Among those who helped to make that winter memorable were Surgeon General John Cochrane and Mrs. Cochrane, who occupied the Campfield House close by, and General and Mrs. Philip Schuyler, who had come down from Albany for a season at headquarters. Mrs. Schuyler and Mrs. Cochrane were sisters. Elizabeth Schuyler had come in advance of her parents, and for a time was a guest at the Campfield House. Visitors from France were arriving from time to time, bringing word of the alliance that was to mean so much to the Colonies, and conferring as to methods of cooperation. In one wing of the Ford Mansion lived Mrs. Ford and her son Timothy. In the rooms set apart for the use of Washington's family eighteen people were crowded. Two of these were Alexander Hamilton and Tench Tilghman, both members of the General's staff. Though Mrs. Washington delighted to put on style, on occasion, she could also be plain and simple. There had been times during the war when she was not ashamed to drive to headquarters in a coach and four. But sometimes at Morristown she was in a different mood--as, for instance, one day when a number of the ladies of the neighborhood, dressed in their best, called to pay their respects to her. To their surprise they found her sitting in a speckled apron, knitting stockings. If they were ill at ease at first, their state of mind can be imagined when their hostess began to talk to them of the need of care in their expenditures for their country's sake. After telling them of a dress she had made out of the carefully unravelled upholstery of a set of chairs, she completed their consternation by saying: "American ladies should be patterns of industry to their countrywomen, because the separation from the mother-country will dry up the source whence many of our comforts have been derived. We must become independent by our determination to do without what we cannot make ourselves. While our husbands and brothers are examples of patriotism, we must be examples of thrift and economy."