"Kingfisher Tower," he wrote, "consists of a miniature castle, after the style of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, standing upon the extremity of the Point and rising out of the water to a height of nearly sixty feet. It forms an objective point in the scene presented by the lake and surrounding hills; it adds solemnity to the landscape, seeming to stand guard over the vicinity, while it gives a character of antiquity to the lake, a charm by which we cannot help being impressed in such scenes. The effect of the structure is that of a picture from medieval times, and its value to the lake is very great. Mr. Clark has been led to erect it simply by a desire to beautify the lake and add an attraction which must be seen by all who traverse the lake or drive along its shores. They whose minds can rise above simple notions of utility to an appreciation of art joined to nature, will thank him for it."

When Edward Clark died, in 1882, his youngest and only surviving son, Alfred Corning Clark, much of whose life had been spent abroad, inherited the greater part of his father's property, and became proprietor of Fernleigh.

Alfred Corning Clark possessed in a magnified degree certain qualities which had distinguished his father. He was more retiring, more reticent, more inclined to find the full joy of life only among intimates. He became a patron of art and music, and himself an amateur in singing. He built Mendelssohn Hall, in New York, for the use of a musical organization to which he belonged. Of books he was not only a lover, but a student, devoted to the classics, and well versed in modern languages. In the village of Cooperstown he was known as a bookworm. He enjoyed walking about his own grounds, but hardly ever went into the village, and there were many residents of Cooperstown who had never seen his face. The proprietor of the corner book store in his day remarked that he had never but once seen Alfred Corning Clark in the village street, and this was when he had an errand at the book store to make an inquiry concerning a newly published volume.

In the use of his great fortune Clark was extremely liberal in charities and toward such other objects as commended themselves to his judgment; while he was correspondingly powerful in opposition to whatever involved a principle with which he disagreed.

Mrs. Clark, who was Elizabeth Scriven, was a woman of exceptional gifts of mind and benignance of character, well qualified to assume the responsibilities which fell upon her when Alfred Corning Clark died, at the age of fifty-three years, in 1896. With cultivated tastes, she had also a practical talent for business, and, although well served by agents in the management of her large interests, was always thoroughly informed and full of initiative. In New York, among men of affairs, she was regarded as one of the most far-seeing judges of real estate values in the city. In the management of her domestic and other concerns she had an extraordinary faculty for administration, which failed of attaining genius only through the effort which she put forth to give personal attention to details. This amiable weakness nevertheless added the interest of her personality to undertakings that might have failed for the lack of such a spirit as hers; and in her many charities the personal touch which she took the trouble to give added infinitely to the happiness and self-respect of those to whom her kindness, as in neighborly thoughtfulness, was extended.

In Cooperstown Mrs. Clark became an arbiter of the social and moral virtues, and the things that she frowned upon were usually not done. She had a wholesome influence in resisting certain excesses which not seldom appear in communities partly given over to the pursuit of pleasure. In some innovations against which she protested, Mrs. Clark at last gracefully yielded to the inevitable. This was the case with automobiles, which, when they first appeared upon the country roads, she regarded with the alarm and disgust of one devoted to a carriage and horses, and would have banished them from Otsego if she had had the power. In that period of transition few country roads were adapted to the use of motors, and to meet one of the new machines while driving in a carriage along the lake shore was to suffer the apprehension of imminent death from the fury of plunging horses, and to be nearly choked in a cloud of dust.

Mrs. Clark was fond of walking, and she was a familiar figure in the residence streets of the village in summer, usually dressed in white, without a bonnet, and carrying a white parasol above her head, as she moved with quick step upon some errand.

The homestead at Fernleigh represents much that has contributed to the development of Cooperstown. The greater part of the industry controlled by the Clark estates is managed from the offices of the Singer Building in New York, which when it was erected in 1909 was the tallest office building in the world. But a large part of the interests of the estates is centered in the picturesque old building, originally built for a bank, which stands near the entrance of the Cooper Grounds in Cooperstown. The Cooper Grounds themselves were rescued from a condition of desolation in which they had lain for many years after the death of Fenimore Cooper, and are maintained by the Clark estates for the benefit of the public. The Village Club and Library across the way is a creation of the Clark estates. On the hills east and west of the village, and along the eastern shore of the lake for a stretch of nearly six miles, the same ownership has preserved for all lovers of nature the noble forests that lend a charm of wildness to the region.

FOOTNOTES:

[119] A Few Omitted Leaves, Keese, p. 12; History of Cooperstown, Livermore, p. 46.