pted and accomplished by driving with a good pair of horses to
Croton Falls in the morning, taking an early train to New York,
returning in the evening, and driving home before night. This story,
which is well authenticated, proves the good condition of some of the
roads before 1849, for the drive to Croton Falls is about twenty miles.
Among leading Quaker Hill residents who promoted railroads in the valley
were Jonathan Akin, Daniel D. Akin, J. Akin Taber, John and Albert J.
Akin. The two men who were most influential in completing the last link
of the road--from the local viewpoint--were Albert Akin and Hon. John
Ketcham, of Dover, both recently deceased. They supplied cash for the
continuation of the road from Croton Falls to Dover Plains. To Mr.
Akin the promise was made that if he would supply a building for a
station the road would place an eating house at the point nearest Quaker
Hill. There was then no such village or hamlet as Pawling, the locality
being known as "Goosetown." Patterson was an old village, west of its
present business center one mile, and was known as Fredericksburgh.
Dover also was a place of distinction in the country-side. Mr. Akin,
with several yoke of oxen, hauled a dwelling to the railroad track from
the site on which Washington's Headquarters stood in 1778; and thus was
initiated the settlement of the village which is now among the most
thriving on the road.

[Illustration: A QUAKER GENTLEMAN]

At that time Quaker Hill was the most prosperous community for many
miles around. A description of its industries will be found elsewhere,
in Chap. IV, Part I. The coming of the railroad changed the whole aspect
of things. The demand for milk to be delivered by farmers at the
railroad station every day, and sold the next day in New York, began at
once. It soon became the most profitable occupation for the farmers and
the most profitable freight for the railroad. Eleven years after the
first train entered Pawling came the war, with inflated prices. The
farmer found that no use of his land paid him so much cash as the
"making of milk," and thereafter the raising of flax ceased, grain was
cultivated less and less, except as it was to be used in the feeding of
cattle, and even the fatting of cattle soon had to yield to the lowered
prices occasioned by the importation of beef from western grazing lands.
The making of butter and cheese, with the increased cost of labor on the
farms, was abandoned, t