69

CHAPTER III.

Religious Life in Transition 79

PART III.

THE MIXED COMMUNITY

FROM THE FOUNDING OF AKIN HALL TO THE PRESENT
TIME, 1880 TO 1907.

CHAPTER I.

Demotic Composition 88

CHAPTER II.

The Economy of House and Field 98

CHAPTER III.

New Ideals of Quakerism, Assimilation of Strangers 112

CHAPTER IV.

The Common Mind 118

CHAPTER V.

Practical Differences and Resemblances 130

CHAPTER VI.

The Social Organization 135

CHAPTER VII.

The Social Welfare 141

PART IV.

ORIGINAL APPENDICES

FAMILY AND CHURCH RECORDS.

Appendix A:--Heads of Families in Oblong Meeting, 1760 155

Appendix B:--Names of Customers of Daniel Merritt, 1771 158

Appendix C:--Deeds of Meeting-House Lands 167

INTRODUCTION.

Fourteen years ago the author came to Quaker Hill as a resident, and has
spent at least a part of each of the intervening years in interested
study of the locality. For ten of those years the fascination of the
social life peculiar to the place was upon him. Yet all the time, and
increasingly of late, the disillusionment which affects every resident
in communities of this sort was awakening questions and causing regrets.
Why does not the place grow? Why do the residents leave? What is the
illusive unity which holds all the residents of the place in affection,
even in a sort of passion for the locality, yet robs them of full
satisfaction in it, and drives the young and ambitious forth to live
elsewhere?

The answer to these questions is not easily to be had. It is evident
that on Quaker Hill life is closely organized, and that for eighteen
decades a continuous vital principle has given character to the
population. The author has attempted, by use of the analysis of the
material, according to the "Inductive Sociology" of Professor Franklin
H. Giddings, to study patiently in detail each factor which has played
its part in the life of this community.

This book presents the result of that study, and the author acknowledges
his indebtedness to Professor Giddings for the working analy