Hyde Hall
Nothing seemed more delightful to the first proprietor of Hyde Hall than thus to sit in company with congenial men at the flowing bowl; to begin in the enjoyment of rational conversation; to discuss literature and art and statecraft; to warm up to the telling of rare stories and the singing of good songs; and, in the end, to get his guests, or a portion of them, "under the table." On this occasion, after partaking of the viands and good cheer, the guests left the table in the early part of the evening, and repaired to the plateau in front of the house, where some of them ran foot-races in the dark, with no great credit to themselves as pedestrians. As they were going back into the house, one of the guests stumbled and fell into the hall, where he lay for some time, obstructing the closing of the outer door. One of the servants came to Clarke, who had retired for the night, and asked what he should do with the large gentleman who had fallen in the doorway, and was unable to rise. "Drag him in, and put him under the table" was the order which was immediately complied with, and under the table the fallen guest remained until morning.
The builder of Hyde Hall died in 1835, and his only American born son, George Clarke, succeeded him in his American estate, thus becoming at the age of twenty-one years the largest landed proprietor in the State of New York. The patents which he held included 1,000 acres in Fulton county, 6,000 acres in Dutchess county, 7,000 acres in Oneida, 12,000 in Montgomery, besides 16,000 acres in Otsego county, and a valuable tract in Greene county including one-half of the village of Catskill. George Clarke married Anna Maria Gregory, daughter of Dudley S. Gregory, the wealthiest man in Jersey City, and their married life was begun in great prosperity, with a town house on Fifth Avenue in New York, in addition to the country-seat on Otsego Lake.
Clarke had three span of fast horses, and was a familiar figure in Cooperstown when he drove to service at Christ Church every Sunday, and frequently came to the village for the transaction of business, or to meet his friends, making nothing of the seven mile drive from his home.
In his younger days Clarke was quite celebrated as a beau and dandy, and at one time was said to be the best dressed man in New York; but in his later years he became notorious for his carelessness of attire, and few of his tenants wore a cheaper costume. In this matter he was indifferent to public opinion, and went about looking like an old-fashioned farmer. In winter he covered himself with a buffalo coat that had areas of bare hide worn through the fur; in summer his favorite habiliment was a linen duster. For Fifth Avenue in New York he dressed in the same clothes that served him in Cooperstown. When his friends ventured to remonstrate, he put them off by saying that dress was a matter of indifference alike in city or country. "In Cooperstown," said he, "everybody knows me; in New York nobody knows me." When he had become accustomed to a suit of clothes, he was as loath to change them as to alter his friendships or politics. As he was plain in dress, so he was simple and abstemious in habits of life. His bare living probably cost as little as that of any working-man in the country.
George Clarke had an insatiable land-hunger. In looking after his wide estates he allowed the Hyde Hall Property to become dilapidated, and mortgaged the land that he owned to buy more. His land gave him great yields of hops at the height of that industry in Otsego, but he was always inclined to buy more hops rather than to sell. Little by little, mortgages were foreclosed; Hyde Hall fell into decay; and in 1889 George Clarke died insolvent.
Mrs. Clarke, in her youth, was said to be one of the most beautiful women of her day. Those who knew her in later years can testify to an abiding charm of personality which time could never efface. Hyde Hall in summer she loved, but always the most perfect place in the world to her was Monte Carlo, and there for many years she passed the winter, becoming at last the oldest member of the American colony, having crossed the ocean thirty times from America to Southern France. An old lady tireless of life and all its activities, sprightly in manner, brilliant in conversation, graceful in gesture, gay in dress, decked in jewelry that scintillated with her quick motions, shod in tiny, high-heeled slippers that clicked the measure of an alert step, and sometimes permitted a flash of bright silk stockings; a lover of life and gaiety and beauty to whom Monte Carlo seemed the most homelike spot on earth—her reign as mistress in her younger days gave a color of its own to the story of Hyde Hall.
When George Clarke died in 1889, his son, George Hyde Clarke, having been graduated at the Columbia Law School, had for several years made his home at Hyde Hall, and had restored the place to something like its original condition. He married Mary Gale Carter, granddaughter of William Holt Averell of Cooperstown, and it was through her inheritance that the old home was saved to the family.