l. In forty years the little community was
filled with as many as could profitably find a living.

Complete records of the sources of this immigration are not available.
John Cox, Jr., Librarian of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, says "the
records do not show in any direct way where the members came from. A few
came from Long Island meetings by way of Purchase, but most of them from
the East, and I believe from Massachusetts. Indirectly the records show
that the members occasionally went on visits into New England, and took
certificates of clearance there (to marry)." Dartmouth, Mass., a town
between Fall River and New Bedford, was the original home of so many of
them that it easily leads all localities as a source of Quaker Hill
ancestry. The Akin, Taber, Briggs families came from Dartmouth, which
was in a region of both temporary and permanent Quaker settlement.
Quaker Hill, R. I., is within fifteen miles of Dartmouth. The residents
of Quaker Hill, New York, preserve traditions of the returns of the
early Friends "to Rhode Island." There is a Briggs family tradition of
the first pair of boots owned on the Hill, which were borrowed in turn
by every man who made a visit to the ancestral home at Dartmouth.

It is probable also that some of the original residents came from Long
Island, though from what localities I do not know. The minutes of
Purchase Meeting at Rye, through which meeting most of the Quaker Hill
settlers came, indicate in only a limited number of cases that the
immigrant came from a farther point; and leave the impression that the
Friend so commended to the Oblong was already a resident of "the
Purchase," or of its related meetings at Flushing on Long Island. An
example is the case of William Russell and his wife, notable pioneers,
the earliest residents of Site 25, whose letter from Purchase Meeting in
1741 indicates only that they came to Oblong from Purchase.

The settlement of the Hill continued from the early years, 1728-1731, at
which it began, until 1770, when the community may be said to have been
complete. The land was supporting by that time all it would bear. Since
that time the number of houses on the Hill has remained about the same,
as will be seen from a comparison of the Maps I and II, the one made for
Washington in 1778-80 and the other being a tracing of the map of the
Topographical Survey of the United States Government of recent date.

The extent of this population resident upon the H