Enough has been recorded to show the general character of Cooperstown as it existed at the close of the eighteenth century. A more intimate view of its life at this period is suggested by a package of faded letters, some of which are here printed, not as supplying historical data, for in this they are quite lacking, but because whoever reads them with imagination begins to breathe the atmosphere of the time of their writing, and in the charm of their feminine confidences discovers a side of frontier life that is not otherwise revealed.

The letters were written to Chloe Fuller, who visited in Cooperstown for some years at the home of Dr. Thomas Fuller. The doctor's wife before her marriage, although not related to him, had the same family name, and Chloe Fuller was her younger sister. Chloe Fuller became celebrated as a village belle, and it was said that she had more beaus in constant attendance than any other girl in Otsego. Dr. Fuller was a favorite with two generations of young men in the village, for he had also two young daughters, who, a few years later, became noted for their qualities of mind and daintiness of apparel. Eliza and Emma Fuller were blue-stockings who knew the value of pretty bonnets and gowns. In the early days of the Presbyterian church, the sabbath splendor of their entrance at divine service, always a little late, and with the necessity of being ushered to the very front pew, divided the devotion of the worshippers. Eliza Fuller became the wife of Judge Morehouse, and established the traditional hospitality of Woodside Hall.

Chloe Fuller married Trumbull Dorrance, a descendant of Governor Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut, and her daughter, becoming the wife of John R. Worthington, was long identified with Cooperstown as mistress of the White House, the Worthington homestead built in 1802 on Main street. The letters belong to the period of Chloe Fuller's girlhood:

Hannah Cooper was Judge Cooper's eldest daughter, of whom Fenimore Cooper afterward wrote that she "was perhaps as extensively and favorably known in the middle states as any female of her years." In 1795, when she was seventeen years of age, Talleyrand was a guest at Otsego Hall, and the following acrostic on Hannah Cooper's name is attributed to the pen of the celebrated diplomat:

Hannah Cooper afterward attended school in New York City, and passed the winter of 1799 in Philadelphia while her father was a member of Congress. Also a member of that Congress was William Henry Harrison, later the hero of Tippecanoe, and afterward President of the United States. In this connection Fenimore Cooper, just before Harrison's inauguration as President, uncovered a long forgotten bit of romance which he related confidentially in a letter to his old mess-mate Commodore Shubrick as a "great political discovery." "Miss Anne Cooper was lately in Philadelphia,"—the letter is dated February 28, 1841,—"where she met Mr. Thomas Biddle, who asked if our family were not Harrison men. The reason of so singular a question was asked, and Mr. Biddle answered that in 1799 Mr. Harrison was dying with love for Miss Cooper, that he (Mr. Biddle) was his confidant, and that he thinks but does not know that he was refused. If not refused it was because he was not encouraged to propose.... Don't let this go any further, however. I confess to think all the better of the General for this discovery, for it shows that he had forty years ago both taste and judgment in a matter in which men so often fail."[69]

In the twenty-third year of her age, Hannah Cooper was killed by a fall from a horse, September 10, 1800. She and her brother, Richard Fenimore Cooper, had set out on horseback to pay a visit at the home of General Jacob Morris at Butternuts (now Morris), some twenty miles from Cooperstown, and having arrived within about a mile of their destination, the horse on which Miss Cooper rode took fright at a little dog, which rushed forth barking from a farm house, and Miss Cooper was thrown against the root of a tree, being almost instantly killed. Her brother rode back to Cooperstown with the sad news.

A monument still stands near the public highway to mark the spot where Miss Cooper met her death. She had many admirers, but the inscription on this monument is said to have been written by her best beloved, Moss Kent, referred to in Eliza MacDonald's letters.

Hannah Cooper's tomb in Christ churchyard, within the Cooper family plot, is inscribed with some plaintive verses that her father composed and caused to be carved upon the slab, with the singular omission of her name, which was not added until many years afterward.

Miss Cooper was a perfect type of the kind of feminine piety most admired in her day. She shared largely in the benevolences of her father, and was often seen on horseback carrying provisions to the poor people of the settlement. "She visited the prisoners in the jail frequently, giving them books, and sometimes talked with them through the grates of their windows, endeavoring to impress upon their minds the truths of morality and religion. By her winning, tender and persuasive conversation, their hard hearts, at times, were deeply affected."

This elder sister of the novelist was the first tutor of his childhood, and he held her memory in great reverence. In the preface of a reprint of The Pioneers Cooper took occasion to deny a statement that in the character of the heroine of his romance he had delineated his sister, a suggestion in which he seemed to find a serious reflection upon his fineness of feeling. "Circumstances rendered this sister singularly dear to the author," he wrote. "After a lapse of half a century, he is writing this paragraph with a pain that would induce him to cancel it, were it not still more painful to have it believed that one whom he regarded with a reverence that surpassed the love of a brother, was converted by him into the heroine of a work of fiction."

Although Hannah Cooper was thus excluded, by her brother's delicacy, from the place which rumor had assigned to her among the characters of his first Leather-Stocking tale, her name is commemorated in the actual scene of the story, for the pine-clad summit which overlooks the village of Cooperstown from the west is still called in her honor, "Hannah's Hill."

The position of the grave that lies next south of Hannah Cooper's tomb in Christ churchyard is a tribute to the reverent affection which she inspired. It is the grave of Colonel Richard Cary, one of General Washington's aides, and his burial in a plot otherwise exclusively reserved for interments of the Cooper family is attributed by tradition to Colonel Cary's fervent admiration for the piety of Hannah Cooper. Colonel Cary at the close of the Revolutionary War settled in Springfield, at the head of Otsego Lake. Often a visitor in Cooperstown he became acquainted with Miss Cooper, and was inspired by a devotion to her character entirely becoming in a man old enough to be her father, and already blessed with a family of his own. He is described as "an upright, well-bred and agreeable gentleman, possessed of wit and genius, and good humor." Six years after Hannah Cooper's death Colonel Cary suffered severe reverses of fortune, and was "put on the limits," as the penalty of unpaid debt was then described, being an exile from his home in Springfield, and required to remain within the village bounds of Cooperstown. As winter drew on Colonel Cary died. His dying request was that he might be buried near Miss Cooper's grave, "for," he said, "nobody can more surely get to Heaven than by clinging to the skirts of Hannah Cooper!"

At Hannah Cooper's funeral a singularly noble and picturesque character was brought into the history of Cooperstown, for the officiating clergyman was Father Nash, who then for the first time held service in the village, and afterward became the first rector of Christ Church, being for forty years the most noted apostle of religion in Otsego county.

During the first ten years of the existence of the village, the people depended on rare visits of missionaries for the little religious instruction they received. The settlers in the region were divided as to religious faith; the Presbyterians, though the most numerous, were the least able to offer financial support for any regular religious establishment. Missionaries occasionally penetrated to this spot, and now and then a travelling Baptist, or a Methodist, preached in a tavern, schoolhouse or barn. On August 28, 1795, a letter appeared in the Otsego Herald deploring the general indifference to religion which prevailed in the settlement, and calling for a public meeting to organize a church congregation. The Rev. Elisha Mosely, a Presbyterian minister, was thereupon engaged for six months, and during that period held the first regular religious services in Cooperstown. He preached the first Thanksgiving sermon in the village, on November 26, 1795, in the Court House.

Through the vigorous efforts of the Rev. Nathaniel Stacy, an itinerant preacher, the doctrine of Universalism gained a strong foothold in this region. Under his ministrations the society at Fly Creek was organized in 1805, said to be the first society of the Universalist denomination established in this State. Stacy was a man of small stature, a rapid speaker, full of Biblical quotations, apt in comparing the Old and New Testaments, and happy in the use of vivid illustrations. The vehemence and rapidity of his utterance sometimes sprinkled with saliva the hearers seated near him, which gave occasion for a famous taunt flung at Ambrose Clark, one of Stacy's converts and an early settler of Pierstown, when his brother Abel said that "Ambrose had rather be spit upon by Stacy than to hear the gospel preached."

In 1797, the Rev. Thomas Ellison, rector of St. Peter's Church, Albany, with the Patroon, both regents of the university of the State, visited the Cherry Valley academy, and then extended their journey to Cooperstown, where Dr. Ellison held service and preached in the Court House. This was the first time that the services of the Episcopal Church were held in the village. Dr. Ellison was an Englishman, a graduate of Oxford, a king's man, and a staunch defender of the Church against all dissent. He was a sporting parson, of convivial habits, and after his first visit to Cooperstown frequently enjoyed the hospitality of Judge Cooper, whom he joined in sundry adventures.

The Presbyterians and Congregationalists in and about Cooperstown formed themselves into a legal society on December 29, 1798. This church was regularly organized with the Rev. Isaac Lewis, a Presbyterian minister, as pastor, on October 1, 1800, and the Presbyterian organization has ever since continuously existed in Cooperstown. The Presbyterian church building was erected in 1805, and has not been materially altered since 1835, when some changes in the structure were made. The carpenters who built the church were twin brothers, Cyrus and Cyrenus Clark. They were assisted by Edmund Pearsall, who was noted for his rapid work and skill, as well as for his daring exploits at "raisings." When the steeple of the church was raised Pearsall astounded the village by standing on his head on the top of one of the posts near the summit.

The pastor of this church for more than twenty years during its early days was the Rev. John Smith, a tall, strongly-built man, who loomed large in the pulpit as a champion of old-fashioned orthodoxy. His manner of delivery was soporific, his voice thick and monotonous, but none could gainsay the learning and intellectual power of his discourses.

Mony Groat was sexton of the church. He performed also the office of policeman in the gallery during the service, going about with a cane, and rapping the heads of disorderly boys. In winter his duties were multiplied. The church was heated by a stove placed above the middle alley, supported by a platform sustained upon four posts, and those having pews near the pulpit had to walk directly underneath. Several times during the service on cold days the sexton used to come up the aisle with his ladder and basket of fuel, place his ladder in position, mount the platform, replenish the fire, descend the ladder, and make his exit, ladder and all.

Perhaps because it was the first church edifice in the village the Presbyterian church came into use sometimes for celebrations of a civic nature. The first Otsego County Fair, Tuesday, October 14, 1817, was held in this house of worship. The Otsego County Agricultural Society had been organized in January of that year, and the officers of the first fair were: president, Jacob Morris; recording secretary, John H. Prentiss; corresponding secretary, James Cooper, who had not yet begun his literary career.

The exercises in the church followed an elaborate programme, including prayers, vocal and instrumental music, and the formal award of premiums.

After the premiums had been awarded the corresponding secretary read a letter from Governor Dewitt Clinton which accompanied a bag of wheat that had been "raised by Gordon S. Mumford, Esq., on his farm on the island of New York." While this letter was being read by James Cooper the bag of wheat was brought to the pulpit of the church, and deposited at the foot of it.

Within the Presbyterian burying ground, at the rear of the church, lie the remains of some of the best known of the early settlers. A strange perversity of fate, however, has singled out for the attention of the tourist a tombstone that has no other claim to distinction than a surprising feature of the epitaph. This tallish slab of marble stands not far from the northeast corner of the burying ground. It is decorated at the top with the conventionally chiseled outlines of urn and weeping willow, and bears an inscription in memory of "Mrs. Susannah, the wife of Mr. Peter Ensign, who died July 18, 1825, aged 54 years," and whose praises are sung in some verses that begin with this astonishing comment:

It seems that the stonecutter omitted a final "e" in the last word, and tried in vain to squeeze it in above the line.

The permanent legal establishment of Christ Church was made on January 1, 1811, when a meeting was held "in the Brick church in Cooperstown," and it was resolved "that this church be known hereafter by the name and title of Christ's Church."

The erection of the brick church had been commenced in 1807, and it was consecrated in 1810. The present nave, exclusive of the transept and chancel, is of the original structure. In the sacristy of the church a wooden model may be seen, made by G. Pomeroy Keese, showing both exterior and interior of the church as it existed in 1810.

The Methodists held occasional services in the village for many years, and erected their first church, not far from the site of their present building, in 1817.

The Universalists were organized in Cooperstown on April 26, 1831, with the Rev. Job Potter as pastor. On the site of the old Academy, which had been destroyed by fire, their house of worship was erected in 1833, and stands practically unchanged at the present time. That there was a somewhat strong rivalry between the Universalists and the Presbyterians, whose places of worship stand so near to each other on the same street, is suggested by an incident which occurred during the Rev. Job Potter's pastorate. The Universalists had organized a Sunday School picnic, and the children had gathered at the church in goodly numbers. The sidewalk was thronged. A procession was formed, headed by the ice cream cans, together with sundry huge baskets, all appetizingly displayed. Just as the procession was about to move down the hill to embark for Three-Mile Point, a small-sized Universalist, stirred by generous impulse, hailed young Dick, a small-sized Presbyterian, who stood on the opposite side of the street gazing with assumed stoicism on the fascinating pageant.

"Hello, Dick! Come up to our picnic. We're going to have ice cream and cake and pies, and lots of good things."

To this cordial invitation Dick, thrusting his clenched fists deep into his pockets, responded at the top of his voice:

"No, sir-ee! I believe in a hell!"[70]

As early as the beginning of the nineteenth century the Baptists were accustomed to immerse their converts with appropriate services near Council Rock. They organized on January 21, 1834, with the Rev. Lewis Raymond as pastor. Their church building was erected during the next year.

The Roman Catholic congregation was organized in September, 1847, with the Rev. Father Kilbride as pastor. Their first church was built in 1851, at the corner of Elm and Susquehanna streets. The present St. Mary's Church, the "Church of Our Lady of the Lake," was built in 1867.

Toward the middle of the century the three most conspicuous steeples in the village scene were those of Christ Church, the Presbyterian, and the Baptist. From the shape of their towers, which have since been modified, they were known as the "Casters," and distinguished as salt, pepper, and mustard respectively.[71]

The land for the Presbyterian church as well as for Christ Church was given by Judge Cooper. Within Christ churchyard he reserved a space, including his daughter's grave, as a family burial plot, where he himself was buried in 1809, cut down in the full vigor of his fifty-five years. While leaving a political meeting in Albany, as he was descending the steps of the old state capitol, after a session abounding in stormy debate, Judge Cooper was struck on the head with a walking stick by a political opponent, and died as a result of the blow.

Judge Cooper was originally a Quaker, but that he afterward found himself out of sympathy with the Society of Friends is shown in a formal document by which his relations to that denomination were severed. He was instrumental in the erection of Christ Church, for a letter written by him shows that he conducted the negotiations with the corporation of Trinity parish, New York, which, in 1806, gave $1,500 toward the construction of the edifice. An obituary notice published in the Cooperstown Federalist at the time of his death says that Judge Cooper "was thoroughly persuaded of the truth of Revelation."

The rood-screen in Christ Church commemorates Judge Cooper, and a dignified sarcophagus covers his grave in the churchyard. Recalling the story of his career, one is disposed to claim for his simple epitaph a share of the attention bestowed upon the tomb of his more illustrious son. For here lies the foremost pioneer of Cooperstown, notable among the frontiersmen of America.