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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 306
[Can you describe the outside of the house?] It had yellow poplar weather boarding (overlapping planks) painted solid white. All the doors were mahogany. The front doors (north side) were double, and there was the glass up above them with the 1855 on it. The house had big windows. Stairs went up to the porch. When you went inside, you walked into a wide hall, which divided the house. The hallway was about 12 feet wide. The inside walls were plastered. The inside stairway went up to a landing and hall. The fireplaces went on up. Four bedrooms were upstairs. the house, the room off the east side of the hall was the living room. The dining room was directly behind it. The kitchen was built on the east side of the dining room, and was entered through the dining room. Cooking was done on a Warm Morning stove in the kitchen. The Warm Morning was the best cook stove. It stood on legs, was white enamel and had a reserve on it to heat water. The top was solid and had “eyes” on it. These round eyes could be lifted out, and a pot could be set in the fire. The firebox was on the side. Most people bought their stove from Rex Harrison's store on the corner of the square in Huntsville. It vented out through a flue. A long, glassed-in cabinet extended from the east wall of the dining room to the doorway to the living room. Beyond the doorway, was a fireplace; it opened to the kitchen on the other side of the wall as well. It was shared by the two rooms and “went on up,” as James Long said, to open on each side of the wall to the bedrooms above. On the other side of the hallway, the two downstairs bedrooms shared a fireplace built into the wall between them, and it, too, “went on up” to be shared by the two upstairs bedrooms. The Longs had an icebox. It held about a hundred pounds of ice. The ice truck ran twice a week. In the summer time the ice lasted about four days. Sometimes they would buy a little extra to make ice cream. Long commented that the first refrigerator that made ice was run on coal oil, adding, “You could smell it!” James said, “The back porch had steps up to it five feet wide.” The house had a big basement under it. There was a shed under the back porch, and a door to the basement. The door was on the east side. The basement had solid brick walls. James said you didn't have to bend to enter, “You could walk right in.” James continued, 306 - (4339)