Chapter 7
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.
After the death of Henry Bowers, his son, John Myer Bowers, married in 1802 Margaretta Stewart Wilson. Young Bowers was said to be the handsomest and most fascinating man in New York, and had inherited a fortune which in that day was regarded as princely. Shortly after the marriage he decided to make his residence on the Bowers Patent in Otsego, and came hither with his bride in 1803, occupying a part of the Ernst house at the northwest corner of Main and River streets, while the present house at Lakelands was under construction. The building was erected during 1804, and Mr. and Mrs. Bowers took possession in 1805. Mrs. Bowers's mother, Mrs. Wilson, made her home with them, and lived at Lakelands for a half a century. These two ladies contributed much to the life of the community, and the younger generation was fascinated by their vivid memories of the leading spirits of the Revolutionary War. Mrs. Wilson occupies a niche of fame in _The Women of the American Revolution_, by Elizabeth F. Ellet, who said of her that "her reminiscences would form a most valuable contribution to the domestic history of the Revolution." She was in Philadelphia on the day of the Declaration of Independence, and made one of a party entertained at a brilliant fête, given in honor of the event, on board the frigate Washington, at anchor in the Delaware, by Captain Reid, the commander. The magnificent brocade which she wore on this occasion, with its hooped petticoat, flowing train, laces, gimp, and flowers, remained in her wardrobe unaltered for many years. Mrs. Wilson was Martha Stewart, daughter of Col. Charles Stewart of New Jersey, who was a member of Washington's staff. At the age of seventeen she married Robert Wilson, also closely associated with Washington, and in the midst of the war she was left a widow. During the Revolution Mrs. Wilson was more favorably situated for observation and knowledge of significant movements and events than any other lady of her native state. Her father, at the head of an important department under the commander-in-chief, became familiarly acquainted with the principal officers of the army; and, headquarters being most of the time within twenty or thirty miles of her residence, she not only had constant communication in person and by letter with him, but frequently entertained at her house many of his military friends. General Washington himself, with whom she had been on terms of friendship since 1775, visited her at different times at her home in Hackettstown. Mrs. Washington also was several times the guest of Mrs. Wilson, both at her own house and at that of her father at Landsdown. Such was the liberality of Mrs. Wilson's patriotism that her gates on the public road bore in conspicuous characters the inscription, "Hospitality within to all American officers, and refreshment for their soldiers," an invitation which, on the regular route of communication between the northern and southern posts of the army, was often accepted.
The hospitality which Mrs. Wilson had the privilege of extending to illustrious guests was returned by marked attentions to her daughter and only child, on her entrance into society in Philadelphia during the presidency of Washington. Mrs. Wilson was the object of much devotion on her own account at the capital, where her appearance was thus described by a lady of Philadelphia in a letter to a friend: "Mrs. Wilson looked charmingly this evening in a Brunswick robe of striped muslin, trimmed with spotted lawn; a beautiful handkerchief gracefully arranged at her neck; her hair becomingly craped and thrown into curls under a very elegant white bonnet, with green-leafed band, worn on one side." At the same time the debutante daughter, Margaretta Wilson, became a favorite with Mrs. Washington, who distinguished her with courtesies rarely shown to persons of her age. A contemporary letter describes her appearance at a drawing-room given by the President and Mrs. Washington: "Miss Wilson looked beautifully last night. She was in full dress, yet in elegant simplicity. She wore book muslin over white mantua, trimmed with broad lace round the neck; half sleeves of the same, also trimmed with lace; with white satin sash and slippers; her hair elegantly dressed in curls, without flowers, feathers or jewelry. Mrs. Moylan told me she was the handsomest person at the drawing room, and more admired than anyone there."[73]
Such was the belle whom John Myer Bowers carried away as his bride to the wilds of Otsego, where, shortly afterward, at Lakelands, her mother also came to dwell. These two ladies, with their unusual experiences, added a new flavor to the life of Cooperstown.
Eight children born to Mr. and Mrs. Bowers at Lakelands were girls. The father's hopeful anticipations were so well known in the community that when a son and heir, Henry J. Bowers, was born at last, in 1824, the event was signalized by the ringing of the village church bells in Cooperstown, the only birthday in the region that was ever honored by such a demonstration.
John Myer Bowers, in his later years, was far from being the Beau Brummel of his youthful days in New York, and came to be known in the village as a distinct character, ruggedly determined not to yield to the infirmities of old age. When his physical strength began to fail he kept a horse constantly in harness and standing at the door of Lakelands that he might ride to and from the village. This horse, known as "Old Chap," was a familiar figure on the road in those days, and faithful to his master to the advanced age of thirty-seven years.
John M. Bowers died in the year 1846. His widow continued to occupy Lakelands until her death in 1872, and a daughter, Martha S. Bowers, continued the occupancy during her life. After the death of the latter Lakelands was sold in making division of the Bowers estate. Henry J. Bowers married in 1848 a daughter of William C. Crain, a prominent citizen of the adjoining county of Herkimer. She was a woman of large intellectual gifts and undaunted spirit, and personally undertook the education of their eldest son, John Myer Bowers, who sat on the floor before her, while the mother, book in hand, instilled into his mind the importance of the three R's, with much stress upon the principles of fidelity and loyalty as elements of success in business. At the age of sixteen years she sent him to New York to study law under one of the leading attorneys of that city. He became one of the foremost lawyers of the State, and a few years after its sale repurchased Lakelands, with its forty acres along lake and river, as his summer home. No native son of Cooperstown has had a more successful career than John M. Bowers. In 1915 he won a verdict for Theodore Roosevelt in the celebrated trial at Syracuse in which suit for libel was brought against the former President of the United States by William Barnes, the proprietor of the _Albany Evening Journal_.
A mansard roof was added to Lakelands at the period during which the property was out of the possession of the Bowers family, but the remainder of the house is of the original building, and the carved wooden doors and mantel-pieces within testify to the skill of old-time workmanship in Cooperstown. The wide stretches of lawn shaded by venerable trees, and the long sweep of lake shore commanded by Lakelands make it a charming country seat.
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In 1801 George Pomeroy, a young man of twenty-two years, arrived from Albany, and set up in business as the first druggist in the village and county. His store stood on Main Street on the site of the present Clark Gymnasium. Some of the hardships of the early settlers to which history may only allude are suggested by a sign which hung in front of the drug store of Dr. Pomeroy, as he was called. This sign depicted a hand pointing to these words: "Itch cured for 2 cts. 4 cts. 6 cts. Unguentum. Walk in."
Dr. Pomeroy had other talents beside his skill in chemistry, and soon became a popular citizen of the village, displaying one accomplishment that was perhaps not so rare then as now in being an expert in the exposition of the Bible. Dr. Pomeroy was not so absorbed in his Bible as to be indifferent to the heavenly qualities which radiated from the person of Ann Cooper, the seventeen-year-old daughter of the founder of the village, for it soon appeared that these two young people had formed a romantic attachment. In aspiring to the hand of the heiress Dr. Pomeroy could not promise to endow her with great riches, but he had a good name in being a grandson of General Seth Pomeroy who fought at Bunker Hill.
It was as a wedding gift to his daughter, on her marriage to George Pomeroy in 1804, that Judge Cooper built the old stone house which stands at the corner of Main and River streets. It was the first stone house constructed in the village, and the peculiar herring-bone style in which the stone is laid lends to this old residence a quaint and unusual charm. Under the eastern gable of the house is wrought in stone a spread eagle, with the date of the building, and the initials of the young couple who began housekeeping there. The involved order of the initials--G. A. P. C.--the master-mason, Jamie Allen,[74] explained by saying that the lives, like the initials, of the bride and groom, should be so entwined as to make their union permanent. And so it proved, for they lived in peace and harmony to a great age. The house was for many years called "Deacon Place," Dr. Pomeroy being widely known as a deacon of the Presbyterian church, but in later times it was named "Pomeroy Place."
Ten children were born to the first occupants of the old stone house, and it became one of the liveliest centres of hospitality to old and young in Cooperstown. Years afterward there were those whose mouths watered at the recollection of the dining-room in the southwest quarter of the house, where many a merry feast was held, with particularly fond memories of delicious light buckwheat cakes that came hot from the griddle through a sliding window connected with the kitchen.
As years went on Mrs. Pomeroy became famous as a pattern of good works. In days when trained nurses were unknown, in almost every family when sickness came the first call was for "Aunt Pomeroy," who was by many considered wiser than the physicians. In the course of time the surviving children born to Mr. and Mrs. Pomeroy had homes and families of their own, and the old couple were left once more alone in the old stone house. Aunt Pomeroy's favorite place for receiving her friends was in the northeast corner room of the lower floor. There she was accustomed to sit in her rocking-chair, with her book, ordinarily a volume of sermons, or her knitting, usually a shawl to be sold for the benefit of missions to the heathen. She was fond of a game of whist, and her great-grandchildren once attempted to teach her to play euchre. She was getting on very well with the new game, until an opponent took her king in the trump suit with the right bower. She threw down her cards, exclaiming, "No more of a game where a jack takes a king!" She was always ready to receive visitors, of whom there were many, except at one hour of the day, which was sacred to an ancient pact between her husband and herself. Between the hours of five and six Aunt Pomeroy withdrew to her chamber, while Deacon Pomeroy, at his store, refused himself to customers, and retired to his private office, so that each devoted the same space of time to a secluded reading of the Bible.
The old couple were not permitted to end their days in the house which had been made a kind of symbol of their married happiness, and which they had occupied for nearly half a century. Late in life, owing to financial losses, Mrs. Pomeroy was compelled to sell the property. The aged pair closed the wooden shutters at the windows, fastened the door behind them, and descended the steps of the old stone house, never to return.
Mrs. Pomeroy passed her later years at Edgewater, the home of her grandson. Her death was typical of her life of piety. On a certain afternoon seventy-five women were assembled for Lenten sewing. After greeting them all in the drawing-room Aunt Pomeroy ascended the stairs to her room, stretched herself upon the bed, and quietly drew her last breath. In accordance with the old custom the clock in the death-chamber was stopped, and a sheet was drawn over the mirror. Down stairs the rector of the parish read a prayer, and the women filed out of the house in silence.
Pomeroy Place was not permanently lost to the family for which it was originally built. When the centennial of the building was celebrated in 1904, the house had already returned to its first estate, having been purchased by the granddaughter of the original owners, Mrs. George Stone Benedict, who with her daughter, Clare Benedict, came to occupy it as their American home between journeys abroad.
Mrs. Benedict's sister, Constance Fenimore Woolson, who made many summer visits in Cooperstown, may be said to have drawn her original literary inspiration from this region, for Otsego appears in her first work, "The Haunted Lake," published in December, 1871, in _Harper's Magazine_, while Pomeroy Place itself is commemorated in one of her earliest productions, "The Old Stone House." From this period till her death in 1893 the sketches, poems, and novels that came from Miss Woolson's pen reached such a level of literary art that Edmund Clarence Stedman called her one of the leading women in the American literature of the century. Miss Woolson spent the latter years of her life in Europe, changing her residence frequently. Gracefully impulsive and independent, she had a gypsy instinct for the roving life of liberty out-of-doors; yet in character and demeanor she was so serenely poised, so self-contained, with such inviolable reserve and dignity, that she was, as Stedman put it, "like old lace."
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One of the most remarkable men of early times in Cooperstown was Elihu Phinney, publisher of the _Otsego Herald_, who had brought his presses and type here in the winter of 1795, breaking a track through the snow of the wilderness with six teams of horses. The first number of the _Otsego Herald, or Western Advertiser_, a weekly journal, appeared on the third day of April. This was the second newspaper published in the State, west of Albany, and its title shows that Cooperstown was then regarded as belonging to the far west of civilization. Like all newspapers of that period, the early files of the _Otsego Herald_ appear to the modern reader to be singularly lacking in local news, and only the rarest mention of what was going on in Cooperstown is to be found in its faded pages. There is much of the news of Europe, and the political news of America admits the printing in full of long speeches delivered in Congress, but the happenings in Cooperstown seem to have been left to the tongues of village gossips, and the advertising columns stand almost alone in reflecting the daily life of the place.
Elihu Phinney was a great favorite in the village, being a man of delightful social qualities, and distinguished for his remarkable wit and satire. His bookstore in Cooperstown furnished a large section of the country with an elemental literature, and with many historical works. A year after his arrival he was made associate judge of the county. It was in the printing office of Judge Phinney that Fenimore Cooper, when a boy, was in the habit of setting type "for fun," which experience he afterward stated was very useful to him in the oversight of the typographical production of his writings. On the overthrow of John Adams's administration Judge Phinney changed the political policy of his newspaper, _The Otsego Herald_, and became a supporter of Thomas Jefferson, in opposition to the views of his patron, Judge Cooper, who remained a Federalist. It was this breach of political friendship which brought to Cooperstown Col. John H. Prentiss, who came from the office of the _New York Evening Post_, in 1808, to conduct a newspaper in opposition to _The Otsego Herald_. Thus came into being _The Impartial Observer_, which shortly changed its name to _The Cooperstown Federalist_, and in 1828 became _The Freeman's Journal_, under which name it is still published.
Judge Phinney founded a bookselling and publishing business which, through his sons and grandsons, was carried on in Cooperstown for the better part of a century after its establishment. His place of business was on the east side of Pioneer Street, next south of the building that stands at the corner of Main Street, and the present building on the original site of their enterprise was erected by the Phinneys in 1849.
The Phinney establishment became famous for original methods of conducting business. Large wagons were ingeniously constructed to serve as locomotive bookstores. They had movable tops and counters, and their shelves were stocked with hundreds of varieties of books. Traveling agents drove these wagons to many villages where books were scarcely attainable otherwise. The Erie Canal opened even more remote fields of enterprise. The Phinneys had a canal boat fitted up as a floating bookstore, which carried a variety beyond that found in the ordinary village, anchoring in winter at one of the largest towns on the Erie Canal. Up to the year 1849, when the publishing department was moved to Buffalo, and only a bookstore remained of the Phinney enterprise in Cooperstown, their efforts had built up in this village a large publishing business, while they stocked and maintained the largest bookstores in towns as far away as Utica, Buffalo, and Detroit. As early as 1820 their stereotype foundry in Cooperstown had cast a set of plates for a quarto family Bible, one of the first ever made in the United States, and of which some 200,000 copies were printed. Later they published Fenimore Cooper's _Naval History_, Col. Stone's _Life of Brant_, several volumes by Rev. Jacob and John S. C. Abbott which were household favorites for a generation afterward, not to mention many school text-books and histories.
The occasion which caused the removal of this publishing business from the village arose out of the discontent of some workmen whose services were dispensed with when new power presses were substituted for hand-work in printing. The entire manufactory was burned at night by incendiaries in the spring of 1849.
Elihu Phinney, the founder of the business, was the originator in 1796 of _Phinney's Calendar, or Western Almanac_, which was known in every household of the region, for some three score years and ten. The weather predictions in this calendar were always gravely consulted. In one year it happened, through a typographical displacement, that snow was predicted for the fourth of July. When the glorious Fourth arrived the thermometer dropped below the freezing point, and snow actually fell, a circumstance which greatly increased the already reverent regard for Phinney's Almanac.
A quaint character who established himself in the village before the coming of Elihu Phinney was Dr. Nathaniel Gott. He was a man of fiery spirit. When Dr. Gott's patients, on being restored to health, seemed inclined to forget their indebtedness to him, he threatened them with chastisement, and published the following rhymed notice in the _Otsego Herald_:
Says Dr. Gott, I'll tell you what, I'm called on hot, All round the Ot- -Segonian plot, To pay my shot For pill and pot. If you don't trot Up to the spot, And ease my lot, You'll smell it hot.
NATHANIEL GOTT.
Dr. Gott was an eccentric. He wore short breeches, with long stockings, and always ate his meals from a wooden trencher. Among a company of village men enjoying a convivial evening at the tavern a contest of wit and satire arose between Dr. Gott and Elihu Phinney who had become warm friends. Finally it was proposed that each should compose an impromptu epitaph for the other. In the epitaph which he improvised for Judge Phinney Dr. Gott, adapting the conceit of the schoolmen, made out Judge Phinney's soul to be so small that thousands of such could dance on the point of a cambric needle. Judge Phinney retorted with the following:
Beneath this turf doth stink and rot The body of old Dr. Gott; Now earth is eased and hell is pleased, Since Satan hath his carcass seized.
Amid shouts of laughter from the onlookers, Dr. Gott, turning jest into earnest, strode from the tavern, and his friendship for Judge Phinney was ended.
The town pump stood on the north side of Main Street a few rods east of Chestnut street. Its former position is now marked by a tablet set in the sidewalk. On the corner west of the pump Daniel Olendorf kept a tavern. He was a small man, and very lame from a stiff knee. The muscles of the leg were contracted, making it considerably shorter than the other. At one time he was leading a lame horse through the street, when a little dog came following on behind, holding up one leg and limping along on the other three. The sight caused no little merriment along the street when the lame man, the lame horse, and the lame dog were seen marching in procession. Olendorf, wondering at the cause of so much amusement, looked back and saw the uninvited follower. He picked up a stone, and flung it at the dog, exclaiming, "Get along home; there is limping enough here without you, you little lame cuss, coming limping after us!"
Young James Cooper, afterward the novelist, had left the village when a young lad to be tutored by the rector of St. Peter's, Albany, and thereafter spent little of his boyhood in Cooperstown. After his uncompleted course at Yale, and a year's cruise at sea, he returned for a time, in 1807, to his village home, being then a youth of eighteen years. To this period belongs the incident of his participation in a foot-race among some of his former companions in the village. The racecourse agreed upon was around the central square, that is, beginning at the intersection of Main and Pioneer streets, at the Red Lion Inn, the runners were to go up Pioneer Street to Church Street, thence to River Street, down River Street to Main, and so back to the place of starting.
James Cooper was mentioned as one of the competitors, and his antagonist was selected. The prize was a basket of fruit. Cooper accepted the challenge, but not on even terms. It was not enough for the young sailor to outrun the landsman; he would do more. Among many spectators Cooper caught sight of a little girl. He caught her up in his arms, exclaiming, "I'll carry her with me and beat you!" Thus the race began, the little black-eyed girl clutching Cooper's shoulders. As the contestants rushed up Pioneer Street, and turned the corner where the Universalist church now stands, the amused and excited villagers saw with surprise that the sailor with his burden was keeping pace with the other flying youth. Around the square the runners turned the next two corners almost abreast. After rounding the corner of the Old Stone House, as they came up the main street toward the goal Cooper, bearing the little girl aloft, gave a burst of speed, amid wild cheers, drew away from his opponent, and won the race. The basket of fruit was his, which he distributed among the spectators, and the little girl, afterward the wife of Capt. William Wilson, long lived in the village to tell the story of her ride upon James Cooper's shoulders.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 72: The _Otsego Herald_ of Jan. 14, 1796, contained a notice of warning issued by Henry Bowers against persons who had been cutting down trees "on my patent, in Newtown Martin."]
[Footnote 73: _The Women of the Revolution_, Elizabeth F. Ellet, published in 1850, pp. 37-67.]
[Footnote 74: A skillful builder and noted character, commemorated by Fenimore Cooper in _Wyandotte, or the Hutted Knoll_.]