After the Royalls' flight, the Massachusetts General Court confiscated the estate. General John Stark made the Royall House his headquarters before the evacuation of Boston by the British on March 17, 1776. The mansion was used during the early months of the Revolution by Generals Lee, Stark, and Sullivan. George Washington, according to legend, interrogated two British soldiers in the house's Marble Chamber. The story that Molly Stark watched the movements of the British troops in their camp by the river from a lookout on the roof is undocumented.