[69] James Fenimore Cooper, by Mary E. Phillips, p. 15.
[70] Reminiscences, Elihu Phinney, 1890.
[71] A few Omitted Leaves in the History of Cooperstown, G. Pomeroy Keese, 1907.
CHAPTER VII
HOMES AND GOSSIP OF OTHER DAYS
Early in the century activities were renewed, just across the river from Cooperstown, in the development of what was known as the Bowers Patent, originally owned by John R. Myer of New York, whose daughter became the wife of Henry Bowers. For some years after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Bowers lived at Brighton, near Boston, in a residence that was one of the finest relics of Colonial days, commanding a fine view of Boston, Cambridge, Charleston, and the bay, with its numerous islands. They afterward removed to New York City, and Henry Bowers made journeys thence to the Otsego region, where a settlement had been commenced in Middlefield, then called Newtown Martin,[72] some years before the founding of Cooperstown.
In 1791, Henry Bowers surveyed and laid out a proposed village of "Bowerstown," across the river from Cooperstown. It was to extend from the Susquehanna to the base of the hill on the east, and from the lake to a point about 1,000 feet south. The projected village never became a reality, although the name is perpetuated by the present hamlet of Bowerstown, which still flourishes about a mile to the south, on a site that was once included in the Bowers Patent, where a saw-mill was erected on Red Creek in 1791, the first in this part of the country. A modern saw-mill now occupies the same site.
The residences across the river are all in the town of Middlefield, but the village of Cooperstown has extended its corporate limits to include some of them, and virtually claims them all.