The Irish population who have remained on the Hill are singularly homogeneous, and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the place. In the chapter on "The Ideals of the New Quakerism," I have commented on Irish acquisition of a character like that of the Quakers. The gentleness of manner, the quickness of social sympathy and the industrious quietness of the Quakers have come to be theirs. Yet they are loyal Catholics, and with very few exceptions support their Church in the village regularly. Many of them who have not conveyances have for years employed a stage-driver to transport them on Sunday morning to St. Bernard's Church. This church has been built by the Irish and Irish-Americans. At the time of their coming in 1840-1850, there was no Catholic church, and "if you wanted to hear mass said, you had to drive to Poughkeepsie." Later, a tent was erected for a time, for the Catholic services, then a Baptist church building was purchased. This building was destroyed by fire about 1875, and the present structure in the village was erected. The Catholic population of the Hill is now equal to the Quaker population, there being of each twenty-five households; the old and the new. But each has gone through striking changes since the Catholics came, sixty years ago. "When I was a boy," says a prominent Irish-American, "you could hardly see the road here for the carriages and the dust, all of them Quakers going to the Old Meeting House, on Sunday, or to Quarterly Meeting. But now they are all gone." The religious faithfulness of those Friends of two generations ago has descended upon no part of the population more fully than upon the handful of Catholic families, who now drive to Pawling every Sunday in great wagon-loads, while the members of the Quaker households have closed their meeting houses forever. Of the Irish-Catholic population here described only eleven are Irish born. The rest, about ninety in number, are American born of Irish parents.