§9 The Quaker Meeting House and Boarding School

A new aspect was added to the religious picture of early Bethel when Charles Hoag, a Quaker, arrived on the scene. He was the son of John and Mary Hoag of the Town of Washington who had come there from Connecticut. Charles Hoag married Betsy Denton in 1793. In 1798, with a growing family they came to North East and settled on Case property

A sizeable number of families of the Quaker persuasion were scattered over the area and the arrival of the Hoag family seems to be the catalyst that drew them together. Permission was given by the "parent" society at Stanfordville for meetings to be held at the Hoags' home. Under careful supervision by representatives of neighboring Quaker groups, including one at Clinton Corners known as Creek Meeting and another the Nine Partners at Milan, the new branch flourished, and in 1803 the North East Society was established.

Isaac Huntting gives a detailed account of the activities of the North East Meeting, apparently drawing heavily on the minutes of the parent society at Stanfordville. It is interesting to note that the phrase "with the concurrence of women" occurs frequently in these reports of the group's deliberations. Were the Quakers as an organization ahead of their time in recognition of a woman's place in the scheme of things?

In 1806, with Charles Hoag now clerk and having satisfied their mentors in the larger Meetings, it was proposed to erect a building for the North East Meeting in which to worship. Trustees were appointed to supervise the project. A structure 30' by 26' was begun in the spring of 1806 and completed by June of the following year. The land on which it was built was secured by a deed

Quaker Meeting House.

Huntting describes the meeting house, which was still standing at the time his book was being written in the late 19th century The early maps locate the building at a bend in the Pine Plains-Amenia Road, diagonally across from the Hoag residence. "There were long benches with back rails for seating and a high wooden partition ran through the center to hide the women from the men and the girls from the boys. A small raised platform was at the rear of the men's department. It was plain and comfortable inside." An old photograph of the building shows the two side-by-side entrances, one for women, the other for men. "Preparative" meetings were held here, but monthly and quarterly meetings continued to take place in Stanfordville.

East of the meeting house was its burying ground. In the early days of this century L. Van Alstyne surveyed and documented this cemetery The small unpretentious white gravestones are still visible in the neatly kept plot adjacent to the John MacBeth property. Twenty-five graves were listed by Alstyne, the first, in 1820, being that of two year-old John Case. The latest burials were those of Nancy Smith at 83 years of age in 1869, and John T Carmen at age 51 in 1879. Both of these individuals were long-time residents of the area. Nancy Smith was the owner of the property adjacent to the site of the Indian village and Moravian Mission, and John Carmen was the owner of a grist and fulling mill on the Pine Plains-Amenia Road which had been in his family for at least three generations. At the time of his death, he was the only living male member of the North East Quaker Society.

A much-respected Quaker preacher was Thomas Ellison, who lived in a dwelling southeast of the meeting house. Huntting describes him as generous and warm-hearted, popular as a preacher and everybody's friend. When Ellison left the area about 1827, the Quakers were without a regular preacher. Churches in the hamlet of Pine Plains and the surrounding area drew away support for the Quaker effort. Nearly all of the original family members had died. Eventually meetings were no longer held, and in 1875 the property was sold to Phoenix Deuel. The meeting house was torn down in 1919 to make room for the new Pine Plains-Amenia Road (County Route 83). Now, nothing remains of the old landmark except the little cemetery

Isaac Huntting calls Charles Hoag a "living force," and it is apparent that he left his mark on Pine Plains in ways other than his efforts on behalf of the Quaker organization. In 1800, he became Town Clerk of North East, of which Pine Plains was still a part, having not yet been organized as a town. He is remembered for vitalizing the system of record keeping. The following year he was also a member of the Board of Excise and for many years served as a school district trustee. In 1795, school districts had been established by law, and Charles Hoag's long service as a trustee led Huntting to believe that he was firmly convinced of the importance of education, stating that in this he was foremost of all men in his time in this locality.

In 1812, in a bold step for his times, Hoag opened at his home a boarding school for boys and girls. The girls' school was a building adjoining the southeast corner of his house, and the boys' school adjoined the main building on the north. The school was opened for day pupils as well and was a "power for good." The boarding pupils came from surrounding towns, even from as far away as Poughkeepsie, and many Pine Plains "first families" were represented among the day pupils.

The first teachers at the school were Jacob and Deborah Rodgers Willetts. They both had attended the Nine Partners Quaker boarding school, which was established in 1797 near the Quaker meeting house in the Town of Washington at Mechanic (now South Millbrook). James Smith, in his history of Dutchess County states that Jacob, then eight years old, entered the school on the day it opened and Deborah came soon after. Smith's history contains steel engraving portraits of the adult Willetts couple. It would seem that Charles Hoag was indeed fortunate in securing their services for his fledgling school. Jacob became the author of popular arithmetic and geography text books, and Deborah was noted as a grammarian and mathematician. Jacob also achieved some celebrity as a "versifier" and to him is attributed the familiar piece which begins "Thirty days hath September."

After about three years Jacob and Deborah returned to Mechanic to teach at their old school, and Huntting informs us that Enoch Haight succeeded Jacob Willetts at the North East school. He was followed by Ambrose Eggleston, with the older Hoag children acting as assistants. The school closed in 1824 but was reopened in 1835 primarily for young ladies, with Charles Hoag's daughter Mary as principal. Although it closed permanently three years later, the school's influence and significance were very real.

Charles Hoag died January 23,1840, at the age of 68 years. His grave is one of those in the Quaker burying ground, its stone a plain white marble slab.

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