A certain yellow [they seem to have known no other colors in those days] circa 1750s frame house at West Point Military Academy was the second oldest house on the grounds. “In 1823 or ’24, Major Leslie, a brother of Sir Charles Leslie, the eminent artist, lived there, and his sister, Miss Eliza Leslie, author of a cookery and house book, very celebrated in its day, was a member of his family. The Leslies were the first to use Lehigh coal, the fuel previously burned at West Point being wood. I well remember the large kitchen fire-place with its cranes, the shining Dutch oven and baking pots. The old yellow house had disappeared before the year 1839. Mrs. Davies’ last recollection of a visit there was on that bitter night in December, 1835, when the great fire in New York City occurred she had gone with the Misses Thompson on that evening to a little sewing circle which was to have met there, but the house, notwithstanding its sheltered position, was so exceedingly cold that the ladies were obliged to disperse immediately after assembling.” — REMINISCENCES of WESTPOINT in the OLDEN TIME, 1886.
