As this list of members of the meeting shows the actual size of the population resident upon the Hill in 1761, the other list published in Appendix B, containing the names of those who traded at the Merritt store in 1771, exhibits, with startling vividness, the importance of Quaker Hill at that time. Little as the place is now, and geographically remote and hard of access always, it was evidently in the years named a center of a far-reaching country trade. This list is published in full, exactly as the names appear on Daniel Merritt's ledger, to convey this impression; and by contrast, the impression of the shrinkage in the years since the railway changed the currents of trade. It is published also as a basis of this study, being a numerical description, in the rough, of the problem we are studying. And a third use which such a list may serve is that of information to those interested in genealogy. It is a veritable mine of information, suggestion, and even color, of the life of that time--as indeed are the ancient ledgers, bound in calf, and kept with exquisite care, by this colonial merchant. In these old records are suggested, though not described, the lives of a hard-working, prosperous population, filling the countryside, laying the foundations of fortunes which are to-day enriching descendants. It was a community without an idler, with trades and occupations so many as to be independent of other communities, hopeful, abounding in credit, laying plans for generations to come, and living bountifully, heartily from day to day. Every item in these mercantile records is of interest and full of suggestion, from the names of the negro slaves, who had accounts on the books, to the products brought for sale by one customer after another, by which they liquidated their accounts; from the "quart of rum" bought by so many with every "trading," to the Greek Testament and Latin Grammar bought by solid Thomas Taber, who wrote his name in real estate by his thrift and force, if he did not write it in dead languages. [7] Richard Osborn--A Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan, Quaker Hill Local History Series, No. VIII, p. 10. CHAPTER IV. ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES OF THE QUAKER COMMUNITY. The economic activity of the early Quaker Community was varied. All they consumed they had to produce and manufacture. Though the stores sold cane sugar, the farmers made of maple sap in the spring both sugar and syrup, and in the fall they boiled down the juice of sweet apples to a syrup, which served for "sweetness" in the ordinary needs of the kitchen.