Oblong Meeting House at Quaker Hill

Between 1730 and 1750, Quakers settled along the eastern edge of New York in an area known as the Oblong. The area had been disputed for years—because of inaccurate surveying, it wasn’t clear if the area was part of New York or Connecticut—and New York was ultimately granted an area that was roughly 2 miles by 60 miles. The area was not part of any of the original Dutch patents and could be purchased by anyone, and as it happened, the first person to buy a piece of the Oblong was Nathan Birdsall, a surveyor who happened to be a Quaker. Birdsall contacted fellow Quakers in Long Island, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, and the community that they established there became known as Quaker Hill. They meeting house they constructed (Quakers have meeting houses rather than churches) is known as the Oblong Meeting House.

Present-day Quaker Hill, a hamlet that is now part of Pawling, is home to a sizable number of weekenders and summer residents, many of whom have built large, well-appointed homes, some complete with helipads. But the community began much more simply. The area was essentially nothing more than wilderness when Nathan Birdsall arrived there in 1728. Because the area had been disputed and was not part of the original Dutch patents, it was slow to be settled and remained a truly “wild” area well after surrounding communities were established.

Quakers—officially known as the Society of Friends—were, at that point in their history, living largely self-contained lives, with little social or economic ties to outsiders. Dutchess County, largely unsettled and offered an ideal setting for Quakers who wanted distance between themselves and mainstream society. As a result, Dutchess became home to more Quaker meetings than any other county in the state.

After years of persecution, the Quaker faith had begun to grow by the early 1720s, when Nathan Birdsall came to the Oblong. The years from 1728 to 1828 were years of remarkable activity for the Dutchess County Friends. Their growth was rapid enough that their first meeting house, completed in 1742, was too small within twenty years. In 1763, the Quaker Hill Friends petitioned the Quaker regional office to build a new brick building for their growing congregation but were told to build a wooden meeting house instead. The new building was completed in 1764, just north of the original meeting house, and still stands.

Despite the wishes of earlier Quakers to live apart from secular affairs, the meeting house at Quaker Hill played a part in history when it was seized during the Revolutionary War and used for a military hospital. Quakers are strict pacificists, and the community was almost universal in its refusal to assist the Contintental Army. They moved their meetings to a nearby barn and refused to assist the sick and wounded soldiers who were treated there for virtually the entire four-month period that the building was used as a hospital. Their stance might have also been shaped by the fact that many Quakers remained loyal to the English crown during the Revolution.

Quaker Hill , Living Places . Accessed March 8th 2022. https://www.livingplaces.com/NY/Dutchess_County/Pawling_Town/Quaker_Hill.htm

Hodara , Susan . Pawling, NY: A Quaint Place with Acres of Open Space , New York Times . September 9th 2020. Accessed March 8th 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/09/realestate/pawling-new-york.html.

Dutchess County Quaker Meeting Houses--the Oblong Meeting House at Quaker Hill , Poughkeepsie Public Library District . Accessed March 8th 2022. https://poklib.org/dutchess-county-quaker-meeting-houses-the-oblong-meeting-house-at-quaker-hill/.

Musso , Anthony P . Pawling Oblong Friends Meeting House a Safe Haven , Poughkeepsie Journal . September 6th 2016. Accessed March 8th 2022. https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/local/2016/09/06/local-history-dateline-quakers/89928106/.