Akin Free Library

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.

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.

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.

The John Kane House, also one of several places known as Washington's Headquarters, is located on East Main Street in Pawling, New York, United States. Built in the mid-18th century, it was home during that time to two men who confronted the authorities and were punished for it. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington used the house as his headquarters when the Continental Army was garrisoned in the area. A later owner built a large main wing in the Federal style; the only remnant of the original house is the small kitchen wing. It has since become the property of the Historical Society of Quaker Hill and Pawling, which uses the house as its headquarters and to display exhibits related to local history, particularly the life of pioneering radio broadcaster and executive Lowell Thomas, who lived near Pawling for the later years of his life. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

The Pawling Nature Reserve is located in the northern section of the Town of Pawling, New York, United States. It is a 1,060-acre (430 ha) area located along the top of Hammersby Ridge, near Quaker Lake owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy. Acquired in 1958 from a local citizens' group, it is preserved to protect several diverse communities, including plant and animal species considered rare or threatened in New York, such as the devil's bit, soapwort gentian, maidenhair spleenwort and some salamander communities. It also helps protect the watershed of the Great Swamp to the east.More than 10 miles (16 km) of hiking trails cross the preserve, including a section of the Appalachian Trail, which provides access for hikers who take the Metro-North Harlem Line from New York City and get off at the nearby stop along NY 22/55. The preserve's main access is a large parking lot on Quaker Lake Road. In addition to the natural environments, the trails also offer scenic views of the Harlem Valley region.

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.

The Church of St. John the Evangelist is a Roman Catholic parish church under the authority of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, located in Pawling, Dutchess County, New York. It was established as a mission of Immaculate Conception Church of Amenia in 1869, and elevated to parish status in 1885.

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 Great Swamp in eastern Putnam and Dutchess counties is one of the largest wetlands in the U.S. state of New York.

Sherman is the northernmost and least populous town of Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 3,527 at the 2020 census. The town was formed in 1802 from the northern part of New Fairfield. It is named for Roger Sherman, the only person who signed all four founding documents of the United States of America. He also had a cobblers shop in the north end of town which has been reconstructed behind the Northrup House in the center of town. Sherman has been named "Best Small Town in Connecticut" three times by Connecticut Magazine. The Appalachian Trail goes through the northern end of Sherman. Part of Squantz Pond is in the town. Sherman is a popular weekend retreat for New York City residents, with about a third of its residents weekenders. The town is located 62 miles (100 km) northeast of New York City, making it part of the New York metropolitan area.Sherman has one area on the National Register of Historic Places: the Sherman Historic District, bounded roughly by the intersection of Old Greenswood Road and Route 37, northeast past the intersection of Route 37 East and Route 39 North and Sawmill Road. The district was added to the National Register on August 31, 1991. Sherman is the only town in Fairfield County in the 860 area code; the remainder of the county is served by the area code 203/area code 475 overlay.