What kind of life do the villagers lead before Rip’s sleep in the Catskills mountains?

Before Rip's sleep, the villagers live a peaceful quiet life in their village. They live in the shadow of the Catskill Mountains, which "will glow and light up like a crown of glory" (Irving) around the little valley that they live in.
The people of the village all seem to know each other, and the women in the village are nosy but well intentioned. They talk about Rip and his wife and "took his part in all family squabbles; and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle" (Irving). Rip knows all the village children and "he assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians" (Irving).
The heart of the village is an inn named after King George III, and at this inn "here they used to sit in the shade through a long lazy summer’s day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy stories about nothing" (Irving). The owner of the inn has great influence over the others in the town, and will sit outside his inn every day with such regularity that "from morning till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the shade of a large tree...the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sundial" (Irving).
The name of the inn is particularly important, as it indicates that before Rip takes his long sleep in the mountains, the village largely considered itself loyal subjects to the British crown. However, after the sleep, Rip returns to find that the inn is now named after George Washington. This change indicates that during Rip's sleep the village has gone through the Revolutionary War, and the changes brought about by this war in addition to the amount of time that has passed are part of what Rip finds so disorienting.
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