CHAPTER II

At Mill IslandC. F. ZabriskieAt Mill Island

C. F. Zabriskie

At Mill Island

"The leader and patriarch of the party," says Miss Cooper, "was a Methodist minister—the Rev. Mr. Kunkerpott. He was notwithstanding a full-blooded Indian, with the regular copper-colored complexion, and high cheek bones; the outline of his face was decidedly Roman, and his long, gray hair had a wave which is rare amonghis people; his mouth, where the savage expression is usually most strongly marked, was small, with a kindly expression about it. Altogether he was a strange mixture of the Methodist preacher and the Indian patriarch. His son was much more savage than himself in appearance—a silent, cold-looking man; and the grandson, a boy of ten or twelve, was one of the most uncouth, impish-looking creatures we ever beheld. He wore a long-tailed coat twice too large for him, with boots of the same size. The child's face was very wild, and he was bareheaded, with an unusual quantity of long, black hair streaming about his head and shoulders. While the grandfather was conversing about old times, the boy diverted himself by twirling around on one leg, a feat which would have seemed almost impossible, booted as he was, but which he nevertheless accomplished with remarkable dexterity, spinning round and round, his arms extended, his large black eyes staring stupidly before him, his mouth open, and his long hair flying in every direction, as wild a looking creature as one could wish to see."

After the period of which Miss Cooper writes, Indians were even more rarely seen in Cooperstown, and their visits soon ceased altogether. It is a far cry from the Chingachgook and Uncas whom Fenimore Cooper imagined to the Rev. Mr. Kunkerpott and other Indians whom his daughter saw and described. So much so that Cooper has been accused of creating, in his novels, a sort of Indians which never existed either here or elsewhere. There is no doubt, however, thathe studied carefully such Indians as were in his day to be found, and had some basis of fact for the qualities which he imparted to the Indians of his imagination. Miss Cooper says that her father followed Indian delegations from town to town, observing them carefully, conversing with them freely, and was impressed "with the vein of poetry and of laconic eloquence marking their brief speeches."

Brander Matthews says that if there is any lack of faithfulness in Cooper's presentation of the Indian character, it is due to the fact that he was a romancer, and therefore an optimist, bent on making the best of things. He told the truth as he saw it, and nothing but the truth; but he did not tell the whole truth. Here Cooper was akin to Scott, who chose to dwell only on the bright side of chivalry, and to picture the merry England of Richard Lionheart as a pleasanter period to live in than it could have been in reality. Cooper's red men are probably closer to the actual facts than Scott's black knights and white ladies.[15]

Cooper himself comes to the defense of his Indians in the preface of theLeather-Stocking Tales. "It is the privilege of all writers of fiction," he declares, "more particularly when their works aspire to the elevation of romances, to present thebeau-idealof their characters to the reader. This it is which constitutes poetry, and to suppose that the red man is to be represented only in the squalid misery or in the degraded moral state thatcertainly more or less belongs to his condition, is, we apprehend, taking a very narrow view of an author's privileges. Such criticism would have deprived the world of even Homer."

Our early history has been less sympathetic toward the Indian. The story of the massacre which occurred at Cherry Valley, not many miles from Cooperstown, in 1778, although the Tories who took part in it were quite as savage as their Indian allies, has made memorable the darker side of Indian character. But although many innocent victims were exacted by his revenge both here and elsewhere, it was not without cause that the Indian resorted to bloody measures against the whites. Americans of to-day can well afford a generous appreciation of the once powerful race who were their predecessors in sovereignty on this continent. The league of the Iroquois is no more, but in the Empire State of the American Republic the scene of their ancient Indian empire remains. It is left for the white man to commemorate the Indian who made no effort to perpetuate memorials of himself, erected no boastful monuments, and carved no inscriptions to record his many conquests. Having gained great wealth by developing the resources of a land which the Indians used only as hunting grounds, the white man may none the less appreciate the lofty qualities of a race of men who, just because they felt no lust of riches, never emerged from the hunter state, but found the joy of life amid primeval forests.

The League of the Iroquois has had a strangehistory, which is part of the history of America—a history which left no record, except by chance, of a government that had no archives, an empire that had no throne, a language that had no books, a citizenship without a city, a religion that had no temple except that which the Great Spirit created in the beginning.

FOOTNOTES:[1]Poe.Works, "William W. Lord," Vol. vii, p. 217 (Amontillado Ed). Edmund Clarence Stedman, in hisPoets of America, p. 41, 123, champions Lord.[2]Notes on the Iroquois, Henry R. Schoolcraft, Chap. vi.[3]Major J. W. Powell,The Forum, January, 1890.[4]Lewis H. Morgan's map, 1851, in theLeague of the Iroquois.[5]From Fernleigh garden, near the river, 1895.[6]These opinions are quoted from a communication kindly written by Willard E. Yager, of Oneonta.[7]Ote-sa-ga was probably derived, by transposition very common in like case, from the first map name of Ostega (Ostaga), 1770-1775. Dr. Beauchamp sought to derive this from "otsta," a word for which Schoolcraft was his authority, and which was supposed to be Oneida for "rock," the Mohawk form "otsteara." But Schoolcraft, as Beauchamp himself elsewhere shows (Indian Names, p. 6), sometimes took liberties with original Indian forms of words. The Mohawk word for "rock" is "ostenra"; the Oneida would be "ostela." The first with the locative terminal "ga," gives "ostenraga"; the second, "ostelaga." Both are far removed from "Ostaga." Ostaga is more naturally derived from the Mohawk "otsata," or "osata," both which forms occur in Bruyas. Otsataga, by elision, readily becomes Otstaga, and again Ostaga. The change is even simpler with Osataga. The meaning of Ostaga, thus explained, would be "place of cloud," by extension "place of storm"—in contrast, perhaps, with the little lakes, which werewaiontha, "calm." (Bruyas, 64).—Willard E. Yager.[8]League of the Iroquois, Lewis H. Morgan, Lloyd's Ed., Vol. I, p. 93.[9]Yager.[10]The Old New York Frontier, Francis W. Halsey, 16.League of the Iroquois, II. 227.[11]League of the Iroquois, I. 87.[12]do., I. 249-251.[13]The Old New York Frontier, 150.[14]The Old New York Frontier, 75, 160.[15]Address at the Cooperstown Centennial.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]Poe.Works, "William W. Lord," Vol. vii, p. 217 (Amontillado Ed). Edmund Clarence Stedman, in hisPoets of America, p. 41, 123, champions Lord.

[2]Notes on the Iroquois, Henry R. Schoolcraft, Chap. vi.

[3]Major J. W. Powell,The Forum, January, 1890.

[4]Lewis H. Morgan's map, 1851, in theLeague of the Iroquois.

[5]From Fernleigh garden, near the river, 1895.

[6]These opinions are quoted from a communication kindly written by Willard E. Yager, of Oneonta.

[7]Ote-sa-ga was probably derived, by transposition very common in like case, from the first map name of Ostega (Ostaga), 1770-1775. Dr. Beauchamp sought to derive this from "otsta," a word for which Schoolcraft was his authority, and which was supposed to be Oneida for "rock," the Mohawk form "otsteara." But Schoolcraft, as Beauchamp himself elsewhere shows (Indian Names, p. 6), sometimes took liberties with original Indian forms of words. The Mohawk word for "rock" is "ostenra"; the Oneida would be "ostela." The first with the locative terminal "ga," gives "ostenraga"; the second, "ostelaga." Both are far removed from "Ostaga." Ostaga is more naturally derived from the Mohawk "otsata," or "osata," both which forms occur in Bruyas. Otsataga, by elision, readily becomes Otstaga, and again Ostaga. The change is even simpler with Osataga. The meaning of Ostaga, thus explained, would be "place of cloud," by extension "place of storm"—in contrast, perhaps, with the little lakes, which werewaiontha, "calm." (Bruyas, 64).—Willard E. Yager.

[8]League of the Iroquois, Lewis H. Morgan, Lloyd's Ed., Vol. I, p. 93.

[9]Yager.

[10]The Old New York Frontier, Francis W. Halsey, 16.League of the Iroquois, II. 227.

[11]League of the Iroquois, I. 87.

[12]do., I. 249-251.

[13]The Old New York Frontier, 150.

[14]The Old New York Frontier, 75, 160.

[15]Address at the Cooperstown Centennial.

Within six years after Hendrik Hudson sailed up the river which bears his name, and some five years before the Pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth, the first white men looked upon Otsego Lake, and saw the wooded shore upon which Cooperstown now stands. It was in 1614, or in the year following, that two Dutchmen set out from Fort Orange (Albany) to explore the fur country, and crossing from the Mohawk to Otsego Lake, proceeded down the Susquehanna.[16]From this time, first under the Dutch, then under English rule, traders came frequently to the foot of Otsego Lake. Soon after the traders, Christian missionaries ventured into the wilderness, ministering at first chiefly to the Indians. Later came the first settlers.

That the influence of traders was not always helpful to Christian missionaries is illustrated by an incident in the missionary journey of the Rev. Gideon Hawley, a Presbyterian divine, who, with some zealous companions, came from New England to preach to the Indians of theSusquehanna in 1753. They reached the river at a point where was a small Indian settlement near the present village of Colliers, seventeen miles below Cooperstown. Here they were joined by a trader named George Winedecker, who had come down from Otsego Lake with a boat-load of goods, including rum, to supply the Indian villages down the river. During the night the red men, full of Winedecker's rum, became embroiled in a murderous orgy. The missionaries were awakened by the howling of the Indians over their dead, and in the morning saw Indian women skulking in the bushes, hiding guns and hatchets, for fear of the intoxicated Indians who were drinking deeper. "Here, in one party, were missionaries with the Bible and a trader with the rum—the two gifts of the white man to the Indian."[17]

Susquehanna lands were first conveyed to white men by the Indians in 1684 as a part of a treaty of alliance with the English, although the Indians retained the right to live and hunt on the river. The granting of land titles by the Provincial government began not long afterward.[18]The first recorded patent on Otsego Lake was obtained in 1740 by John J. Petrie at the northern end. John Groesbeck, an officer of the court of chancery, acquired in 1741 a patent lying northeast of the lake, including what afterward became the Clarke property and the site of Hyde Hall. Nearly the whole east side of the lake, with the presentLakelands tract just east of the Susquehanna at its source, was covered by the patent which Godfrey Miller obtained in 1761, and upon which, according to the journal of Richard Smith, twelve persons were resident eight years later.[19]

Early in the eighteenth century it is probable that traders were from time to time resident at the foot of Otsego, but the first attempt toward a permanent settlement on the present site of Cooperstown was made by John Christopher Hartwick in 1761. In that year Hartwick obtained from the Provincial government a patent to the lands which, southwest of Cooperstown, still perpetuate his name, and began a settlement at the foot of Otsego Lake under the misapprehension that the site was included in his patent. It was not long before Hartwick discovered his error, and withdrew to the proper limits of his tract, but this attempt to found a village upon the spot which William Cooper afterward selected connects with the history of Cooperstown a unique character and memorable name.

Hartwick, who was born in Germany in 1714, came to America at about thirty years of age as a missionary preacher, and in his time was as famous for his eccentricities, as he afterward became for his pious benefactions. He held some settled charges, but, except for twelve years at Rhinebeck, he seems for the most part to have been a wandering preacher, and the records of his pastorates extend from Philadelphia to Boston,and from Virginia and Maryland to the distant coast of Maine.

If Hartwick would not be long tied down to a settled pastorate, he was even more fearful of matrimonial bondage, and shunned women as a plague. It was not an uncommon thing for him, if he saw that he was about to meet a woman in the road, to cross over, or even to leap a fence, in order to avoid her. On one occasion when he was disturbed in preaching by the presence of a dog, he exclaimed with much earnestness that dogs and children had better be kept at home, and it would not be much matter, he added, if the women were kept there too![20]Seeking shelter one night at a log hut not far from the present Hartwick village, he was cheerfully received by the occupants, a man and his wife, who gave up to their guest the one bed in the only bedroom, and stretched themselves for the night upon the floor before the kitchen fire. The night grew bitter cold, and the wife, awaking, bethought her of the guest, whether he might not be too lightly covered. She went silently to his room, and spread upon his bed a part of her simple wardrobe. Hartwick promptly arose, dressed himself, made his way out of the house to the stable, saddled his horse, and rode away in the darkness.

His contemporaries agree in representing Hartwick as slovenly in his habits, often preaching in his blanket coat, and not always with the cleanestlinen; eccentric in his manners, curt, and at times irritable in his intercourse with others—an exceedingly undesirable addition to the social and domestic circle, so that his hosts were accustomed to tell him plainly, at the beginning of a visit, "You may stay here so many days, and then you must go."[21]In some quarters his visits were dreaded because of his excessively long prayers at family worship.[22]

One may dwell without malice upon the eccentricities of this singular man, for they are qualities that set him forth from his more staid contemporaries, without detracting from the virtues which gave permanence to his work. Hartwick was a lover of God and men. Although rough and unpolished, he was a man of learning, being well versed in theology, and as familiar with the Latin language as with his own.

The great purpose of Hartwick's career was the founding of a community for the promotion of religion and education, the building in the wilderness of a Christian city whose halls of learning should influence the coming ages. The roving life that brought Hartwick into contact with the Indians awakened his desire to Christianize and educate them, and the influence which he gained among them opened the way, through the acquirement of land, for the carrying out of his favorite project. The patent that he obtained from the Provincial government in 1761 covered a tract of land, substantially the present town ofHartwick, which he had purchased from the Indians for one hundred pounds in 1754. In settling the land Hartwick required each tenant to agree to a condition in the lease by which the tenant became Hartwick's parishioner, and acknowledged the authority of Hartwick, or his substitute, as "pastor, teacher, and spiritual counsellor." Owing to his desultory business methods and the weight of advancing years, Hartwick after a time found himself unequal to the management of this estate, and in 1791 William Cooper, the founder of Cooperstown, became his agent, with authority to dispose of the property to tenants. By this arrangement Hartwick was cut off from his original design of being the spiritual director of his tenants, and came to the end of his life without building the city of which he dreamed.

Hartwick's last will and testament, however, shows that he never abandoned his design, but determined that it should be carried out after his death. The will is one of the most curious documents ever penned, a mixture of autobiography, piety, and contempt of legal form. A lawyer to whom he submitted it pronounced it "legally defective in every page, and almost in every sentence." But Hartwick's only amendment of it was to add a perplexing codicil to seven other codicils which already had been appended.[23]The will provides for the laying out of a regular town, closely built, to be called the New Jerusalem, with buildings and hall for a seminary.

Hartwick died in 1796, in his eighty-third year. The task of administering the estate according to the will was found to be almost hopeless. The executors, aided by a special act of legislature, set about to carry out its evident spirit. Preliminary to the establishment of a seminary, the executors sent the Rev. John Frederick Ernst, a Lutheran minister, to Hartwick patent, to preach to the inhabitants, and to assist in the education of their youth. In connection with this work Mr. Ernst came to Cooperstown in 1799, held religious services in the old Academy, on the present site of the Universalist church, and had some youngsters of the village under his instruction. His descendants lived in Cooperstown for more than a century after him.

The main building of Hartwick Seminary was erected in 1812, at the present site, near the bank of the Susquehanna River, about five miles southward of Cooperstown, and some four miles eastward from Hartwick village. The school was opened in 1815, and received from the legislature a charter in 1816. It is the oldest theological school in the State of New York, and the oldest Lutheran theological seminary in America. In addition to being a theological school, Hartwick Seminary is now devoted to general education, and includes among its pupils not only boys, but, in spite of the prejudice of its founder, young women.

Among the original trustees named in the charter of Hartwick Seminary was the Rev. DanielNash, the first rector of Christ Church, Cooperstown. Judge Samuel Nelson, and Col. John H. Prentiss, of Cooperstown, were afterward trustees for many years, and in their time there was among the people of this village a lively interest in Hartwick Seminary, the literary exercises at the end of each scholastic year being largely attended by visitors from Cooperstown. It is significant of the close relation which formerly existed between the two villages that the street which runs westward from the Presbyterian church in Cooperstown, now called Elm Street, was at one time known to the inhabitants as "the Hartwick Road."

Local history has wronged[24]the memory of John Christopher Hartwick by the oft repeated statement that he committed suicide. It is true that a man named Christianus Hartwick took his own life in 1800, and that his grave lies in Hinman Hollow, only a few miles from Hartwick Seminary. But John Christopher Hartwick, after whom the town and seminary are named, died a natural death at Clermont, N. Y., four years before the suicide.

A wanderer in life, Hartwick after his death was long in quest of a peaceful grave. His remains were first buried in the graveyard of the Lutheran church in East Camp. Two years later, in accordance with the wish expressed in Hartwick's will, the body was removed and entombed beneath the pulpit of Ebenezer church,at the corner of Pine and Lodge streets, in Albany, deposited in a stone coffin, secured by brickwork, and covered with an inscribed slab of marble. In 1869, when the church was rebuilt, the body was removed to the public cemetery in Albany. When this cemetery was converted into Washington Park, Hartwick's body was transferred to the lot of the First Lutheran church in the Albany Rural Cemetery on the Troy road, where his dust is now contained in an unknown and forgotten grave. The board of trustees of Hartwick Seminary afterward ordered that Hartwick's remains should be disinterred and brought for burial to the town to which he gave his name, but the remains could not be found.

The marble slab that once covered the body of Hartwick in Ebenezer church lay for many years beneath the basement floor of the First Lutheran church, which succeeded the older building. In 1913 this relic of Hartwick's sepulchre was sent to the seminary which he founded, where it occupies once more a place of honor. Besides Hartwick's name, and the record of his birth and death, the marble bears, inscribed in German, this sentiment:

Man's life, in its appointed limit,Is seventy, is eighty years;But care and grief and anguish dim it,However joyous it appears.The winged moments swiftly flee,And bear us to eternity.

The village of Hartwick is distantly connected with another religious movement which thefounder of Hartwick Seminary would have viewed with the utmost abhorrence. In 1820, and for several years thereafter, first in the house of John Davison, and afterward in Jerome Clark's attic, lay an old trunk containing the closely handwritten pages of a romance entitledThe Manuscript Found, by the Rev. Solomon Spaulding. This was written in 1812, in Conneaut, Ashtabula county, Ohio, where the exploration of earth mounds containing skeletons and other relics fired Spaulding's imagination, and suggested the character of his tale. It was written in Biblical style, and for the purpose of the romance was presented as a translation from hieroglyphical writing upon metal plates exhumed from a mound, to which the author had been guided by a vision. It purported to be a history of the peopling of America by the lost tribes of Israel. Spaulding frequently read the manuscript to circles of admiring friends, and afterward carried it to Pittsburgh, leaving it, in the hope of having it published, in the care of a printer named Patterson. The manuscript was finally rejected. Spaulding died, and in 1820 his widow married John Davison of Hartwick, to which place the old trunk containing her first husband's manuscript was sent.

In 1823 Joseph Smith gave out that he had been directed in a vision to a hill near Palmyra, New York, where he discovered some gold plates curiously inscribed, and containing a new revelation. This supposed revelation he published in 1830 as the "Book of Mormon."

Mormonism flourished and moved westward.In the course of time a Mormon meeting was held in Conneaut, Ohio, and out of curiosity was largely attended by the townspeople. Some readings were given from the Book of Mormon, and certain of the hearers were astonished at the similarity between Joseph Smith's book andThe Manuscript Found, which Solomon Spaulding had read aloud to friends in the same town many years before. They recognized the same peculiar names, unheard of elsewhere, such as Mormon, Maroni, Lamenite, and Nephi. It was learned, it is said, that Smith had closely followed Spaulding's story, adding only his own peculiar tenets about marriage, and inventing the theory of the great spectacles by means of which he professed to have deciphered the mysterious characters.

Spaulding's friends raised a question which has never been cleared up and was at last forgotten. It was pointed out that Sidney Rigdon, who figured as a preacher and as an adviser of Smith among the first of the "Latter Day Saints," happened to have been an employé in Patterson's printing office in Pittsburgh during the very period when Spaulding's manuscript was there awaiting approval or rejection. But the matter was never brought to a definite issue, and nothing more came of it except a rather curious episode. Mrs. Davison removed from Hartwick about 1828, leaving the trunk in charge of Jerome Clark. In 1834 a man named Hurlburt sought Mrs. Davison, and said that he had been sent by a committee to procureThe Manuscript Found, written by SolomonSpaulding, so as to compare it with the Mormon Bible. He presented a letter from her brother, William H. Sabine, of Onondaga Valley, upon whose farm Joseph Smith had been an employé, requesting her to lend the manuscript to Hurlburt, in order "to uproot this Mormon fraud." Hurlburt represented that he himself had been a convert to Mormonism, but had given it up, and wished to expose its wickedness. On Hurlburt's repeated promise to return the work, Mrs. Davison gave him a note addressed to Jerome Clark of Hartwick, requesting him to open the old trunk and deliver the manuscript. This was done. Hurlburt took the manuscript, and not only did he never return it, but he never replied to any of the many letters requesting its return. The Spaulding manuscript has utterly disappeared.[25]

The year 1768 brings another unique personage into the field of our local history. In that year the English met the Indians at Fort Stanwix (Rome, Oneida county) in a conference which resulted in establishing a formally acknowledged boundary between the territory of the red men and the land which the colonists had begun to make their own. The lands of the upper Susquehanna thus became, prior to the Revolution, the extreme western frontier of old New York, and Otsego Lake was included within English territory by a margin, at the west, of about twenty miles. Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, conducted the negotiations, andthe securing of the Fort Stanwix deed was one of the most astute accomplishments of his long career.

An interested party to these proceedings was Sir William's deputy agent for Indian affairs, Colonel George Croghan, who had accompanied him to the conference. Nearly twenty years before, Croghan had obtained from the Indians a tract of land near Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), in Pennsylvania. During this Fort Stanwix conference which established the new frontier Croghan succeeded in getting confirmation of the former grant, with the privilege of making an exchange for a tract of equal extent in the region now ceded to the English. Under this agreement Croghan and certain associates afterward took up 100,000 acres of land in what are now Otsego, Burlington, and New Lisbon townships, Otsego county.[26]And so it came about that in the next year, 1769, Colonel George Croghan came to the foot of Otsego Lake, built him a hut, and was the first settler on the present site of Cooperstown.

The story of the fortune and failure of Croghan, who was a remarkable and picturesque character, reads like a romance. He so far surpassed all men of his time in genius for commerce with the Indians, and in skillful marketing of Indian products, that Hanna calls him "The King of the Traders." Lavish in his expenditures, big in his ventures, he made and lost fortunes with equal facility. He alternated between the heightof opulence and the verge of bankruptcy. Like Sir William Johnson, Croghan had a special aptitude for making friendships with the Indians, so that, according to his own statement, "he was in such favor and confidence with the councils of the Six Nations that he was, in the year 1746, admitted by them as a Councillor into the Onondaga Councill, which is the Supreme Councill of the Six Nations. He understands the Language of the Six Nations and of several other of the Indian nations."[27]

Long before the sojourn in Otsego, Croghan had become, during his fits of prosperity, a power in the Pennsylvania region, and probably deserved the pungently qualified praise of Hassler, who, in hisOld Westmoreland, declares that "the man of most influence in this community [Fort Pitt, or Pittsburgh] was the fat old Trader and Indian-Agent, Colonel George Croghan, who lived on a pretentious plantation about four miles up the Allegheny River—an Irishman by birth and an Episcopalian by religion, when he permitted religion to trouble him."

Two documents relating to Croghan illustrate his extremes of fortune; the one a petition to protect him against imprisonment for debt, the other a complaint against him as a monopolist of the fur trade. It seems that in 1755 Croghan had been compelled by impending bankruptcy and fear of the debtor's prison to remove from settled parts of Pennsylvania, and to take refuge in theIndian country. Here he was in great danger from the French and their Indians, but wrote to the Governor of Pennsylvania that he was more afraid of imprisonment for debt than of losing his scalp. At a meeting of the Pennsylvania Assembly in November, 1755, fifteen creditors of Croghan presented a petition that Croghan and his partner, William Trent, be rendered free from debt for a space of ten years. The petition recited that there should be taken into consideration "the great knowledge of said George Croghan in Indian affairs, his extensive influence among them, and the service and public utility he may be of to this Province in these respects."[28]In accordance with this petition a bill was passed by which Croghan was freed from the danger of arrest for debt, and, although the act was vetoed by King George II three years later, Croghan evidently made profitable use of his liberty.

On July 9, 1759, less than four years after Croghan so narrowly escaped the debtor's prison, a complaint from Philadelphia was addressed to the Governor of Pennsylvania protesting against Croghan's policy of crushing competitors in the trade with Indians by a control of prices in skins and peltry.[29]The complaint was signed by the eight Provincial Commissioners for the Indian Trade newly appointed by the Assembly, including Edward Pennington, the celebrated Quaker merchant of Philadelphia; Thomas Willing, afterwarda member of the Continental Congress, and the first president of the Bank of North America, the earliest chartered in the country; and William Fisher, who was mayor of Philadelphia just before the Revolution. Such formidable opposition shows that Croghan, from being an object of pity to his creditors, had risen to affluence as the head of a "trust."

Owing to his business methods, some of the Quakers were not well disposed toward Croghan. At a conference with the Delawares and Six Nations held at Easton, in 1758, one of the Quakers present wrote home an account of the proceedings in a tone not favorable to Croghan. "He treats them [the Indians] with liquor," wrote the Quaker, "and gives out that he himself is an Indian.... At the close of the conference one Nichos, a Mohawk, made a speech.... This Nichos is G. Croghan's father-in-law."

If Croghan is to be believed, however, he was opposed to giving liquor to the Indians. While arranging for this very conference he had written to Secretary Richard Peters of Pennsylvania, "You'll excuse boath writing and peper, and guess at my maining, fer I have at this minnitt 20 drunken Indians about me. I shall be ruined if ye taps are not stopt."

Although Croghan had come to America in 1741, this letter, with its "guess at my maining," and another in which he has "lase" for "lease," suggest that, if his pronunciation may be judged from his spelling, he retained a rich Irish brogue. Certainly his Irish wit and good nature servedhim well in his dealing with the Indians. He was frequently useful in outwitting the French Indian-agents, and in maintaining the friendship of the red men for the English as against the French. General Bouquet, who seems to have detested Croghan, wrote to General Gage, at a time when new powers had been conferred upon Indian-agents, "It is to be regretted that powers of such importance should be trusted to a man illiterate, impudent, and ill-bred." Nevertheless, within a few months, Bouquet wrote to Gage recommending Croghan as the person most competent to negotiate with the Western Indians for British control of the French posts in the Illinois country—a mission upon which Croghan was wounded, captured, and pillaged by the Indians. In 1768 the General Assembly in Philadelphia put upon record, in a message to the Governor, a high opinion of Croghan, referring to "the eminent services he has rendered to the Nation and its Colonies in conciliating the affections of the Indians to the British interest."

At the end of a stormy voyage from America, being shipwrecked on the Norman coast, Croghan reached England in February, 1764, bearing an important letter on Indian affairs from Sir William Johnson to the Lords of Trade. One might expect to find Croghan gratified by the comforts of London life as compared with the rough hardships of America. A scout under Washington's command, a captain of Indians under Braddock, a border ranger upon the western frontier, a trader upon the banks of the Ohio, a pioneer inmany a wilderness, Croghan had seen all kinds of hard service in the twenty-three years since he left Ireland. But in the midst of metropolitan splendors he grew homesick for the wild life of the New World. Writing in March, and again in April, to American friends, he expressed his disgust with the city's pride and pomp, declared that he was sick of London and its vanities, and set forth as his chief ambition a desire to live on a little farm in America. In the autumn of the same year Croghan shipped for the long journey across the Atlantic. It is five years later that he appears at the foot of Otsego Lake, apparently in fulfillment of his desire to make a home and to be the founder of a settlement.

In 1769 Richard Smith came to the Susquehanna region from Burlington, New Jersey. The immediate purpose of his tour was to make a survey of the Otsego patent in which he, as one of the proprietors, was interested. Smith traveled up the Hudson River to Albany, thence along the Mohawk to Canajoharie, from which point his carefully kept journal[30]abounds in interesting allusions to Otsego:

"13th. May. ... Pursuing a S. W. Course for Cherry Valley [from Canajoharie]. We met, on their Return, Four Waggons, which had carried some of Col. Croghan's Goods to his Seat at the Foot of Lake Otsego.... Capt. Prevost ... is now improving his Estate at the Head of the Lake; the Capt. married Croghan's Daughter...."14th. ... Distance from Cherry Valley to Capt. Prevost's is 9 miles."15th. ... We arrived at Capt. Prevost's in 4 Hours, the Road not well cleared, but full of Stumps and rugged, thro' deep blac Mould all the Way.... Mr. Prevost has built a Log House, lined with rough Boards, of one story, on a Cove, which forms the Head of Lake Otsego. He has cleared 16 or 18 acres round his House and erected a Saw Mill. He began to settle only in May last.... The Capt. treated us elegantly. He has several Families seated near him...."16th. We proceeded in Col. Croghan's Batteau, large and sharp at each end, down the Lake,... The Water of greenish cast, denoting probable Limestone bottom; the Lake is skirted on either side with Hills covered by White Pines and the Spruce called Hemloc chiefly. We saw a Number of Ducks, some Loons, Sea-gulls, and Whitish coloured Swallows, the Water very clear so that we descried the gravelly Bottom in one Part 10 or 12 Feet down. The rest of the Lake seemed to be very deep; very little low Land is to be seen round the Lake. Mr. Croghan, Deputy to Sir William Johnson, the Superintendent for Indian Affairs, is now here, and has Carpenters and other Men at Work preparing to build Two Dwelling Houses and 5 or 6 Out Houses. His Situation [on the site of the Cooper Grounds, within the present village of Cooperstown] commands a view of the whole Lake, and is in that Respect superior to Prevost's. The site is a gravelly, stiff clay, covered with towering white Pines, just where the River Susquehannah, no more than 10 or 12 yards broad, runs downward out of the Lake with a strong Current.[31]Here we found a Body of Indians, mostly from Ahquhaga,[32]come to pay their Devoirs to theCol.; some of them speak a little English.... We lodged at Col. Croghan's."23rd. ... At Col. Croghan's ... being rainy, we staid here all day."24th. It rained again. The Elevated Hills of this country seem to intercept the flying vapors and draw down more moisture than more humble places.... With 3 carpenters felled a white Pine Tree and began a Canoe.... Some Trout were caught this Morng. 22 Inches long; they are spotted like ours with Yellow Bellies, yellow flesh when boiled & wide mouths. There are Two species, the Common & the Salmon Trout. Some Chubs were likewise taken, above a Foot in length. The other Fish common in the Lake & other Waters, according to Information, are Pickerel, large and shaped like a Pike, Red Perch, Catfish reported to be upwards of Two feet long, Eels, Suckers, Pike, a few shad and some other Sorts not as yet perfectly known. The Bait now used is Pidgeon's Flesh or Guts, for Worms are scarce. The Land Frogs or Toads are very large, spotted with green and yellow, Bears and Deer are Common.... Muscetoes & Gnats are now troublesome. We observed a natural Strawberry Patch before Croghan's Door which is at present in bloom, we found the Ground Squirrels and small red squirrels very numerous and I approached near to one Rabbit whose Face appeared of a blac Colour."25th. We finished and launched our Canoe into the Lake. She is 32 feet 7 inches in Length and 2 Feet 4 inches broad...."27th. ... We engaged Joseph Brant, the Mohawk, to go down with us to Aquahga. Last night a drunken Indian came and kissed Col. Croghan and me very joyously. Here are Natives of different Nations almost continually. They visit the Deputy Superintendent as Dogs to the Bone, for what they can get...."We found many petrified Shells in these Parts, & sometimes on the Tops of High Hills.... Col. Croghan showed us a piece of Copper Ore, as supposed. The Indian who gave it to him said he found it on our Tract.... Col. C says that some of his Cows were out in the Woods all last Winter without Hay, and they now look well...."The Col. had a Cargo of Goods arrived to-day, such as Hogs, Poultry, Crockery ware, and Glass. The settled Indian Wages here are 4s a Day, York Currency, being Half a Dollar."28th. Sunday. I had an Opportunity of inspecting the Bark Canoes often used by the Natives; these Boats are constructed of a single sheet of Bark, stripped from the Elm, Hiccory, or Chesnut, 12 or 14 Feet long, and 3 or 4 Feet broad, and sharp at each End, and these sewed with thongs of the same Bark. In Lieu of a Gunnel, they have a small Pole fastned with Thongs, sticks across & Ribs of Bark, and they deposit Sheets of Bark in her Bottom to prevent Breaches there. These vessels are very light, each broken and often patched with Pieces of Bark as well as corked with Oakum composed of pounded Bark."The Col. talks of building a Saw Mill and Grist Mill here on the Susquehannah, near his House, and has had a Millwright to view the Spot."29th. Myself, with Joseph Brant, his wife and Child, and another Young Mohawk named James, went down in the new Canoe to our upper Corner.... This River ... is full of Logs and Trees, and short, crooked Turns, and the Navigation for Canoes and Batteaux requires dexterity."

"14th. ... Distance from Cherry Valley to Capt. Prevost's is 9 miles.

"15th. ... We arrived at Capt. Prevost's in 4 Hours, the Road not well cleared, but full of Stumps and rugged, thro' deep blac Mould all the Way.... Mr. Prevost has built a Log House, lined with rough Boards, of one story, on a Cove, which forms the Head of Lake Otsego. He has cleared 16 or 18 acres round his House and erected a Saw Mill. He began to settle only in May last.... The Capt. treated us elegantly. He has several Families seated near him....

"16th. We proceeded in Col. Croghan's Batteau, large and sharp at each end, down the Lake,... The Water of greenish cast, denoting probable Limestone bottom; the Lake is skirted on either side with Hills covered by White Pines and the Spruce called Hemloc chiefly. We saw a Number of Ducks, some Loons, Sea-gulls, and Whitish coloured Swallows, the Water very clear so that we descried the gravelly Bottom in one Part 10 or 12 Feet down. The rest of the Lake seemed to be very deep; very little low Land is to be seen round the Lake. Mr. Croghan, Deputy to Sir William Johnson, the Superintendent for Indian Affairs, is now here, and has Carpenters and other Men at Work preparing to build Two Dwelling Houses and 5 or 6 Out Houses. His Situation [on the site of the Cooper Grounds, within the present village of Cooperstown] commands a view of the whole Lake, and is in that Respect superior to Prevost's. The site is a gravelly, stiff clay, covered with towering white Pines, just where the River Susquehannah, no more than 10 or 12 yards broad, runs downward out of the Lake with a strong Current.[31]Here we found a Body of Indians, mostly from Ahquhaga,[32]come to pay their Devoirs to theCol.; some of them speak a little English.... We lodged at Col. Croghan's.

"23rd. ... At Col. Croghan's ... being rainy, we staid here all day.

"24th. It rained again. The Elevated Hills of this country seem to intercept the flying vapors and draw down more moisture than more humble places.... With 3 carpenters felled a white Pine Tree and began a Canoe.... Some Trout were caught this Morng. 22 Inches long; they are spotted like ours with Yellow Bellies, yellow flesh when boiled & wide mouths. There are Two species, the Common & the Salmon Trout. Some Chubs were likewise taken, above a Foot in length. The other Fish common in the Lake & other Waters, according to Information, are Pickerel, large and shaped like a Pike, Red Perch, Catfish reported to be upwards of Two feet long, Eels, Suckers, Pike, a few shad and some other Sorts not as yet perfectly known. The Bait now used is Pidgeon's Flesh or Guts, for Worms are scarce. The Land Frogs or Toads are very large, spotted with green and yellow, Bears and Deer are Common.... Muscetoes & Gnats are now troublesome. We observed a natural Strawberry Patch before Croghan's Door which is at present in bloom, we found the Ground Squirrels and small red squirrels very numerous and I approached near to one Rabbit whose Face appeared of a blac Colour.

"25th. We finished and launched our Canoe into the Lake. She is 32 feet 7 inches in Length and 2 Feet 4 inches broad....

"27th. ... We engaged Joseph Brant, the Mohawk, to go down with us to Aquahga. Last night a drunken Indian came and kissed Col. Croghan and me very joyously. Here are Natives of different Nations almost continually. They visit the Deputy Superintendent as Dogs to the Bone, for what they can get....

"We found many petrified Shells in these Parts, & sometimes on the Tops of High Hills.... Col. Croghan showed us a piece of Copper Ore, as supposed. The Indian who gave it to him said he found it on our Tract.... Col. C says that some of his Cows were out in the Woods all last Winter without Hay, and they now look well....

"The Col. had a Cargo of Goods arrived to-day, such as Hogs, Poultry, Crockery ware, and Glass. The settled Indian Wages here are 4s a Day, York Currency, being Half a Dollar.

"28th. Sunday. I had an Opportunity of inspecting the Bark Canoes often used by the Natives; these Boats are constructed of a single sheet of Bark, stripped from the Elm, Hiccory, or Chesnut, 12 or 14 Feet long, and 3 or 4 Feet broad, and sharp at each End, and these sewed with thongs of the same Bark. In Lieu of a Gunnel, they have a small Pole fastned with Thongs, sticks across & Ribs of Bark, and they deposit Sheets of Bark in her Bottom to prevent Breaches there. These vessels are very light, each broken and often patched with Pieces of Bark as well as corked with Oakum composed of pounded Bark.

"The Col. talks of building a Saw Mill and Grist Mill here on the Susquehannah, near his House, and has had a Millwright to view the Spot.

"29th. Myself, with Joseph Brant, his wife and Child, and another Young Mohawk named James, went down in the new Canoe to our upper Corner.... This River ... is full of Logs and Trees, and short, crooked Turns, and the Navigation for Canoes and Batteaux requires dexterity."

The household which Smith visited at the foot of Otsego Lake was an interesting one, and had some remarkable connections. There was not only "the fat old trader, and Indian-agent,Colonel George Croghan," but also his Indian wife, daughter of the Mohawk chief Nichos, or Nickas, of Canajoharie. Catherine,[33]the Colonel's little daughter, then ten years old, helped her Indian mother with the household tasks, or danced in her play about the cabin door, little dreaming that she was afterward to become the third wife of Joseph Brant, the famous chieftain who had just guided Richard Smith down the Susquehanna.

Croghan's elder daughter, Susannah, who had married Captain Augustine Prevost, was the child of Croghan's first wife, a white woman. Capt. and Mrs. Prevost lived at the head of Otsego Lake, in a house where Swanswick now stands. Before the coming of Prevost, a settlement had been made here as early as 1762,[34]the earliest permanent settlement on Otsego Lake. Captain Augustine Prevost, or Major Prevost, as he afterward became, was born at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1744, and died at the age of 77 years, at Greenville, N. Y., where the Prevost mansion still stands. He was twice married, and had twenty-two children. Prevost was beloved as a bosom friend and companion by Joseph Brant, and their intimacy was interrupted, much to the Mohawk's sorrow, only when Prevost was ordered to join his regiment in Jamaica in 1772. This friendship with Croghan's son-in-law seems to have brought the famous Mohawk chieftain as a frequent visitor to Otsego Lake, and may account for his attachment and subsequent marriage to Croghan'syounger daughter. Thus is completed the circle of intimates that gathered at Croghan's hut, on the present site of Cooperstown, in 1769—the Irish trader; his Indian squaw; the British officer and his wife; the young half-Indian girl; and the Mohawk warrior whose name was to become a terror to settlers throughout the Susquehanna Valley—the same who afterward was received at court in London, who dined with Fox, Burke, and Sheridan, was lionized by Boswell, and had his portrait painted by Romney.[35]

Croghan's attempted settlement was not a success. He began to show signs of failing health and waning fortune. On July 18, 1769, he wrote from Lake Otsego to Thomas Wharton of Philadelphia, "Eight days ago I was favored with yours. I should have answered it before now, but was then lying in a violent fit of the gout, for ye first time, wh. has confin'd me to bed for 18 days, & now am only able to sit up on ye bedside." During the next winter Croghan was in New York and Philadelphia, but in March and April, 1770, he was again at Otsego, whence he wrote to Sir William Johnson concerning financial difficulties. In May he wrote of a proposed journey southward for his health and business interests.

But Croghan was never in business for his health. In October he was once more on his old plantation near Fort Pitt, where Washington, on an exploring expedition, visited him and dinedwith him. It seems that he was trying to persuade Washington to buy land of him in the West, and, according to Washington's surveyor, Captain William Crawford, was using Washington's prospective purchases as an inducement to others, at the same time not being very sure of his title, "selling any land that any person will buy of him, inside or outside of his line."

Croghan never returned to Otsego. He mortgaged his tract of land to William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin, and lost it under foreclosure in 1773. The title later passed to William Cooper and Andrew Craig, both of Burlington, New Jersey, which was also the home of Richard Smith, who had visited Croghan at Otsego.

Appended to one of Croghan's deeds is a map purporting to show the improvements which he had made at the foot of the lake, but, says Fenimore Cooper, "it is supposed that this map was made for effect." When William Cooper first visited the spot, in 1785, the only building was one of hewn logs, about fifteen feet square, probably Croghan's hut, deserted and dismantled, standing in the space now included in the Cooper Grounds, near the site of the present Clark Estate office. Except for the visit of Clinton's troops in 1779, the place had been abandoned for fifteen years. The only signs of "improvements" were seen in a few places cleared of underbrush, with felled and girdled trees, and in the remains of some log fences already falling into ruin. Silence and desolation had fallen upon "the littlefarm in America" upon which Croghan had dreamed of passing his declining years.

In an inventory of the estate of Alexander Ross of Pittsburgh, 1784, appears in the record of effects a promissory note made by George Croghan, with this appended remark: "Dead, and no Property."

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