The land that became Historic Fair Hill was given by William Penn to George Fox, founder of Quakerism. In 1691, Fox left the land in his will to Philadelphia Quakers for “a meeting house and a school house and a burying place and for a playground for the children in the town to play on, and for a garden to plant with physical plants, for lad and lasses to make simples and learn to make oils and ointments.” For the next three hundred years, the land and Quaker meetinghouse were used as a Revolutionary War hospital, farm, school, burial ground, and way station between Philadelphia and Germantown.