Revolution, who is believed to
have been Cooper's model for the hero of the novel, "The Spy," came to
Quaker Hill during the Revolution, in pursuance of a plan he was at that
time following, and got together a band of Tory volunteers, who were
planning to join the British army; and delivered them to the Continental
authorities, as prisoners. In this he was assisted by Col. Moorehouse,
who kept a tavern on a site in South Dover, opposite the brick house
which now stands one-half mile south of the Methodist Church.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF OBLONG MEETING HOUSE

On the "facing seats" are: OLIVE HOAG, ROBY OSBORN, BETSY POST, RICHARD
OSBORN, JOHN L. WORDEN]

I have spoken above of the sullen loyalty of the Quakers to the British
Crown during the Revolution. It may have been in part owing to their
loyalty that their neighborhood became more congenial for the Tories who
during that period harried the country-side. The Quakers were Tories,
and are so called in the letters of the period; but the word "Tories"
remains in the speech of Quaker Hill as a name of opprobrium. It
describes a species of guerrillas who infested parts of New York and
Connecticut.

The "Tories" of the Revolutionary days furnish the substance of the
stories of violence that are told about the fireside to Quaker Hill boys
and girls. It is difficult, however, to persuade those who have heard
these tales to relate them. Those who know them best are the very ones
who cannot recall them in systematic or orderly form. I mention only one
more of the free lances of the time. The chiefest of all bandit-leaders
of those turbulent times was Waite Vaughn. It is related that this
fellow was the head of a band of Tories, which means locally the same
that the term "Cowboys" or "Skinners" means in the history of
Westchester County. The latter were lawless bands who infested the
regions in which the armies made civil life insecure, and subsisted by
stealing cattle, plundering houses, robbing and often murdering
citizens. "They seemed," says a writer, "like the savages to enjoy the
sight of the sufferings they inflicted. Oftentimes they left their
wretched victims from whom they had plundered their all, hung up by
their arms, and sometimes by their thumbs, on barndoors, enduring the
agony of wounds that had been inflicted to wrest from them their
property. These miserable beings were frequently relieved by the
American patrol."[23] Waite Vaughn lived in Connecti