Ralph Birdsall

On an autumn day in the year 1785 a solitary horseman might have been seen emerging from the forest near Otsego Lake. The old-fashioned novelist who invented the "solitary horseman" as a means of introducing a romance could not have found a better use for his favorite phrase than to describe the approach of this visitor. For with his coming the history of Cooperstown began. Following the trail from Cherry Valley, the horseman came over the hill which rises toward the east from the foot of Otsego Lake. Before descending into the vale, he dismounted and climbed a sapling, in order to gain a glimpse beyond the dense screen of intervening trees. From this elevation he looked down upon an enchanting view of glimmering waters and wooded shores. While he gazed, a deer came forth from the woods near Otsego Rock and slaked its thirst in the liquid that flamed with the reflected red and gold of autumnal foliage. The beauty of this first view always lingered in the heart of William Cooper, and the hill from which he gained it he afterward called "the Vision," in memory of his first impression. To this day the hill is known as "Mount Vision."

In a letter written some years afterwards, William Cooper thus describes his venture into this region:

In 1785 I visited the rough and hilly country of Otsego, where there existed not an inhabitant, nor any trace of a road; I was alone, three hundred miles from home, without bread, meat, or food of any kind; fire and fishing tackle were my only means of subsistence. I caught trout in the brook and roasted them in the ashes. My horse fed on the grass that grew by the edge of the waters. I laid me down to sleep in my watch coat, nothing but the melancholy Wilderness around me. In this way I explored the country, formed my plans of future settlement, and meditated upon the spot where a place of trade or a village should afterward be established.[56]

The Cooper family had settled in America in 1679, coming from Buckingham, in England, and for a century made their home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. William Cooper was born in Byberry township, Pennsylvania, December 2, 1754. He afterward became a resident of Burlington, New Jersey, where he married Elizabeth Fenimore, daughter of Richard Fenimore, whose family came from Oxfordshire, in England.

William Cooper was associated with Andrew Craig, also of Burlington, in acquiring the title of the Otsego tract of land which Croghan had mortgaged to William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin, and had lost under foreclosures in 1773. In January, 1786, Cooper took possession of that portion of the Croghan tract which has since been known as Cooper's patent, under a deed given by the sheriff of Montgomery county, which had been set off from Tryon county, and included the later Otsego. The patent included 29,350 acres, and cost the new proprietors, to obtain it, about fifty cents an acre. Cooper bought out his partner's share in the tract, and soon became sole owner.

It is characteristic of Cooper's energy that he began the settlement of his land in the midst of winter, and had many families resident upon it before the snow had melted, in the spring of 1786. Deeds were given to Israel Guild and several others, who, during the summer, established themselves on spots that are now within the limits of the village of Cooperstown. These places were originally intended as farms, the village having been planned to extend from the lake in a narrow strip southward, rather than across the valley, as its later growth actually determined.

Besides the blockhouse built by Croghan on a site included in the present Cooper Grounds, a log house at this period stood near the corner of Main and River streets, and was occupied by a Mrs. Johnson, a widow, who, with her family, was among the first residents. Near her home she constructed a frame house, the first to be erected in the place. It was purchased by William Ellison, a surveyor, who, during the summer of 1786, removed it to a position near the outlet of the lake, on what are now the grounds of Edgewater. The building was of good size, having two stories, and was used as a tavern until it was pulled down in 1810, when Edgewater was built. In June, 1786, John Miller came, and reaching the bank of the river near the outlet on the east side, felled a large pine across the stream to answer the purpose of a bridge. The stump of this tree was for many years a relic within the grounds of Lakelands. There was a small colony of settlers during this summer, and William Cooper himself came once or twice in the course of the season; but none passed the succeeding winter within the village plot except Israel Guild, who had taken possession of the blockhouse, William Ellison at his tavern, and Mrs. Johnson in her hut of logs.

In the spring of 1787 Cooper arrived, accompanied by his wife, who came, however, only for a short visit. They reached the head of the lake in a chaise, and descended to the foot in a canoe. Mrs. Cooper felt so much alarm during this passage that she disliked returning in a boat, and the chaise was brought to the foot of the lake, astride two canoes, for her homeward journey. Mrs. Cooper's timidity occasioned the building of the first real bridge across the Susquehanna, an improvement which had already been contemplated as a public service. The road beyond the bridge was so rude, and difficult to pass, that when the chaise left the village men accompanied it with ropes, to prevent it from upsetting.

During the spring and summer of 1787 many settlers arrived, a good part of them from Connecticut; and most of the land on the patent was taken up. Several small log tenements were constructed on the site of the village, and the permanent residents numbered about twenty souls. Meantime Cooper had been extending his holdings in adjacent patents, until he had the settlement of a large part of the present county more or less subject to his control. In other parts of the State also he came to own or control large areas of land, until, toward the end of his life, he had "settled more acres than any man in America."

Otsego Lake, from Cooperstown

Early in 1788, Cooper erected a house for his own residence. Aside from the log huts it was the second dwelling erected in the place. It stood on Main Street at the present entrance of the Cooper Grounds, looking down Fair Street, and commanding a view of the full length of the lake. The building was of two stories, with two wings. It is represented on the original map of the village, where it is marked "Manor House." This house was removed a short distance down the street in 1799, on the completion of Otsego Hall, William Cooper's second residence in Cooperstown, and was destroyed by fire in 1812.

In 1788 John Howard came, and established a tannery on the north side of Lake Street west of Pioneer Street, near the waters of Willow Brook, which there gurgles to the lake. Howard, who was distinguished as the father of the first child born in the settlement, afterward became captain of the local militia, and is commemorated as a hero in Christ churchyard, where his epitaph recites that he was drowned, July 13, 1799:

It was in the summer of 1788 that William Cooper made a definite plan for the village. Three streets were laid out running south from the lake, and six streets that crossed them at right angles. The street along the margin of the lake was called Front Street (now Lake Street), and the others parallel to it were numbered from Second (the present Main Street) up to Sixth. Of the streets running south, that next to the river was called Water Street (now River Street), and that at the opposite side of the plot, West Street, which is the present Pioneer Street. The parallel street between these two was divided by the Cooper Grounds; the section near the lake was called Fair Street, while south of the Cooper Grounds it was known as Main Street. This last never gained the importance which its name seemed to demand, and is now known as part of Fair Street. The map showing the original plan of the village is dated September 26, 1788.

Aside from the Foot of the Lake, as the settlement was sometimes called, it was known as Cooperton, and Cooperstown,[57] until 1791, when the latter name came into general use, on the designation of this village as the county seat of the newly created Otsego county.

The settlers upon Cooper's tract were mostly poor people, and it happened that their first efforts were followed by a season of dearth. In the winter of 1788-9, grain rose in Albany to a price before unknown. The demand swept all the granaries of the Mohawk country, and a famine aggravated the privations of the Otsego settlers. In the month of April, Cooper arrived with several loads of provisions intended for his own use and that of the laborers he had brought with him; but in a few days all was gone, and there remained not one pound of salt meat, nor a single biscuit. Many were reduced to such distress as to live upon the root of wild leeks; some, more fortunate, lived upon milk, whilst others found nourishment in a syrup made of maple sugar and water. The quantity of leeks eaten by the people had such an effect upon their breath that they could be smelled at many paces distant, and when they came together there was an odor as from cattle that had been pastured in a field of garlic. "Judge of my feelings at this epoch," wrote Cooper, "with two hundred families about me, and not a morsel of bread."

"A singular event seemed sent by a good Providence to our relief," Cooper's letter continues; "it was reported to me that unusual shoals of fish were seen moving in the clear waters of the Susquehanna. I went, and was surprised to find that they were herrings. We made something like a small net, by the interweaving of twigs, and by this rude and simple contrivance we were able to take them in thousands. In less than ten days each family had an ample supply, with plenty of salt. I also obtained from the Legislature, then in session, seventeen hundred bushels of corn."

Those who settled the first farms in the Otsego region had not the means of clearing more than a small spot in the midst of thick and lofty woods, so that their grain grew chiefly in the shade; their maize did not ripen; their wheat was blasted; and for the grinding of what little they gathered there was no mill within twenty miles, while few were owners of horses. Some walked to the mill at Canajoharie, twenty-five miles away, carrying their grist on their shoulders.

William Cooper, after coming to live here, realized that the situation of the settlers was precarious. He brought a stock of goods to the new settlement, and established a general store under Richard R. Smith, son of the Richard Smith who had visited Croghan at Otsego Lake twenty years before. Cooper also erected a storehouse, and filled it with large quantities of grain purchased at distant places. He borrowed potash kettles, which he brought here, and established potash works among the inhabitants. He obtained on credit a large number of sugar kettles. By these means he was able to exchange provisions and tools for the labor of the settlers, giving them credit for their maple sugar and potash, until in the first year he had collected in one mass forty-three hogsheads of sugar, and three hundred barrels of pot and pearl ash, worth about nine thousand dollars. These industries held the colonists together.

Cooper collected the people at convenient seasons, and under his leadership they constructed such roads and bridges as were then suited to their purposes. Perhaps it was at this time that Cooper devised the cunning method which he afterward confided to William Sampson: "A few quarts of liquor, cheerfully bestowed, will open a road, or build a bridge, which would cost, if done by contract, hundreds of dollars."

In 1789 Cooper set up at his newly finished Manor House a frontier establishment that became famous for its hospitality. For a year before bringing his family from Burlington he kept bachelor's hall, and the festive joys of the place were long memorable among all lovers of good cheer. Shipman, the Leather-Stocking of the region, could at almost any time furnish the table with a saddle of venison; the lake abounded with the most delicious fish; while the cellar of the Manor House was stored with the imprisoned sunshine of distant lands.

At Christmastide, in 1789, a house-party entertained by William Cooper celebrated the season with high revelry. Among the guests was Colonel Hendrik Frey, the boniface of Canajoharie, a famous fun-lover and merrymaker. A large lumber sleigh was fitted out, with four horses, and the whole party sallied forth for a morning drive upon the frozen lake. On the western bank of the lake resided, quite alone, a Frenchman known as Monsieur Ebbal, a former officer of the army of France, whose real title was said to be L'Abbe de Raffcourt.[58] Perceiving the sleigh and four nearing his house, this gentleman, with the courtesy of his nation, went forth upon the ice to greet the party in a manner befitting the pomp of its approach. Cooper cordially invited the Frenchman to join him, promising him plenty of game, with copious libations of Madeira, by way of inducement. Though a good table companion in general, no persuasion could prevail on M. Ebbal to accept this sudden invitation, until, provoked by his obstinacy, the party laid violent hands on him, and brought him to the village by force.

The unwilling guest took his captivity in good part, and was soon as buoyant and gay as any of his companions. He habitually wore a long-skirted surtout, or overcoat, which at that time was almost the mark of a Frenchman, and this he pertinaciously refused to lay aside, even when he took his seat at table. On the contrary, he kept it buttoned to the very throat, as if in defiance of his captors. The Christmas joke, a plentiful board, and heavy potations, however, threw the guest off his guard. Warmed with wine and the blazing fire of logs, he incautiously unbuttoned; when his delighted companions discovered that the accidents of the frontier, the establishment of a bachelor who kept no servant, and certain irregularities in washing days, together with the sudden abduction of his person, had induced the gallant Frenchman to come abroad without his shirt. He was uncased on the spot, amid the shouts of the merrymakers, and incontinently put into linen. "Cooper was so polite," added the mirth-loving Hendrik Frey, as he used to tell the story for many years afterward, "that he supplied a shirt with ruffles at the wristbands, which made Ebbal very happy for the rest of the night. Mein Gott, how his hands did go, after he got the ruffles!"[59]

In the summer of 1790 the house at the northwest corner of Main and River streets was erected by Benjamin Griffin. It now survives as the oldest house in the village. Not long after its erection the house became the residence of the Rev. John Frederick Ernst, the Lutheran minister who came here in connection with the work of the projected seminary at Hartwick; and for many years the old cottage was the homestead of the Ernst family.[60]

In this year William Cooper decided to give up his residence in New Jersey, and to bring his family to Cooperstown for their permanent home. Accordingly he returned to Burlington, and early in the autumn completed arrangements for the transportation of his family and belongings to Otsego. Only in one quarter did he find any opposition to his project, but that opposition was serious. His wife positively refused to go.

Three years before, Mrs. Cooper had had a brief experience of the new settlement. She remembered the tippy boat, the rough pioneers, and the carriage that had to be steadied with ropes as it careened through the woods. In Burlington there was a well-established society, congenial friends, an atmosphere of culture, and such comforts as civilization was then able to afford. Mrs. Cooper had no mind to exchange her residence in Burlington for the wild uncertainties of life in the wilderness; and so with the conveyance ready and waiting at the door, and with her husband pleading, she sat firmly in the chair at the desk in the library of her Burlington home, and positively refused to budge.

Mrs. Cooper was a strong-minded woman, but William Cooper was a stronger-minded man. He seized the chair, with his wife seated in it, and putting her aboard the wagon, chair and all, began the long journey to Otsego. Thus William Cooper carried his point, while his wife also carried hers, for she travelled the whole distance in the chair from which she vowed she would not move. The chair itself, sacred to the memory of two strong minds, is still in use in the Cooper family.

This journey had much to do with the shaping of another mind which was not at the time consulted or considered. For Mrs. Cooper brought with her the baby boy of the household, thirteen months old, whose whole life, because of this change of residence, was cast in a new mould. This child was called James, but in later years he adopted also his mother's family name, so that he honored both father and mother in the fame which he gave to the name of James Fenimore Cooper. All his first impressions, he said long afterward, were obtained in the Otsego region. It is to be doubted whether Fenimore Cooper would have gained such wide celebrity as a novelist if he had not discovered the unique field of romance which the lake and hills of Otsego began to open to his vision. Had Fenimore Cooper remained in Burlington he might have written good novels, but not The Leather-Stocking Tales, for which he is most renowned. So that when William Cooper took up his residence in Otsego, he not only became the founder of a town, but he brought to the town the founder of American romance.