rnpike which crossed Quaker Hill ended at the
Jephtha Sabin residence, known to the present generation as "the Garry
Ferris place," Site 74. The roads of the neighborhood were the same in
1778-80 as at the present day, as will be seen from a comparison of Map
I, made by Erskine for Washington, and Map 2, which is a copy of the U. S.
Survey; except the road from Mizzen-Top Hotel to Hammersley Lake,
made after the hotel was erected. The comparison of maps shows also, to
one who knows the use of these roads, that they have changed from a
north and south use to an east and west use; the highway on the
northward slope of the Hill in Dover, and on the southward slope in
Patterson, being but little used to-day. The road from the Meeting House
and cemetery westward, which was once much favored, is now scarcely ever
used, and being neglected by the authorities, is little more than a
stony gutter.

The whole character of the neighborhood was changed by a revolution in
transportation. Not turnpikes effected the change, but railroads. The
early years of the nineteenth century were filled with expectation of
new modes of travel. Robert Fulton was building his steamboat amid the
derision of his contemporaries, and to their amazement steaming up the
Hudson against the tide. At first canals seemed to country folk the
solution of their problem. They occupied in the dawn of the 19th century
the place which trolley cars occupy in the minds of promoters to-day. A
canal was planned to run through the Harlem valley, where now Pawling
stands, and Quaker Hill men were among the promoters of it, among them
Daniel Akin and Johnathan Akin Taber.

Presently, however, came the promotion of railroads, and many of the
same men who had favored the canals, entered heartily into the new
projects. The foundation of Albert Akin's fortune was made when, about
1830, he began to borrow money of his neighbors and invest in the
rapidly growing lines of steam-cars in New York State. There were those,
however, who foresaw dire things from the new iron highway, and old
residents tell of "one man who said that whosoever farm that locomotive
passed through would have to give up fatting cattle, as it would be
impossible to keep a steer on the place."

For many years the railroad came no nearer than Croton Falls. Richard
Osborn used to tell the story of one resident of the Hill who boasted
that he could go to New York and return the same day. This he finally
attem