The Period of the Mixed Community, from the building of Akin Hall and the Mizzen-Top Hotel in 1880 to the year 1905 has been studied personally by the present writer; and it is his belief that during this short period, especially from 1890 to 1900, the Hill enjoyed as perfect a communal life as in the Period of the Quaker Community. The same social influence was at work. An exceptionally strong principle of assimilation, to be studied in detail in this book, which made of the original population a century and a half earlier a perfect community, now made a mixed population of Quakers, Irish Catholics and New York City residents, into a community unified, no less obedient to a modified ideal, having its leaders, its mode of association, its peculiar local integrity and a certain moral distinction. This period appears at the time of this writing, in 1907, to be coming slowly to an end, owing to the death of many of the older members of the Quaker families, and the swift diminution--with their authority removed--of the Quaker influence, which was the chief factor in the community's power of assimilation. If one may state in condensed form what this study discovers in Quaker Hill that is uncommon and exceptional, one would say that the social peculiarity of the Hill is: first, the consistent working out of an idea in a social population, with the resultant social organization, and communal integrity; and second, the power of this community to assimilate individuals and make them part of itself. PART I. The Quaker Community, from its Settlement in 1728, to the Division in 1828. CHAPTER I. THE SOURCES OF THIS HISTORY. The sources of the history and descriptive sociology of Quaker hill are, first, the reminiscences of the older residents of the Hill, many of whom have died in the period under direct study in this paper; and second, the written records mentioned below. At no time was Quaker Hill a civil division, and the church records available were not kept with such accuracy as to give numerical results; so that statistical material is lacking. The written sources are: 1. The records of Oblong Meeting of the Society of Friends until 1828; of the Hicksite Meeting until 1885, when it was "laid down"; and of the Orthodox Meeting until 1905, when it ceased to meet.[1] 2. Records of Purchase Meeting of the Society of Friends for the period antedating 1770. 3. Ledgers of the Merritt general store of dates 1771, 1772, 1839. 4. Daybooks and ledgers of the Toffey store of dates 1815, 1824, 1833. 5. The "Quaker Hill Series" of Local History, publications of the Quaker Hill Conference. In particular Nos. II, III, IV, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI and XVII.[2] 6. Maps of Fredericksburgh and vicinity by Robert Erskine in the De Witt Clinton Collection, in the New York Historical Society Building.