The property which now includes Edgewater was inherited by Isaac Cooper, the second son of Judge Cooper, on the death of his father in 1809. In the following year he began the erection of the house, which took nearly four years in building. Aside from its now venerable aspect, this solid residence, constructed of old-fashioned brick, preserves much of its original appearance as one of the largest dwellings in the village. It was modeled after a colonial residence in Philadelphia well known to the Cooper family. The style of the entrance hall, with the balanced symmetry of semicircular stairways that ascend to the upper floor, is singularly effective, while the carved wood of the interior, as seen in the doorcaps and mouldings, displays skillful workmanship. No house in Cooperstown commands so fine a general view of Otsego Lake as that which is to be seen from the porch of Edgewater. The surrounding ground includes over two acres, and extends to the waters of the lake, although now traversed by Lake Street, which made its way, by long usage, across the original property. The house is approached through the paths of an old time garden, thickly grown with shrubs, and shaded by a variety of trees.

Isaac Cooper had married Mary Ann, daughter of General Jacob Morris, of Morris, Otsego county, and took possession of Edgewater as his residence on December 4, 1813. It is not difficult to understand the feeling of satisfaction, on being established in this beautiful home, which prompted Isaac Cooper, at the age of thirty-two years, to record the event in his diary thus:

This diary is hardly more than a record of weather, with a single line of "general observations," under which head, from day to day, he makes brief mention of his doings, social engagements; births, marriages, and deaths among his friends; his own frequent illnesses: occasionally he moralizes, or indulges in a bit of self-criticism. A few entries selected from Isaac Cooper's diary will show its general character. It will be noticed that he refers to himself in the third person as "Mr. C." or "Mr. Cooper."

Concerning some settlements in the region, much has been written of the spirit of democracy in which they were established, and it has been pointed out that all social distinctions were levelled in the common tasks of frontier life. It does not appear that this was the case in Cooperstown. From the time of the first settlement, apparently, an aristocratic group was formed in the orbit of the Cooper nucleus, and social climbing began before the wolves and bears had been quite driven from the forests of Otsego. The tea party of February 7, 1817, mentioned in the diary, probably names most of those who were at that time admitted to the inner circle of the socially elect; another entry, dated December 31, 1816, relates to a different social sphere, and unconsciously reveals the great gulf which had already been fixed between the one and the other, together with the aristocrat's supercilious astonishment that "that class of society" is in some respects quite as desirable as his own:

Another glimpse into the depth of the social gulf is obtained in the back pages of Isaac Cooper's diary, where he records his accounts for wages with the household servants. There is this entry, signed by the humble cross-mark of Betsey Wallby, who "came to work on March 20, 1815, at one dollar a week":

On New Year's day, 1818, death came to Isaac Cooper at Edgewater, and he was laid at rest in Christ churchyard with the humblest pioneers of the hamlet. Only for a little more than four years had he enjoyed the home which he established at Edgewater.

In Isaac Cooper's diary, by another hand, these words were added:

Shortly before the house was vacated by the family of Isaac Cooper, the garden of Edgewater was the scene of a pretty romance. Isaac Cooper's second daughter, Elizabeth Fenimore, was a child of rare beauty, and as she began to grow toward womanhood became renowned for wit and loveliness. Strictly guarded by the conventional proprieties, Elizabeth made glorious excursions into the realm of fancy, where errant knights are ever in search of fair ladies to deliver them from castle dungeons. Edgewater, with the freedom of its garden, was a pleasant sort of prison, but Elizabeth was not less gratified when the knight of her dreams actually appeared in the person of a young college student who was spending his summer vacation in Cooperstown—Samuel Wootton Beall, a native of Maryland. Summer evenings in Edgewater garden passed quickly away, and there came a night of farewell, for on the next day young Beall must return to his college, and to long months of Greek, Latin, and mathematics. On that night the young man brought a Methodist minister into the garden with him. There was a mysterious signal. Elizabeth Fenimore Cooper glided out of the house, and joined the two in darkness. They stood beneath the locust tree which rose just east of the front steps, while in low voices the young lovers took their vows, and the parson pronounced them man and wife. The bride immediately crept back into the house, thrilling with her secret, while the bridegroom went his way, and on the next day was gone.

Nothing was said of the wedding until Samuel Beall was graduated from college, and returned to Cooperstown to claim his wife. Beyond the extreme youth of the couple, there was really no objection to the match. Mrs. Cooper was astonished at the announcement, but gave her blessing to the union. Only one condition she exacted. Shocked at the informality of their wedding, she required them to be remarried with the full rites of the Church.

Young Beall and his wife went West, where he prospered, and, returning to Cooperstown in 1836, purchased Woodside as their residence. After a few years at Woodside, they settled once more in the West.

In Edgewater garden the locust that sheltered the secret marriage was long known as the Bridal Tree, and grew to lofty size. In the winter of 1908 the first fall of snow came upon the wings of a great wind. During the night the big locust fell crashing to the ground, and in the morning was found covered with a mantle of virgin snow, gleaming white like a bridal veil.

In 1828, Edgewater having passed into the hands of a company which had organized to establish a seminary for girls, the house was rearranged for such occupancy. The numerals which then marked the rooms of the students are still to be seen on the doorways of the top floor. The school was a financial failure, and in 1834 the trustees sold Edgewater as a summer residence to Theodore Keese of New York, who, eight years previously, had married the eldest daughter of George Pomeroy and Ann Cooper, sister of Isaac Cooper. Thus the property came back into the family of the original owner.

In 1836 Mr. and Mrs. Keese came to Cooperstown to live, and their eight-year-old son, George Pomeroy Keese, then began a residence at Edgewater that continued for seventy-four years. In 1849, at the age of twenty-one years, he brought to Edgewater his bride, Caroline Adriance Foote, a daughter of Surgeon Lyman Foote, of the United States Army. In this house their eight children were born, and all of these, with the exception of one who died in infancy, lived to celebrate the sixtieth wedding anniversary which their parents commemorated with a notable gathering of friends at Edgewater in the autumn of 1909. Living to old age in perfect health of body and mind Mr. and Mrs. Keese made Edgewater a famous centre of hospitality.

During this long residence in Cooperstown Pomeroy Keese stood in the forefront of its affairs, and came to occupy a unique position in the life of the village. In boyhood, as the grand-nephew of Fenimore Cooper, he was brought into close contact with the novelist, and at the beginning of the twentieth century was one of the few residents of the village who distinctly recalled the famous writer's personality. He was best known to the business world as president for nearly forty years of the Second National Bank of Cooperstown, but the qualities that made him so interesting a figure lay rather in the many avocations of his life. He was senior warden of Christ Church at the time of his death, and had been a member of its vestry for more than half a century. Of thirteen successive rectors of Christ Church he had known all but Father Nash, the first. For the old village church, surrounded with its quaint tombs and overshadowing pines, he had a love that seemed about to call forth the response of personality from things inanimate.

On the streets of Cooperstown, in his later years, G. Pomeroy Keese was a picturesque and characteristic figure. His face seemed weather-beaten rather than old; his eye was like that of a sailor, with a focus for distant horizons; the style of thin side-whisker affected by a former generation gave full play to every expression of his countenance. It was a common sight, of a winter's day, to glimpse his slight and dapper form with quick step ambling to the post-office, while, quite innocent of overcoat, he compromised with the frosty air by clasping his hands, one over the other, across his chest, as a means of keeping warm!

Pomeroy Keese was somewhat contemptuous toward mufflers, arctics, and other toggery which Otsego winters imposed upon his neighbors. He seemed immune against the assault of climatic rigors. His attitude toward the weather was confidential, for he was the most weatherwise of men. He kept a daily record of the weather, with accurate meteorological data, for more than half a century, and for many years furnished the local official figures for the United States weather bureau. From his experience he originated the theory that, while seasons from year to year appear to differ widely in their character, the temperature and precipitation within the compass of each year actually reach the same general average. It seemed to cause him real annoyance when a period of weather departed too widely from the usual average, yet if a cold snap or hot spell was generous enough to break all previous records his enthusiasm was boundless.

An equally substantial though smaller house that antedated Edgewater by a few years was erected in the summer of 1802 by John Miller as a farm house. It was built of bricks, and was the second building in the place that was not constructed of wood. It stands at the southwest corner of Pine Street and Lake Street, facing the latter, and the dense evergreen hedge which surrounds the house seems to hold it aloof from the later growth of the village. It is said that the house is haunted, for not long after it was built a tenant of the place murdered his wife by smothering her with a pillow in her bedroom, and for many years it was rumored that occupants of the house occasionally were terrified by muffled sounds of moaning as of one in mortal agony.

The building referred to in Isaac Cooper's diary as "Morrell's and Prentiss' house" includes the two brick houses on Main Street which stand conjoined just east of the Village Club and Library. Judge Morrell went West, and his house, the more westerly of the two, became better known as the property of its later owner, William Holt Averell, whose descendants continued to occupy it a century after him. The adjoining house, built by Col. Prentiss, remained after his death in possession of his family, and his daughter, Mrs. Charlotte Prentiss Browning, lived to celebrate its centennial.

Col. John H. Prentiss, for more than half a century a resident, and for forty years editor of the Freeman's Journal, was a notable figure in Cooperstown. Under his editorial management the Freeman's Journal became a strong political organ, and exercised an influence that made Otsego one of the stanchest Democratic counties in the State of New York. Col. Prentiss represented his district in Congress during the four years of Van Buren's administration, having been reelected at the expiration of his first term. It was at this time that his next door neighbor, William Holt Averell, was a candidate for Congress on the Whig ticket. The first returns indicated that Averell had been elected, and there was a noisy demonstration by Averell's supporters in front of his residence, bringing him forth for a speech which was received with great enthusiasm. The returns came in slowly in those days, and a day or two had passed before it was learned that Prentiss had been elected, and his doorstep became the scene of another jubilation. According to the recollections of some this seesawing of returns occurred more than once, and the two neighbors, whose friendship was not interrupted by their political antagonisms, each joined in the demonstration in honor of the other.

A large part of the work of publishing his newspaper was done by Judge Prentiss himself. Besides being sole editor, he attended to the financial department, and for forty years, except while in Congress, he gave his personal attention in the printing office to the mechanical department. A later writer recalls often seeing Col. Prentiss in the press-room, with coat off, sleeves rolled up, either inking the type with two large soft balls, or pulling at the lever of the old Ramage press. He describes him as "an industrious, energetic man, a little inclined to aristocratic bearing, but open, frank and cordial with his friends."

The last appearance of Col. Prentiss in public life, from which he had previously kept aloof for several years, was as a delegate to the Democratic State convention which was held in Albany on February 1, 1861. In that body of distinguished and able men, of which he was one of the vice-presidents, he attracted much attention, and the question was frequently asked by those in attendance, referring to Col. Prentiss, "Who is that large, fine-looking old gentleman, with white, flowing hair?"[94]

Colonel Prentiss's next door neighbor, William Holt Averell, son of James Averell, Jr., was for more than half a century one of the most prominent citizens of the village, who did more perhaps than any other for its financial development. He was one of the first directors and for many years president of the Otsego County Bank, the original of the present First National Bank, and for which the building across the way from his house, now used as the Clark Estate office, was erected in 1831. As he issued every day from the doorway of this building with its portico of fluted columns, his figure was exactly such as the imagination might now devise as most in harmony with the surroundings; for in his youth Averell was extremely punctilious in his dress, being a very handsome man, and for many years it was his custom to wear a white beaver hat, and ruffled shirt, with ruffles at the cuffs that set off to good advantage his small and delicate hands. He did all his reading and work at night. Those who passed his windows at a late hour were sure to glimpse him bending over his desk, and nobody else in Cooperstown went to bed late enough to see his lamp extinguished, for the servants often found him still at work when they came to summon him to breakfast in the morning. He lived long enough to be regarded as a gentleman of the old school, positive and dogmatic in his opinions, which were usually those of a minority, but which he defended with the resourcefulness of a brilliant and well-trained mind.

In 1813 Henry Phinney, one of the two sons of Elihu Phinney, began the construction of the large brick house on Chestnut street now known as "Willowbrook," and completed it three years later. In Cooper's Chronicles of Cooperstown several houses "of respectable dimensions and of genteel finish" are mentioned as having been erected between the years of 1820 and 1835. Among these is the house of Elihu Phinney, the younger son of the pioneer, which still stands on Pioneer Street opposite to the Universalist church. It is of brick, partly surrounded by a veranda, and exquisite in many details of construction, much of the interior woodwork being notable in excellence of chaste design.

During this same general period several houses of stone were erected that still remain among the most solid and attractive in Cooperstown. William Nichols built Greystone, the fine old residence that stands at the southwest corner of Fair and Lake streets; Ellory Cory erected the house on the west side of Pioneer Street near Lake Street; John Hannay set a new standard for the western part of the village when he put up on the north side of Main Street, not far from Chestnut Street, the dignified residence now occupied by the Mohican Club. In 1827 the low structures of stone which stand on the east side of Pioneer Street, between Main and Church street, were erected; and in 1828 the three-story stone building on the north side of Main Street, midway between Pioneer and Chestnut streets, was an important addition to the business section of the village.

A country-house of classic poise and symmetry was designed in 1829, when Eben B. Morehouse purchased a few acres from the Bowers estate, on the side of Mount Vision, at the point where the old state road made its first turn to ascend the mountain, and there erected the dwelling called Woodside Hall. For many years an Indian wigwam stood on the site now occupied by Woodside. This old stone house, set on the hillside against a background of dense pine forest, has an air of singular dignity and repose. Standing at the head of the ascending road which continues the main street of the village, Woodside, with its row of columns gleaming white amid the living green of the forest, may be seen from almost any point along the main thoroughfare of Cooperstown. It is approached from the highway by a rise of ground, where the Egyptian gate-tower adds a fanciful interest to the entrance, with glimpses of the terraced lawn and garden that climb toward the house. In summer, on gaining the porch, one looks back upon a mass of foliage beneath which Cooperstown lies concealed, except for a vista that traverses the length of the village and rises to the pines that crown the hills beyond; while a glance toward the north sweeps across the surface of the lake to its western shore. The woods that come down almost to the house are composed of pines and hemlocks of splendid proportions and great antiquity, lending a shadowy atmosphere of mystery to the environs of Woodside Hall.

The charm and grace of this residence seem to reflect certain qualities in the character of Judge Eben B. Morehouse, who designed it as his home. For he is described as a man of rare personality and unusual culture, whose intellectual ability gave him exceptional rank in his profession. He was district attorney in 1829, member of Assembly in 1831, and became a justice of the Supreme Court of the State in 1847. Mrs. Morehouse, a daughter of Dr. Fuller, one of the pioneer physicians of Cooperstown, was a woman of many social gifts, and established traditions of hospitality and festivity at Woodside.

In 1836 Judge Morehouse suffered reverses of fortune, and when he had sold Woodside to Samuel W. Beall, took up his residence in a modest cottage in the village. It was said of Judge Morehouse that, during this period, in walking about the village streets, he was careful never to raise his eyes toward Woodside, and, if occasion brought him in the vicinity of his old home, he passed it with averted face. After a few years he was able, to his great joy, to buy Woodside back again, and he continued residence there until his death in 1849.

A President of the United States was once lost in the grounds of Woodside. It was in 1839, when Judge Morehouse gave a large evening reception for President Martin Van Buren. After the reception, when the guests were departed, Mr. Van Buren and a friend who accompanied him became separated from their companions, and lost their way in attempting to find the gate-tower. For a long time they wandered and groped about in the darkness of the grounds, finally returning to the house for a guide and a lantern, just as the family were going to bed.

In 1856 Mrs. Morehouse sold Woodside to the Hon. Joseph L. White, whose family entertained generously and delightfully. White was a distinguished lawyer of New York, and one of the most famous stump orators of his time. He became identified with the early days of the Nicaragua Canal project. While at work on the isthmus he was killed by the bullet of an assassin.

After the death of White, the place was bought by John F. Scott, whose family were among the earliest settlers in Springfield at the head of the lake.

In 1895 Woodside was purchased by Walter C. Stokes of New York. Mr. and Mrs. Stokes, occupying Woodside as a summer home, gave it new embellishment, and revived the traditions of its hospitality.

At the extreme northwest margin of the lake there is a little cove, with a landing, near which one ascends from the shore by means of a swaying board walk over swampy ground, where flags and forget-me-nots bloom luxuriantly during summer days, and fireflies hold carnival at night. At the top of the slope stands "Swanswick," a cottage-like and rambling house whose rear windows look down the lake, while the low veranda in front opens upon a lawn and quiet lily-padded pond, a mill-pond originally, for near at hand are the falls that operated Low's mills, in the days of the pioneers. Swanswick stands upon the site of a house erected in 1762, the first ever inhabited by a white man on the shore of Otsego Lake. The present house was built after the Revolution by Colonel Richard Cary, one of Washington's aides, and the place was called Rose Lawn. General Washington was a guest here when he made his visit in Otsego in 1783, and a ball was given in his honor. The daughter of the house was Anne Low Cary who married Richard Cooper, and after his death became the wife of George Hyde Clarke, who built Hyde Hall. She inherited Rose Lawn from her mother, and gave it to her son, Alfred Cooper Clarke. The latter was childless, and left the place to his nephew, Leslie Pell, who belonged to the well known Pell family of New York and Newport, and who assumed legally the name of Clarke.

Leslie Pell-Clarke married the charming Henrietta Temple, a cousin of Henry James the novelist, and of William James, the psychologist. He changed the name of the place to Swanswick, and lived there from the early 'seventies until his death in 1904. The Pell-Clarkes made Swanswick known as a haven of good cheer for miles around. The old house, simple in its lines and modest in proportions, had an air of singular distinction. The library in the west wing, with its curious skylight, and bookcases well stocked with the classic favorites of an English country gentleman, was a revelation to the connoisseur of old volumes; and the whole house was full of quaintly delightful surprises. It was the master of the house himself who gave to the place its atmosphere. He was ideally the centre of things, especially when he sat in the library reading aloud from some favorite author, which he did always with perfect justice of expression, and in a voice of unrivalled melody. He was a lover of outdoor life, and laid out on his own property at the head of the lake the golf grounds now managed by the Otsego Golf Club, the oldest links of any in America that have been maintained on their original course. Mr. and Mrs. Pell-Clarke were reckoned and beloved as partly belonging to Cooperstown, for they drove down from the head of the lake almost daily, drawn by the whitish speckled horses, Pepper and Salt, that everybody came to know. Pell-Clarke had the frame and bearing of an athlete. Tall, with clean-cut features, he was one of the handsomest men of his time, a noble and brilliant soul, an exuberant and fascinating personality.

A country-seat that may be described as unique in all America, Hyde Hall, lies nestled in the haunches of the Sleeping Lion, toward the head of Otsego Lake. "The Sleeping Lion" is Cooperstown's nickname for Mount Wellington, the wooded hill that stretches along the northern margin of the Glimmerglass. The formal name was given to Mount Wellington by the builder of Hyde Hall, in honor of his famous classmate at Eton, in England. When this mountain is viewed from Cooperstown the aptness of the more familiar, descriptive term—the Sleeping Lion—becomes evident. In spite of its distance from the village, Hyde Hall has its place not only in the view but in the story of Cooperstown, for its proprietors have been closely associated with the life at the southern end of the lake.

The grounds of Hyde Hall lie toward the head of Otsego, on the eastern side, where Hyde Bay increases the width of the lake by a generous sweep of rounded shore. Into this bay from the east flows Shadow Brook, the most picturesque stream of water in the region, whose pellucid current reflects clear images of foliage and sky, and offers a favorite resort, in shaded nooks, to the drifting canoes of lovers. In a clearing of the woods farther northward along the shore, and at a good elevation, stands Hyde Hall, facing the southeast across the bay. It is massively constructed of large blocks of stone, and seems designed for a race of giants. The main part of the house, completed in 1815, is two stories high, in the colonial style, and over two hundred feet in length. In 1832 the facade was added, in the Empire style, with two splendid rooms on either side of a large entrance hall. The doorways and windows, as well as the chambers into which they open, are planned on a big scale. Solidity of construction appears throughout the building, where even the partition walls are of brick or stone. The masons, carpenters, and mechanics who built Hyde Hall lived on the premises while the house was under construction. They quarried and cut the stone from adjacent beds of local limestone; they burnt the brick from clay found at the foot of the hill; they cut the timber in the neighboring forest, and manufactured all the windows, doors, and panel-work.

The house commands a superb view of the lake, and is surrounded by beautiful old trees and forest land. Upwards of three thousand acres belonging to Hyde Hall enclose it on all sides, and the residence is approached by three private roads averaging over a mile in length.

Within the house, as one tries to visualize its spirit, from Trumbull's portrait of the Duke of Wellington, which stands above the fireplace in the great drawing-room, through rambling passages with glimpses of a courtyard and alcoves and wings; up curved stairways to landings that present unexpected steps down and steps up; along halls that beckon amid dim lights to unrevealed recesses of space; down through kitchens where huge pots and cauldrons reflect the glow of living coals, while shadowy outlines of spits and cranes are lifted amid a smoke of savory odors; deeper down into the spacious wine-cellars darkly festooned with cobwebs, and chill as the family burying-vault where vines and snakes squirm through the bars of its iron gates beneath the hill,—out of these fleeting impressions rises the atmosphere of an old-world tradition strangely created amid the original wilds of Otsego at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is a house that should be ashamed not to harbor romance, and mystery, and ghosts.

Hyde Hall has the air of an English country-seat, with squire and tenantry, transplanted to the soil of an alien democracy. To comprehend its place in the life of Cooperstown it must be regarded as the symbol of certain ancestral traditions toward which good Americans are expected to be indifferent. George Clarke, who was colonial governor of New York from 1737 to 1744, came to America shortly after being graduated at Oxford, having received an appointment to colonial office from Walpole, then prime minister of England. He came from Swanswick, near Bath. After a few years' residence in New York he met and married Anne Hyde, the daughter of Edward Hyde, royal governor of North Carolina. She subsequently became the heiress of Hyde, in England, in her own right, and by the old English law of coverture, George Clarke became the owner of the estate. The lady died during his term of office as governor of the colony, and was buried, with a public funeral, in the vault of Lord Cornburg in Trinity church, New York.

George Clarke, the builder of Hyde Hall on Otsego Lake, was a great-grandson of the colonial governor, a part of whose large estate of lands in America he inherited. He came to America in 1791, to comply with the statute requiring all English born subjects who were minors during the War for Independence, and who owned lands in this State subject to confiscation, to become American citizens. After several trips across the water George Clarke decided, in 1809, to make his abode in the New World, and leaving his home, Hyde Hall, at Hyde, in Cheshire, he came to America, married as his second wife Anne Cary, the widow of Richard Cooper, brother of James Fenimore Cooper, and in 1813 began the building of his new Hyde Hall.

The property originally controlled from Hyde Hall was of vast extent. At an early day George Clarke encountered much opposition from his tenantry. The tenure by which they held their lands was not in accordance with the views of American settlers. The estates were leased out, some as durable leases, at a small rent, and others for three lives, or twenty-one years. The settlers disliked the relation of landlord and tenant, and Clarke was frequently annoyed by demands which his high English notions of strict right would not allow him to concede. His prejudices were strong, and if he believed anyone intended to wrong him, he was stubborn in resisting any invasion of his rights. Hence there were many collisions between landlord and tenant in the early days of Hyde Hall. The warm aspect of his nature, which disarmed the enmities of tenants, appeared in his social qualities. He was companionable, gave good dinners, conversed well, told a good story, delighted in a good one from others, and when in a gay mood would sing an excellent song, generally one that he had brought with him from Merrie England.

In his habits and sentiments Clarke was thoroughly English. He delighted to have his dinner got up in old English style, with the best of roast beef and mutton, garnished with such delicacies as the lake and country afforded, and just such as his countrymen, who knew how to appreciate good things, would order, were they the caterers; and in these particulars he hardly ever failed to excel. Not only were his household arrangements in this style, but he was English in his religious views; unless those matters were held in conformity to the Anglican Church they were not acceptable.

When Clarke's son George, who afterward succeeded to the estate, was baptized, in 1824, Father Nash officiated, and several other clergymen of the Episcopal Church were in attendance, besides some guests from Utica, and many from Cooperstown and the surrounding country who had come to Hyde Hall for the occasion. The christening was performed with suitable gravity, and in due time the dinner was announced, which was in the substantial excellent style that Clarke knew well how to order for such a festivity. The host was talkative and charming; as the dinner proceeded the guests became increasingly good-humored, exceedingly well satisfied with him and with themselves. "In due time the ladies and clergy retired," says Levi Beardsley,[95] who was present at the feast, "and then the guests were effectually plied with creature comforts."

Nothing seemed more delightful to the first proprietor of Hyde Hall than thus to sit in company with congenial men at the flowing bowl; to begin in the enjoyment of rational conversation; to discuss literature and art and statecraft; to warm up to the telling of rare stories and the singing of good songs; and, in the end, to get his guests, or a portion of them, "under the table." On this occasion, after partaking of the viands and good cheer, the guests left the table in the early part of the evening, and repaired to the plateau in front of the house, where some of them ran foot-races in the dark, with no great credit to themselves as pedestrians. As they were going back into the house, one of the guests stumbled and fell into the hall, where he lay for some time, obstructing the closing of the outer door. One of the servants came to Clarke, who had retired for the night, and asked what he should do with the large gentleman who had fallen in the doorway, and was unable to rise. "Drag him in, and put him under the table" was the order which was immediately complied with, and under the table the fallen guest remained until morning.

The builder of Hyde Hall died in 1835, and his only American born son, George Clarke, succeeded him in his American estate, thus becoming at the age of twenty-one years the largest landed proprietor in the State of New York. The patents which he held included 1,000 acres in Fulton county, 6,000 acres in Dutchess county, 7,000 acres in Oneida, 12,000 in Montgomery, besides 16,000 acres in Otsego county, and a valuable tract in Greene county including one-half of the village of Catskill. George Clarke married Anna Maria Gregory, daughter of Dudley S. Gregory, the wealthiest man in Jersey City, and their married life was begun in great prosperity, with a town house on Fifth Avenue in New York, in addition to the country-seat on Otsego Lake.

Clarke had three span of fast horses, and was a familiar figure in Cooperstown when he drove to service at Christ Church every Sunday, and frequently came to the village for the transaction of business, or to meet his friends, making nothing of the seven mile drive from his home.

In his younger days Clarke was quite celebrated as a beau and dandy, and at one time was said to be the best dressed man in New York; but in his later years he became notorious for his carelessness of attire, and few of his tenants wore a cheaper costume. In this matter he was indifferent to public opinion, and went about looking like an old-fashioned farmer. In winter he covered himself with a buffalo coat that had areas of bare hide worn through the fur; in summer his favorite habiliment was a linen duster. For Fifth Avenue in New York he dressed in the same clothes that served him in Cooperstown. When his friends ventured to remonstrate, he put them off by saying that dress was a matter of indifference alike in city or country. "In Cooperstown," said he, "everybody knows me; in New York nobody knows me." When he had become accustomed to a suit of clothes, he was as loath to change them as to alter his friendships or politics. As he was plain in dress, so he was simple and abstemious in habits of life. His bare living probably cost as little as that of any working-man in the country.

George Clarke had an insatiable land-hunger. In looking after his wide estates he allowed the Hyde Hall Property to become dilapidated, and mortgaged the land that he owned to buy more. His land gave him great yields of hops at the height of that industry in Otsego, but he was always inclined to buy more hops rather than to sell. Little by little, mortgages were foreclosed; Hyde Hall fell into decay; and in 1889 George Clarke died insolvent.

Mrs. Clarke, in her youth, was said to be one of the most beautiful women of her day. Those who knew her in later years can testify to an abiding charm of personality which time could never efface. Hyde Hall in summer she loved, but always the most perfect place in the world to her was Monte Carlo, and there for many years she passed the winter, becoming at last the oldest member of the American colony, having crossed the ocean thirty times from America to Southern France. An old lady tireless of life and all its activities, sprightly in manner, brilliant in conversation, graceful in gesture, gay in dress, decked in jewelry that scintillated with her quick motions, shod in tiny, high-heeled slippers that clicked the measure of an alert step, and sometimes permitted a flash of bright silk stockings; a lover of life and gaiety and beauty to whom Monte Carlo seemed the most homelike spot on earth—her reign as mistress in her younger days gave a color of its own to the story of Hyde Hall.

When George Clarke died in 1889, his son, George Hyde Clarke, having been graduated at the Columbia Law School, had for several years made his home at Hyde Hall, and had restored the place to something like its original condition. He married Mary Gale Carter, granddaughter of William Holt Averell of Cooperstown, and it was through her inheritance that the old home was saved to the family.

Hyde Clarke inherited some of the English traditions of his grandfather. He was sent to England at the age of fourteen years, and educated at the famous Harrow school. In spite of his later devotion to legal studies, and his admission to the bar of the State of New York, his real tastes inclined to agriculture. Having been trained as a scholar, he added farming to his accomplishments, and when he settled down at Hyde Hall it was as a son of the soil. For the rest of his life, being at once a gentleman and a farmer, he was the better in both characters for being so much in each. The combination of birth and practical aptitude gave him a position quite unique in Cooperstown and the surrounding country. He was a man of wide reading and culture, an exceedingly good talker, and a delightful social companion. He was at the same time respected as a farmer among farmers, who knew him well, and called him by his Christian name. It is related that shortly after her marriage to Hyde Clarke, the stately and distinguished Mrs. Clarke was complaining to her butcher in Cooperstown that he had sent her poor meat. "Very sorry, Mrs. Clarke," replied the butcher "but 'twas one of Hyde's own critters!"

Hyde Clarke
From the portrait by Ellen G. Emmet