind of the Quaker Hill population was formed, at the settlement of the place, in a common response to common stimuli. The population was congregated from Long Island and Massachusetts settlements, by the tidings of the opening of this fertile land of the Oblong for settlement in 1731. I infer from the fact that settlements were previously made on both sides, at Fredericksburgh on one side, and at New Milford on the other,--at New Milford there was a Quaker Meeting established in 1729, fifteen years before Quaker Hill--that the value of the lands in the Oblong was well advertised. From the fact noted by James Wood (The Purchase Meeting, p. 10) that "the first settlement in any considerable numbers was upon Quaker Hill in the Oblong," I infer that the uncommon promise of this hill land had been made known to the Quakers then assembling at this "Purchase in the Rye Woods," and that Quaker Hill was settled in response to the stimulus of valuable, fertile lands offered for occupation and ownership.