The Story of Cooperstown

by Ralph Birdsall

Dr. Sill was a physician, but specialized in surgery, and, while he never developed any spectacular rapidity of technique, became known as one of the most capable and conscientious surgeons in central New York. He always told patients what he believed to be the exact truth, and without the untoward results which some practitioners apprehend from such a policy. A surgeon who prayed with patients just before resorting to the knife was sometimes rather disconcerting to the irreligious, but his attitude was a comfort to many in the dire distress of illness, and in all it inspired confidence in the man himself. In many an isolated farm house of Otsego the only religious ministrations came with Dr. Sill's medical attendance, and there were unnumbered cases in which his call to heal the body resulted in the regeneration of a soul.

Where patients were able to pay, Dr. Sill charged a good price for his services, but the fees were adjusted upon a sliding scale, and the amount of his professional service without pay is incalculable. In this respect he was not unlike his colleagues in a profession which probably gives more for nothing than any other, but, having independent means, he was able to go farther in this direction than most practitioners, and he counted it a pleasure to give away his time and skill without reward.

There was a tinge of Puritanism in Dr. Sill's Christianity which to some minds imported an unnecessary strictness of view, but none could quarrel with it, for he practised his austerities upon himself, not toward others. Certain precepts of the Sermon on the Mount usually interpreted in a figurative sense he took literally as rules of action. "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away" was one of these. His literal fidelity to this precept afforded him the deep satisfaction of giving aid to honest neighbors in distress; it enabled him to come to the rescue in the emergencies which sometimes face the most industrious and deserving. But also it gave him the pain of learning how many plausible persons are eager to make fair promises that mean nothing, and taught him that there are human beings to whom acts of loving-kindness are as pearls before swine. The honest man in trouble came to Dr. Sill, the drunkard to take the pledge, the sorrowful to be comforted, the desperate to be advised. But so came also the rogue, and the wheedling hypocrite, and all such as desired to obtain something for nothing. The doctor had a large acquaintance among unfortunate outcasts, for he regularly visited the county jail to talk and pray with its inmates. The extent to which Dr. Sill aided the worthless was a cause of grief to the judicious, but he was not really, as some supposed, the dupe of impostors. He was well aware of the probably unworthy character of many to whom he gave assistance, but there was always an element of doubt in such cases, and his theory was that it was better to aid ninety-nine humbugs than to take the risk of closing the door against one who was deserving of help.

Dr. Sill was much consulted in relation to the civic and religious welfare of the community. His conscientious habit of deciding in all things, great and small, upon the absolutely right course of action gave him an air of slowness and hesitation in manner. He would stand listening intently, without comment, to violent arguments for and against a project, turning toward each speaker the frank dark eyes that illumined his pale countenance. When it came to his decision he had a way of planting his right heel forward, and compressing his lips, which he then opened with a slight smack of determination, giving quiet utterance to his judgment. It was usually quite impossible to move him from a decision thus made, and those who misinterpreted the mildness of his manner soon learned that the man himself was adamant.

The first years of the twentieth century included an era of new buildings. Just above Leatherstocking Falls, in 1908, William E. Guy of St. Louis built and established the beautiful summer home at Leatherstocking Farm. The remains of the old grist mill at the falls were torn down, and the stones from the foundation were used in the new building.

In 1910, James Fenimore Cooper of Albany, grandson of the novelist, built Fynmere (the name being an old form of the word Fenimore) as a country residence. Its site on the hillside above the road that curves about the southern end of Mount Vision commands a superb view down the Susquehanna Valley, while the eastern windows of the house look into the heart of the ascending forest. The use of native field stone in the construction of this house is most effective, and at once gave to the residence, when fresh from the builder's hands, the air of being long habituated to the spot, and quite in harmony with the antiquities that abound in the appointments and ornamentation of the place. Within a niche of the main hall of the house is the bust of Fenimore Cooper which David d'Angers made in Paris in 1828; and embedded in the foundation of the building is the corner-stone with the original marking that Cooper carved in 1813 for the house that he built, but which was burned before he could move into it, at Fenimore. Fynmere has contributed to the revival of pleasures that belonged to an elder day in Cooperstown, for it has drawn hither large house-parties of young people to enjoy the holidays of Christmastide, to join in winter sports, and to appreciate the splendors of snow and ice in a region usually renowned only for the charm of its summer season.

From the beginning of Cooperstown's celebrity as a watering-place the hope was cherished, among the residents, that the village might include a suitable hotel overlooking the lake, and attracting visitors to linger on its shores. This dream was realized in 1909 when the O-te-sa-ga opened, having been built by Edward S. Clark and his brother Stephen C. Clark. The hotel was planned to accommodate three hundred guests, and occupies the old site of Holt-Averell, commanding a magnificent view of the full length of the lake.

Cooperstown is a village of incomparable charm. There is not the like of it in all America. It has a character of its own sufficiently distinctive to prevent it from becoming the leech-like community into which, through the slow commercializing of native self-respect, a summer resort sometimes degenerates, stupidly enduring the winter in order to batten upon the pleasures of the rich in summer. Cooperstown is old enough and wise enough to have a juster appreciation of lasting values. It has tradition and atmosphere. It is a village that rejoices in the simple virtues of life peculiar to a small community, while its fame as a summer resort annually brings its residents within reach of far influences and wide horizons.