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Cooper's father, Judge William Cooper, the founder of Cooperstown, first visited Otsego Lake in 1785, built a house there in 1787 and in 1790 made it the permanent home of his family. In 1790 the place contained 35 other people. The selection here given pictures the circumstances in which Judge Cooper, as well as Marmaduke Temple, visited Otsego Lake.
Many of the passengers on the boat had stopped at a lakeside tavern to dine, preferring a good dinner to the associations which drew our sentimentalists to the spots that were hallowed by the necromancer's imagination. And why not? One cannot live in the past forever. The people on the boat who dwelt in Cooperstown were not talking about Cooper, perhaps had not thought of him for a year.
Cooper's character, I feel it due to that gentleman to withdraw every charge that injuriously affects his character." The course of instruction had been protracted and expensive, but the lesson had been learned at last. The independence of the press had been crushed by the domineering despot of Cooperstown.
But he had no definite plans marked out. The only thing about which his mind was made up was not to write any more. On the fifth of November, 1833, Cooper landed at New York. For a few winters that followed he made that city his place of residence. The summers he spent in Cooperstown. To this village he paid a visit in June, 1834, after having been away from it entirely for about sixteen years.
Among these were addresses, heartfelt, and able, from the late Bishop Henry Codman Potter, on "The Religious Future"; Francis Whiting Halsey, on "The Headwaters of the Susquehanna"; George Pomeroy Keese, on "Early Days of Cooperstown," and James Fenimore Cooper of Albany, New York, on his great-grandfather "William Cooper."
The magician who created Cooperstown sleeps in the old English-looking church-yard of the Episcopal church, in the midst of the graves of his relations, and there is a well-worn path to his head-stone. Whatever the common people of the town may think, it is that grave that draws most pilgrims to the village.
To Cooperstown, in consequence, he went back in 1814, taking up his residence at a place outside the village limits, called Fenimore. He purposed to devote his attention to agriculture, and accordingly began at this spot the building of a large stone farm house. While it was in process of construction his wife, anxious to be near her own family, persuaded him to go back to Westchester.
He acquired title to a large tract of land at the foot of Otsego Lake, but, while settling it, mortgaged the land heavily, and eventually lost it through foreclosure. William Cooper, father of the novelist, subsequently obtained title to these lands and went into the country to settle them. In the course of his labors, he founded the village of Cooperstown, and made it his home.
"Ladies and gentlemen of Cooperstown," said he, "three of us here have journeyed from New York City to pay our duty to the fairest maid in all the thirteen states. We have none like her on Manhattan Island. I give you Mistress Betty Cosgrove!" The three young men raised their glasses, the rest followed their example, and the toast was drunk. Miss Cosgrove blushed the color of the rose she wore.
In the beginning of April, 1851, he came again to New York partly for medical advice, and his changed appearance struck all his friends with surprise and sorrow. The digestive organs were impaired, the liver was torpid, and a general feebleness had taken the place of the vigor for which he had previously been distinguished. He remained several weeks in the city and then returned to Cooperstown.
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