Much earlier, Virginia had what some authorities consider to be the first hospital built in America. While the colony was still under the administration of the London Company (1612), a structure was erected near the present site of Dutch Gap on the James river to house the sick. The hospital, which had provisions for medical and surgical patients, stood opposite Henrico, a thriving outpost of the settlement of Jamestown. Evidence that the building was primarily designed for the sick and was not simply a public guest house is to be found in the statements of contemporaries. One described it as a "retreat or guest house for sicke people, a high seat and wholesome air," while another wrote that "here they were building also an hospitall with fourscore lodgings (and beds alreadie sent to furnish them) for the sicke and lame, with keepers to attend them for their comfort and recoverie." The use of the word "hospital," which had then a general sense, does not indicate any similarity to a present-day hospital as does the other information. Nothing more appears about this establishment for the sick and wounded, and it may well have been destroyed during the Indian uprising of 1622. Plans for similar institutions in each of the major political and geographical subdivisions of the colony came from the London Company. Unlike the Henrico structure, these buildings bore the name "guest house" and were to harbor the sick and to receive strangers. Specifications called for twenty-five beds for fifty persons (which was in accord with custom in public institutions); board partitions between the beds; five conveniently placed chimneys; and windows enough to provide ample fresh air. The Company repeatedly recommended and urged the construction of these guest houses not only as a retreat for the sick but also as a measure to prevent illness among the newcomers. In addition, the guest houses, if they had been built, would have saved the old settlers from being exposed to the diseases of the new arrivals who were taken into private homes. The colonists always had some excuse for delaying construction, and the Company in 1621 entreated to the effect that it could not "but apprehend with great grief the sufferings of these multitudes at their first landing for want of guest houses where in they might have a while sheltered themselves from the injuries of the air in the cold season."