Mahican and Wappinger Indians once inhabited the area between the Taconic Mountains and the Hudson Valley. Dutch settlers first occupied the river front, so later comers settled in these highlands. Palatine Germans came from the ill-fated tar camps on the Hudson, and a group of Friends from Westchester formed a settlement named Quaker Hill. Yankees and Yorkers disputed the boundary between New York and Connecticut until it was settled in 1731 by the creation of The Oblong, a tract two miles wide and fifty-one miles long, from which Connecticut withdrew. Angered by high rents and evictions from their lands, tenant farmers under the leadership of William Prendergast rebelled against their landlords in 1766. During the Revolution, many large landholders were Tories, while their tenants joined forces with the patriots of New England. When Col. Henry Ludington's militia company was called in 1777 to the relief of Danbury, Connecticut, his sixteen-year-old daughter Sibyl, according to tradition, rode through the countryside summoning his men. Iron manufacture was an early industry here, but the region remained rural, shifting from cattle droving to the New York City market to a later emphasis on dairying.