The Story of Cooperstown

by Ralph Birdsall

A few nights later the Otsego Hotel and adjacent buildings, which stood on the site of the present Village Library, were also destroyed by fire. At this conflagration, which seemed about to complete the destruction of Main Street, a woman appeared, who equalled the courage of the firemen in her defiance of the flames. She was Susan Hewes, a maiden lady who kept a milliner's shop in the little one-story building that stands on the north side of the Main Street, a short distance west of the corner of Fair Street. Emulating the example of the men who saved the Cory building, she appeared on the roof of her little shop, and presented a dramatic spectacle as she stood forth in the glare of the flames, crying out that she would save her property at the cost of her life. Fortunately the flames were checked without any such sacrifice, and Susan Hewes lived to become, more than half a century afterward, the oldest native inhabitant of the village, famous for the old-fashioned tangled garden on Pine Street, where she dwelt so long among her favorite flowers. During the Civil War period she was a marked figure in the village, for her outspoken independence in expressing sympathy for the Southern cause led to a visit of remonstrance with which a committee of leading citizens honored her in her little milliner's shop; while her refusal to submit to the dictates of fashion when the huge hoop-skirts came into vogue caused her to be gazed upon as a marvel of incompleteness in dress.

For a time Cooperstown was much depressed by the ruin which fire had wrought in the village, but, before long, a new business section began slowly to rise from the ashes of the old. West of Pioneer Street, where the Eagle Tavern had narrowed the width of the main thoroughfare to the dimensions of a mere lane, the street was now made of uniform width, and new business blocks were erected. By the close of the Civil War all signs of destruction had disappeared, and the Main street of Cooperstown, if far less picturesque than before, had assumed the appearance of brand new prosperity.

This period, in fact, marks the beginning of a gradual change in the character of Cooperstown, by which an elderly village, typical in its inherited traditions, has taken on the airs of a summer resort, and has become the residence, for a part of each year, of wealthy families whose chief interests lie elsewhere, and to whom Otsego is a playground. While much of the older character of the village remains, the contact with the outer world has had a far-reaching effect upon its inhabitants.

Some of the old-fashioned merchants were at first inclined to resent the demands made by city folk in excess of the time-honored customs of trade in Cooperstown. Seth Doubleday kept a store at the northwest corner of Main and Pioneer streets. One day a lady from the city came in airily, ordered a mackerel delivered at her summer home in the village, and was out again before Doubleday could recover his breath. At that period all villagers went to market with a basket, and carried their own goods home. Nobody thought of having purchases delivered by the merchant. Doubleday was enraged at what seemed to him an insolent demand, and the longer he reflected on the matter the more furious did he become. At last, leaving his shop unattended, he went in person to the customer's house to deliver the mackerel. The lady herself opened the door. Doubleday took the fish by the tail, and slapped it down vigorously upon the doorstep, exclaiming, "There, madam, is your damned three-cent mackerel, and delivered!"

The new phase of village life may perhaps be dated from the purchase of the Apple Hill property by Edward Clark of New York, who, in 1856, made his summer home here, and after the close of the Civil War erected his mansion. The establishment of this country-seat was but the beginning of the extension of Edward Clark's estate in this region, and created a relationship to the village which his descendants have ever since continued.

"Apple Hill," as the place was called before Edward Clark's purchase, or "Fernleigh," as he renamed it, is thus a connecting link between the old and the new in Cooperstown. It has a story that brings the elder traditions of the village into touch with the newer spirit of modern enterprise.

Apple Hill was originally the property of Richard Fenimore Cooper, eldest son of the founder of the village. In the summer of 1800 he built the house which stood until displaced by Fernleigh House in 1869. Fenimore Cooper described the site as "much the best within the limits of the village," no doubt with reference to the superb view of the Susquehanna which the veranda at the rear of the house commands. Richard Cooper planted the black walnut and locust trees, some of which are yet standing in front of the house at Fernleigh. To the home at Apple Hill he brought from the head of the lake as a bride, Anne Cary, who after his death became the wife of George Clarke of Hyde Hall.

From 1825 to 1828 Apple Hill was the residence of the afterward distinguished Judge Samuel Nelson, and during the next five years was owned and occupied by General John A. Dix, who had resigned from the army, and settled down in Cooperstown to practise law. His first cases were prepared in a little office that stood near the gate of the Apple Hill property. At that time it is said that he made a poor impression as a public speaker, and gave small promise of his later fame. In 1833 he became secretary of state of New York, and afterward was United States Senator. During the Civil War he raised seventeen regiments, and as Secretary of the Treasury at the outbreak of the war issued the famous order which first convinced the country that the executive government at Washington was really determined to meet force with force: "If anyone attempts to pull down the American flag, shoot him on the spot!" After the war General Dix was minister to France, and in 1872 was elected Governor of the State of New York. Among the children of General Dix who played hide-and-seek amid the trees of Apple Hill was Morgan Dix, afterward the distinguished rector of Trinity parish, New York, who in later years passed many summers in Cooperstown. It was remembered of Dr. Dix's childhood that when his mother sent him away from Cooperstown to school, being apprehensive of his safe conduct on the journey, she put him into the stage-coach completely enveloped in a green baize bag that she had made for the purpose, with nothing but the boy's head emerging from the opening which was snugly tied around his neck. Dr. Dix's last visit to Cooperstown was in 1891 when he was a guest at the Cooper House, and was driven forth, with two hundred and fifty other guests, by the fire which burned it to the ground in the early dawn of the eighth of August. This summer hotel stood within the grounds occupied by the Present High School. Its burning was a calamity to Cooperstown, for under the management of Simeon E. Crittenden it had become widely famous, and drew guests from every part of the country.

From 1833 to 1839 Apple Hill was the home of Levi C. Turner, who married the daughter of Robert Campbell, and afterward was for some years county judge. During the Civil War Turner was Judge Advocate in the War Department under President Lincoln, concerning whom he had many intimate reminiscences.