four
or five miles."[30]

I cannot learn that Quaker Hill was during the Quaker Period on any main
line of country travel. Marquis De Chastelleux records in his "Travels
in North America," that he journeyed in 1789 to Moorehouse's Tavern (see
Map I) along the Ten Mile River, two or three miles from the Housatonic
to "several handsome houses forming part of the district known as _The
Oblong_. The inn I was going to is in the Oblong, but two miles farther
on. It is kept by Col. Moorehouse, for nothing is more common in America
than to see an inn kept by a colonel ... the most esteemed and most
creditable citizen." There was no inn on Quaker Hill and no colonel. The
Quaker aversion to military titles was then as great as to the sale of
rum. The houses referred to by the French traveller were probably the
northern boundary of the Quaker community, at what is now Webatuck. I
cannot find record of any post road coming nearer than this, until in
the 19th century a stage was maintained between Poughkeepsie and New
Milford, by way of Quaker Hill, making the journey every other day, and
stopping at John Toffey's store at Site 53.

The building of turnpikes became, in the years following 1800, a popular
form of public spirit. Says Miss Taber: "In fact, turnpikes seemed to be
a fad in those days all over the state and probably a necessary one. The
longest one I learn of in this part of the country was from Cold Spring
on the Hudson River to New Milford in Connecticut. The turnpike in which
the people of this neighborhood were most interested was the one
incorporated April 3, 1818, and reads, 'That Albro Akin, John Merritt,
Gideon Slocum, Job Crawford, Charles Hurd, William Taber, Joseph Arnold,
Egbert Carey, Gabriel L. Vanderburgh, Newel Dodge, Jnrs., and such other
persons as shall associate for the purpose of making a good and
sufficient turnpike road in Dutchess Co.' It was named as the Pawlings
and Beekman Turnpike, being a portion of what is known as the
Poughkeepsie road passing over the West Mountain, but we do not find
that anything was done until after the act was revived in 1824, when
Joseph C. Seeley, Benoni Pearce, Samuel Allen, Benjamin Barr and George
W. Slocum were associated with them."

The Pawlings and Beekman Turnpike maintained a tollgate till 1905, when
it was burned down; and the company, which had long discussed its
discontinuance, then abandoned its private rights in that excellent
stretch of road. The tu