1. John Moore (d. 1749) had built a three-story house with four chimneys at West Point on a relatively flat area along the Hudson River directly across from the westernmost edge of Constitution Island. His son Stephen Moore (1734–1799) owned the property at the start of the war, but he had relocated to North Carolina, where he subsequently backed the Patriot cause, leaving the house—occasionally known as “Moore’s folly” for its elaborateness—to become a refuge for members of a large extended family, who sided with the Loyalists. For GW’s characterization of Moore’s house as “this happy spot,” see his letter to John Cochran of 16 Aug. (NHi: George and Martha Washington Papers). The location is now part of the U.S. Military Academy grounds.

Pvt. Elijah Fisher, then part of the Commander-in-Chief’s Guard that had spent the previous night aboard a sloop in the Hudson River, wrote in his diary for this date: “We onloded the baggage and Piched our tents at Morses folley a little Distant from West Point foart” (Fisher’s Journal, description begins Wm. B. Lapham, ed. Elijah Fisher’s Journal while in the War for Independence, and Continued Two Years After He Came to Maine. 1775–1784. Augusta, Maine, 1880. description ends 12).