The Meeting House was appropriated by the army officers for a hospital, because it was the largest available building. The only official record, says Mr. L. S. Patrick, is that of Washington's order, Oct. 20th, "No more sick to be sent to the Hospital at Quaker Hill, without first inquiring of the Chief Surgeon there whether they can be received, as it is already full." Arguing from the date of Washington's order above, Oct. 20, and from that of Surgeon Fallon below, this use of the building for a hospital continued three and perhaps five months. Meantime the Friends' Meetings were held in the barn at Site 21, then the residence of Paul Osborn. This barn had been the first Meeting House erected on the Hill in 1742. It was removed to Site 21 in 1769, when it was used as a barn till 1884, when it was removed by the present resident.[27] There is no mention, even by inference, in the records of Oblong Meeting that proves this occupation of their building by soldiers. It was not voluntarily surrendered; other records show that the use of the building was supported by force; its surrender was grudging, not a matter to be recorded in the Meeting. It is characteristic of the Friends that they ignored it. This toleration of the Hospital was never sympathetic. A letter of great interest to the student of those times was written to the Governor of the State of New York, Hon. George Clinton,[28] by Dr. James Fallon, physician in charge of the sick which were left on Quaker Hill, in the Meeting House, after the departure of the Continental army. He could get no one to draw wood for his hospital in the dead of winter, till finally "old Mr. Russell, an excellent and open Whig, tho' a Quaker," hired him a wagon and ox team. He could buy no milk without paying in Continental money, six for one. He declared that "Old Ferris, the Quaker, pulpiteer of this place, old Russell and his son, old Mr. Chace and his family, and Thomas Worth and his family, are the only Quakers on or about this Hill, the public stands indebted to." The two pioneers of the Hill, the preacher and the builder, were patriots as well. He denounces the rest as Tories all, the "Meriths," Akins, Wings, Kellys, Samuel Walker, the schoolmaster, and Samuel Downing, whom he declared a spurious Quaker and agent of the enemy; also the preacher, Lancaster, "the Widow Irish;" and many he called "half-Quakers," who were probably more zealous, and certainly more violent for Quaker and Tory principles than the Quakers themselves.