The same incident, viewed from another angle, appears in a letter written by the Rev. John Frederick Ernst to his son in Albany, and dated at Cooperstown, October 20, 1799.
"There is nothing of any particular news here, except that a Mr. Cochran, late member of Congress, in whose place I. Cooper is now elected, came here last week, and on one of the court-days, with a great deal of brass had the impertinence to assault our honorable Wm. Cooper in the street, & to give him a Cowskinning—because, as it is reported, he should have told lies about Cochran. As both fell a clinging & beating one another Mr. Mason stepped between and parted them."
Still another account of the episode is given by Levi Beardsley. He says that the trouble arose over Cochran's use of his fiddle during a political campaign. Cochran stayed over night at Canandaigua, and when a dance was got up, he obliged and amused the company by fiddling for them. He beat Judge Cooper at the election for Congress, but whether from the influence of music and dancing it is now too late to inquire. However, it was alleged that Judge Cooper had either published or remarked that Cochran had been through the district with his violin, and had fiddled himself into office. This came to Cochran's ear and brought him from Montgomery county to Cooperstown. He came on horseback, and arrived while Judge Cooper was presiding as judge of the court of common pleas. As Cooper issued from the court house, Cochran met him, and after alluding to the election, informed the Judge that he had come from the Mohawk to chastise him for the insult. When Cooper remarked that Cochran could not be in earnest the latter replied by a cut with his cowskin. Cooper then closed with his adversary, but Cochran being a large, strong man they were pretty well matched for the scuffle. They were separated by friends, and Cochran was afterward fined a small amount for breach of the peace.[65]
At the early organization of the county there was considerable strife between Cooperstown and Cherry Valley in regard to the location of public buildings. It is said that Judge Cooper playfully remarked that the court house should be placed in Cooperstown, the jail in Newtown Martin (Middlefield), and the gallows in Cherry Valley.[66]
When Judge Cooper began holding court in Cooperstown in 1791 a number of lawyers were attracted to the county seat, the first to take up residence here being Abraham Ten Broeck of New Jersey, soon followed by Jacob G. Fonda of Schenectady. Ten Broeck was the original of Van der School, the parenthetical lawyer in The Pioneers, his compositions having been remarkable for parentheses. A year later two others of the legal profession were added to the village community, Joseph Strong, and Moss Kent, brother of the celebrated Chancellor Kent. Dr. Nathaniel Gott and Dr. Farnsworth coming at about the same time gave the villagers a choice among three physicians, Dr. Thomas Fuller being the senior in practice. The development of Cooperstown as a trading centre brought Peter Ten Broeck and several other merchants here in 1791, followed shortly afterward by Rensselaer Williams and Richard Williams of New Jersey, whose collateral descendants are still identified with the village.
The early shopkeepers of Cooperstown included some who had been engaged in more distinguished callings. A merchant who excited the most lively curiosity among the settlers was a Frenchman known as Mr. Le Quoy who kept a small grocery store in the village, and seemed to be altogether superior to such an occupation. After much speculation concerning his past the village was set agog by an incident which accidentally brought to light the story of his career. Among the early settlers in Otsego county was a French gentleman named Louis de Villers, who, in 1793, happened to be in Cooperstown at a time when a fellow countryman named Renouard, who afterward settled in the county, had recently reached the place. Renouard, who was a seaman, and an incessant user of tobacco, found himself out of his favorite weed, and his first concern was to inquire of de Villers where tobacco might be purchased in the village. De Villers directed him to the shop kept by Le Quoy, saying that he would help a compatriot by making his purchase there. In a few minutes Renouard returned from the shop, pale and agitated.
"What is it? Are you unwell?" inquired de Villers.
"In the name of God," burst out Renouard, "who is the man that sold me this tobacco?"
"Mr. Le Quoy, a countryman of ours."