Pawling Nature Reserve

Quaker Hill is a hamlet in the town of Pawling in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The community shares its name with the twelve-mile-long ridge on which it is located; the ridge is located near the Connecticut state line. Quaker Hill is in the southern portion of the area known as the "Oblong" that was designated by the Treaty of Dover in 1731, and "known from pre-Revolutionary times as Quaker Hill". In colonial times, Quaker Hill separated "the English [settlers] of New England and the Hudson Valley Dutch population."It is the location of the Oblong Friends Meetinghouse, built in 1764. According to historian Richard Norton Smith, "the first antislavery protest meeting in North America convened" in 1767 in the Oblong Friends Meetinghouse. One addition to the Oblong Friends Meetinghouse, the Akin Free Library, is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.In 1926 the prominent radio broadcaster and reporter Lowell Thomas, who had made Lawrence of Arabia famous, purchased a 350-acre farm on Quaker Hill, which he later enlarged to 2,000 acres and named "Clover Brook Farm." Thomas developed Quaker Hill into a well-known haven for numerous successful business, news media, political, and legal figures. To keep the rural flavor of the area, Thomas forbade the building of shopping centers, large businesses or factories, or extensive housing developments on Quaker Hill while he lived there. Instead, individual lots and existing farms were sold to families who met with his approval. Approximately one hundred families settled there, usually under the guidance of Thomas and his real-estate agents. Among the prominent figures who lived on Quaker Hill at one time or another from the 1930s to the 1970s were New York Governor and two-time Republican presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey, the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, famed CBS News journalist Edward R. Murrow, and Casey Hogate, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal. In 1953, Thomas moved to a larger estate he built on Quaker Hill called Hammersley Hill.Thomas also transformed Quaker Hill while he was in residence there. He persuaded professional golfer Gene Sarazen and golf course architect Robert Trent Jones into building a country club and golf course on the northern part of the hill, and he built ski slopes and ski tows on the hill. Thomas held regular Saturday evening parties and dances for the residents of Quaker Hill at a community center he built called the Barn. In its fireplace, he "installed stones from the Great Pyramid of Cheops, the Parthenon, St. Peter's Cathedral, China's Great Wall, and Mount Vernon." He transformed a stone library on the hill, called Akin Hall, into a "nondenominational place of worship in Christopher Wren style." An avid horseman, he also established more than 200 miles of bridle paths that stretched across Quaker Hill.The community has been studied extensively. It was the subject of a Columbia University political science Ph.D. dissertation completed in 1907 by Warren Hugh Wilson, an early pioneering contributor to rural sociology.

Appalachian Trail station is a commuter rail stop on the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line, serving campers and hikers destined for the Appalachian Trail, in Pawling, New York. It is the only rail station directly located on the Appalachian Trail. Trains stop at here on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays only. The Connecticut State line is about 7 miles (11 km) from the station. It is 65.9 miles (106.1 km) from Grand Central Terminal, which takes approximately 1 hour 52 minutes. The station is the northernmost station in the Zone 8 Metro-North fare zone. There are no transportation connections via bus or taxi, but New York State Route 22 is only steps away from the station.

The Oblong Friends Meeting House is a mid-18th century Friends Meeting House of the Religious Society of Friends in the hamlet of Quaker Hill, in the town of Pawling, Dutchess County, New York, United States listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1973. Members of the Religious Society of Friends settled on Quaker Hill in the 1730s and sought permission to establish a meeting and build a meeting house in 1740. The first meeting house was constructed across from the present building in 1742, but as membership grew, this building became too small and in 1763, the Yearly Meeting decided to erect "a framed house of timber, the dimensions to be 45 feet (14 m) long, 40 feet (12 m) wide and 15 feet (4.6 m) stud to admit of galleries." This new house was built in 1764 and is the structure that has remained on the site since. Benjamin Sherman, carpenter of Quaker Hill, is credited with building the new Hicksite Meeting House in 1764.In 1767, the question was raised in the meeting house whether it was "consistent with the Christian spirit to hold a person in slavery". After years of discussion, the question was answered in 1776 by the resolution that meetings were not to accept financial contributions or services from members owning slaves. During the American Revolutionary War a portion of the Continental Army camped in the nearby hills, both during the fall of 1778 and the winter of 1779. The meeting house was commandeered by General Washington's officers to be used as a military hospital.In 1828, the New York Meeting of the Society of Friends split into the Orthodox and Hicksite Societies of Friends. From then on, the Hicksites used the Meeting House, and the Orthodox Society, which had fewer members, built its own meeting house in 1831, just 200 feet (61 m) to the northwest. The latter building was later converted into a private residence. Membership in the area's Society of Friends declined in the course of the 19th century and the meetings were "laid down" in 1885. The property was acquired by the Historical Society of Quaker Hill and Pawling in 1936 which has preserved the building since then. The building is a two-story building, five bays wide and two bays deep. Inside the shingled structure, there are sliding panels which divide the men's and women's portions of the building. As with most meeting houses, there are two front doors, one for each gender.

Harlem Valley–Wingdale station (formerly State Hospital station) on the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line, located in the Wingdale section of Dover, New York. It is adjacent to the site of the former Harlem Valley State Hospital.

Harlem Valley State Hospital, south of the hamlet of Wingdale in the town of Dover, was a New York State psychiatric hospital that operated from 1924 to 1994.

Trinity-Pawling School, founded in 1907, is an independent college and preparatory boarding school for boys from 7th grade to 12th grade. The 230 acre campus is situated in Pawling, New York, a small hamlet in southern Dutchess County. It is located 60 miles north of New York City.

Wingdale is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Dover in Dutchess County, New York, United States. It was first listed as a CDP prior to the 2020 census.The community is in southeastern Dutchess County, in the southern part of Dover. The hamlet of Wingdale is in the northern part of the CDP, while the Evangelical Center is in the south, on the grounds of the former Harlem Valley State Hospital, and scattered housing occupies the hills in the eastern part of the CDP. The Swamp River, a north-flowing tributary of the Tenmile River, part of the Housatonic River watershed, runs through the center of the CDP. New York State Route 22 runs through the CDP, passing east of Wingdale hamlet. The highway leads north 7 miles (11 km) to Dover Plains and south the same distance to Pawling. State Route 55 runs concurrently with NY 22 to the south, but turns east at Wingdale and leads 6 miles (10 km) to Gaylordsville, Connecticut. Wingdale is 21 miles (34 km) east of Poughkeepsie and 23 miles (37 km) northwest of Danbury, Connecticut. The Metro-North Harlem Valley–Wingdale station is located between the Evangelical Center and the Harlem Valley Golf Course in the southern part of the CDP.

The Akin Free Library on Quaker Hill is a historic eclectic late Victorian stone building in the hamlet of Quaker Hill, town of Pawling, Dutchess County, New York, USA, listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a historic place of local significance since 1991. The Akin Free Library was a gift from the Quaker Albert J. Akin (1803–1903), founder of the Bank of Pawling and the Mizzentop Hotel on Quaker Hill. The building was designed by the architect John A. Wood and constructed between 1898 and 1908. It is a 2½-story, T-plan, stone building on a raised basement with an engaged three-story central clock tower and rear annex. The building features an entrance portico, bracketed sheet copper cornice, and standing seam copper roof. Its design is Victorian eclectic.: 2, 5 It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.The library itself is located on the first floor of the building. Among others, its holdings of several thousand books contain books of local interest and by local authors, a children's section, and newspaper collections.

Pawling is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. Its population was 8,012 at the 2020 census. The town is named after Catherine Pauling, the daughter of Henry Beekman, who held the second largest land patent in the county. A misprint caused the U to change to a W and the name stuck. The town is in the southeastern part of the county, and contains a village of the same name.

Dover Drag Strip, opened in May 1961 and closed in 1976, and was a dragstrip for quarter-mile drag racing in Wingdale, New York. The track was touted as "the smoothest, most state-of-the-art facility" of its kind at the time. The track featured epoxy-based asphalt, 60 feet wide. It had its own "timing tower" that had the timing equipment, and served as the operations center, with operators calling the Elapsed Time [ET] and MPH of each pair of racers via intercom to the "times slip booth" at the other end of the track. This is also where the track announcer entertained and informed the spectators of the action. All this was considered "new technology" in 1961. By 1964, the flag starter was replaced with a homebuilt "Christmas Tree", with multiple colored lights, counting down each start. This was one of the first of its type in the entire nation.The track was founded and operated by Brookfield gas station owner Chet Anderson and his partner, Joe Archiere, of Germantown, Connecticut. It filled the regional gap left by the closing of the Car Club Racing at Montgomery, New York, airport. Dover preceded the other tracks to follow suit, famous in the area, namely Connecticut Dragway (now closed) and the still operational Lebanon Valley Track, near Albany. Racers from as far as Maine, Massachusetts and New Jersey would regularly frequent the strip.Dover was host to exhibition runs by the Legendary Don ‘Big Daddy” Garlits, California's “T.V Tommy Ivo”, the original Batmobile and Jet Cars. Average car entries of over 400 were common with upwards of 4,000 spectators on special events. There has been continued interest in this now defunct track, thanks to the ongoing Dover Drag Strip Nostalgia reunion every year.

Pawling station is a commuter rail stop on the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line, located in Pawling, New York. Trains leave for New York City every two hours, and about every 30 minutes during rush hour. It is 63.8 miles (102.7 km) from Grand Central Terminal and travel time to Grand Central is approximately one hour, 48 minutes. The station is located in the Zone 8 Metro-North fare zone. It is the southernmost station in Dutchess County on the Harlem Line.

Pawling is a village in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 2,347 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area. The John Kane House, a registered historic place, is situated in the village. The village was portrayed as the fictional town of Denning, New York, in the TV series Elementary. The village of Pawling is centrally located in the town of Pawling by the junction of Routes 22 and 55.