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.
The trouble culminated in Dr. Fallon's impressing the wagons of Wing, Kelly and "the widow Irish," to take fourteen men to Danbury and Fishkill to save their lives. The former impress was not resisted; but the soldiers who took the Irish team had to battle with a mob, headed by Abraham Wing and Benjamin Akin, who used the convalescent soldiers roughly, but could not prevent the seizure. They were not the first men to do violence for the sake of the principle of non-resistance. One can see, too, that modern Quakerism has taken a gentler tone.
The small violence done by Abraham Wing and Benjamin Akin, like that of young Ferriss to prevent the robbery of the Merritt store, was ineffective. But the Quaker mode of self-protection was more effective than violence. They "froze out" the doctors and their soldiers from the Meeting House, by leaving them alone in the bitter winter, by letting them starve. The bitterness of their Toryism, and the zeal of Quaker ideals, the ardor of their "make-believe," carried them too far. They forgot mercy for the sake of opposing the cruelty of war.
Among the soldiers who lay sick in the Meeting House many are said to have died. They were buried in the grounds of the resident on Site 32, in the easterly portion of the field facing the Meeting House. No stones mark their place of rest, as none were ever placed in the cemetery of the early Quakers in the western part of the same field. Over them both the horses of persons attending meeting were tethered for many decades. The ploughman and the mower for years traversed the ground. But it is not forgotten who were buried there.
Says L. S. Patrick in his attempt to estimate the amount of sickness and death of soldiers on the hill that winter:[29] "Of the conditions existing, the prejudices prevailing, and the probable number in the Hospital, Dr. Fallon's letter to Governor Clinton furnishes the only account known to exist: 'Out of the 100 sick, Providence took but three of my people off since my arrival.' On the occasion of the arrival of Col. Palfrey, the Paymaster General, at Boston from Fredericksburgh, General Gates writes to General Sullivan: 'I am shocked at our poor fellows being still encamped, and falling sick by the hundreds.'
"The death list—out of the oblivion of the past but four names have been found—John Morgan, Capt. James Greer's Co., died at Quaker Hill Hospital, Oct. 19, 1777(?); Alexander Robert, Capt. George Calhoun's Co., 4th Pa., Nov. 6, 1778; James Tryer, Capt. James Lang's Co., 5th Pa., Oct. 22, 1778; Peter King, 1st Pa., enlisted 1777, Quaker Hill Hospital, N. J.(?) 1778 (no such hospital).
"Some doubt may exist as to two of these, but as the hospital is named, an error may exist in copying the original record."