Quaker Hill: A Sociological StudyWilson, Warren H. (Warren Hugh)
Religion
Quaker Hill: A Sociological Study
Wilson, Warren H. (Warren Hugh)
Quaker Hill (N.Y.)
The numerous groupings and associations of women are especially
interesting in view of the fact that the men of the Hill have no
associations whatever, now that the stores are closed; and are assembled
in no fixed groupings. It has never been possible, so far as records go,
to maintain a society of men on the Hill. In the early part of the
period under study a literary and debating society was organized, with
social attractions; but it was feeble and short-lived. There are not
enough leaders among the men to make such group-life possible. They are
related by ties of labor, rather than of class-fraternity; and they have
never acquired any interest common to their sex to assemble them in
groups and companies; the discipline of the religion known to the Hill
has discouraged and outlawed it.
This contrast may have something to do with the departure of men from
the Hill. So long as the stores were in operation, at Toffey's, Akin's,
and Merritt's places, the men could meet there, and had in their
assembling a natural group-life, which satisfied many with life in the
country. But with the closing of the stores after the coming of the
railroad in 1849, this also failed, and the men having no capacity for
general association with one another, and few interests possessed in
common with the women, have been the more impelled to leave the Hill.
Economic advantage had only to be as good elsewhere, and the man
emigrated. I have not known those who have left the place, in my
knowledge of it, to give as a reason inability to make a good living
there; but always they have spoken most emphatically of the bareness and
lack of interest in the social life of the Hill as their reason for
emigrating to the city or large town.
Part III.
The Mixed Community, from 1880 to the Present.
CHAPTER I.
DEMOTIC COMPOSITION.
There are ninety-three dwellings on Quaker Hill, as defined above, and
illustrated in Map II. The shaded area alone is referred to here as the
area proper to the term "Quaker Hill." In these dwellings live four
hundred and five persons. This gives a density of population of 26.667
per square mile. In the summer months of July and August there come to
the Hill at least five hundred and nineteen more, increasing the density
of population to more than 61 per square mile.
There is a steady emigration from the Hill, due to the departure of
working-people and their families in search of better economic
opportunities. This has in ten years removed thirty-nine persons. Death
has removed or occasioned the removal of twenty-seven more, while only
three have been removed by marriage.
Over against this there has been an immigration in the years 1895-1905
of thirty persons; of whom eleven have come in to labor, and nineteen
for residence on their own property.
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