Hill lands to a single and special place as the only product of salable
value. While the Hill people constituted a community dependent on itself
and sufficient unto itself, the exceptional fitness of the "heavy clay
soil" to the production of milk, butter and cheese did not assert
itself, and wheat, rye, flax, apples, potatoes were raised in large
quantities and sold; but in the period of opening communication with the
world in general, exactly in proportion as the Hill shared in the growth
of commerce, by so much did the dairy activities supplant all other
occupations. The order of this emergence is a significant commentary
upon the opening of roads and the development of transportation. The
stages are: first, cheese and butter; second, fat cattle; and third,
milk. At the end of the Quaker community, when the best roads were of
the east and west directions, and Poughkeepsie was the market-place,
cheese and butter were made for a "money crop," by the women, who
retained the money for their own use.

There is a story told in the Taber and Shove families, which prettily
shows the customs in the Quaker century. Anne Taber, wife of Thomas
Taber, substantial pioneer at the north end of the Hill, "had a fine
reputation as a cheese maker." Being a New England woman, she was of the
few who in Revolutionary days were in sympathy with the Colonies, and
she gave forth that she would present a cheese to the first general
officer who should visit the neighborhood. "One day, being summoned to
the door," writes one of her descendants, "she was greatly surprised to
find a servant of General Washington, with a note from him claiming,
under conditions of the promise, the cheese. Of course it was sent, and
the General had opportunity to test her skill in that domestic art."[31]

The Taber family did not preserve that note; but in the Treasury
Department of the United States, among Washington's memoranda of
expenditures, is the item under date of Nov. 6, 1778, "To Cash paid
servant for bringing cheese from Mr. Taber, 16 shillings." It would seem
that the fame of Anne Taber's cheeses had won her a market with the
officers at Headquarters, for sixteen shillings was payment "for
bringing cheese" in large quantity, and the date is six weeks after the
arrival of Washington for his stay in the vicinity.

In the ledger of the Merritt store, under date of Nov. 6, 1772, Thomas
Taber, Esq., is credited as follows: "By 29 cheses wd. 484 lb. at 6d.,