Main StreetMain StreetLooking west from Fair Street, 1861. The Clark Gymnasium displaces the two buildings at the left.
Main StreetLooking west from Fair Street, 1861. The Clark Gymnasium displaces the two buildings at the left.
The village had troubles of its own during the progress of the war. In the spring of 1862, a disastrous fire, the largest conflagration in the history of Cooperstown, destroyed at least a third of the business district. The fire started near the Cory stone building, which alone survived of the stores and shops in the path of the flames that spread on the north side of Main Street, and extended from the building next to the present Mohican Club as far east as Pioneer Street. The fire then crossed to the south side of Main Street, destroying the old Eagle Tavern, originally the RedLion, and burning westward as far as the present Carr's Hotel. Up Pioneer Street, on the west side the flames ate their way as far south as the Phinney residence. The buildings at the eastern corners of Main and Pioneer streets were several times on fire, and were saved only by supreme efforts of the village firemen. The survival of the Cory building was due in part to its solid stone construction, but chiefly to the efforts of two plucky men, David P. House and George Newell, who stationed themselves on the roof, and while the fire worked its way around the rear of the building, succeeded in defending their position,although so terribly scorched that for weeks afterward they went about swathed in bandages.
A few nights later the Otsego Hotel and adjacent buildings, which stood on the site of the present Village Library, were also destroyed by fire. At this conflagration, which seemed about to complete the destruction of Main Street, a woman appeared, who equalled the courage of the firemen in her defiance of the flames. She was Susan Hewes, a maiden lady who kept a milliner's shop in the little one-story building that stands on the north side of the Main Street, a short distance west of the corner of Fair Street. Emulating the example of the men who saved the Cory building, she appeared on the roof of her little shop, and presented a dramatic spectacle as she stood forth in the glare of the flames, crying out that she would save her property at the cost of her life. Fortunately the flames were checked without any such sacrifice, and Susan Hewes lived to become, more than half a century afterward, the oldest native inhabitant of the village, famous for the old-fashioned tangled garden on Pine Street, where she dwelt so long among her favorite flowers. During the Civil War period she was a marked figure in the village, for her outspoken independence in expressing sympathy for the Southern cause led to a visit of remonstrance with which a committee of leading citizens honored her in her little milliner's shop; while her refusal to submit to the dictates of fashion when the huge hoop-skirts came into vogue caused her to be gazed upon as a marvel of incompleteness in dress.
For a time Cooperstown was much depressed by the ruin which fire had wrought in the village, but, before long, a new business section began slowly to rise from the ashes of the old. West of Pioneer Street, where the Eagle Tavern had narrowed the width of the main thoroughfare to the dimensions of a mere lane, the street was now made of uniform width, and new business blocks were erected. By the close of the Civil War all signs of destruction had disappeared, and the Main street of Cooperstown, if far less picturesque than before, had assumed the appearance of brand new prosperity.
This period, in fact, marks the beginning of a gradual change in the character of Cooperstown, by which an elderly village, typical in its inherited traditions, has taken on the airs of a summer resort, and has become the residence, for a part of each year, of wealthy families whose chief interests lie elsewhere, and to whom Otsego is a playground. While much of the older character of the village remains, the contact with the outer world has had a far-reaching effect upon its inhabitants.
Some of the old-fashioned merchants were at first inclined to resent the demands made by city folk in excess of the time-honored customs of trade in Cooperstown. Seth Doubleday kept a store at the northwest corner of Main and Pioneer streets. One day a lady from the city came in airily, ordered a mackerel delivered at her summer home in the village, and was out again before Doubleday could recover his breath. Atthat period all villagers went to market with a basket, and carried their own goods home. Nobody thought of having purchases delivered by the merchant. Doubleday was enraged at what seemed to him an insolent demand, and the longer he reflected on the matter the more furious did he become. At last, leaving his shop unattended, he went in person to the customer's house to deliver the mackerel. The lady herself opened the door. Doubleday took the fish by the tail, and slapped it down vigorously upon the doorstep, exclaiming, "There, madam, is your damned three-cent mackerel, anddelivered!"
The new phase of village life may perhaps be dated from the purchase of the Apple Hill property by Edward Clark of New York, who, in 1856, made his summer home here, and after the close of the Civil War erected his mansion. The establishment of this country-seat was but the beginning of the extension of Edward Clark's estate in this region, and created a relationship to the village which his descendants have ever since continued.
"Apple Hill," as the place was called before Edward Clark's purchase, or "Fernleigh," as he renamed it, is thus a connecting link between the old and the new in Cooperstown. It has a story that brings the elder traditions of the village into touch with the newer spirit of modern enterprise.
Apple Hill was originally the property of Richard Fenimore Cooper, eldest son of the founder of the village. In the summer of 1800 he built the house which stood until displaced byFernleigh House in 1869. Fenimore Cooper described the site as "much the best within the limits of the village," no doubt with reference to the superb view of the Susquehanna which the veranda at the rear of the house commands. Richard Cooper planted the black walnut and locust trees, some of which are yet standing in front of the house at Fernleigh. To the home at Apple Hill he brought from the head of the lake as a bride, Anne Cary, who after his death became the wife of George Clarke of Hyde Hall.
From 1825 to 1828 Apple Hill was the residence of the afterward distinguished Judge Samuel Nelson, and during the next five years was owned and occupied by General John A. Dix, who had resigned from the army, and settled down in Cooperstown to practise law. His first cases were prepared in a little office that stood near the gate of the Apple Hill property. At that time it is said that he made a poor impression as a public speaker, and gave small promise of his later fame. In 1833 he became secretary of state of New York, and afterward was United States Senator. During the Civil War he raised seventeen regiments, and as Secretary of the Treasury at the outbreak of the war issued the famous order which first convinced the country that the executive government at Washington was really determined to meet force with force: "If anyone attempts to pull down the American flag, shoot him on the spot!" After the war General Dix was minister to France, and in 1872 was elected Governor of the State of New York.Among the children of General Dix who played hide-and-seek amid the trees of Apple Hill was Morgan Dix, afterward the distinguished rector of Trinity parish, New York, who in later years passed many summers in Cooperstown. It was remembered of Dr. Dix's childhood that when his mother sent him away from Cooperstown to school, being apprehensive of his safe conduct on the journey, she put him into the stage-coach completely enveloped in a green baize bag that she had made for the purpose, with nothing but the boy's head emerging from the opening which was snugly tied around his neck. Dr. Dix's last visit to Cooperstown was in 1891 when he was a guest at the Cooper House, and was driven forth, with two hundred and fifty other guests, by the fire which burned it to the ground in the early dawn of the eighth of August. This summer hotel stood within the grounds occupied by the Present High School. Its burning was a calamity to Cooperstown, for under the management of Simeon E. Crittenden it had become widely famous, and drew guests from every part of the country.
From 1833 to 1839 Apple Hill was the home of Levi C. Turner, who married the daughter of Robert Campbell, and afterward was for some years county judge. During the Civil War Turner was Judge Advocate in the War Department under President Lincoln, concerning whom he had many intimate reminiscences.
In early days, before the common school system was developed, there were many attemptsto establish private schools in Cooperstown, with more or less success. John Burroughs, the famous naturalist, received the last of his schooling in the spring and summer of 1856 at the Cooperstown Seminary, afterward converted into the summer hotel known as the Cooper House.
But of all the private schools in the village the most noted was established at Apple Hill in 1839 by William H. Duff, a former officer of the British Army, and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. Duff had a romantic history, involved in a good deal of mystery. He had emigrated from England to Canada, bringing with him a beautiful young wife,—an elopement, it was said. Mrs. Duff was evidently of gentle birth, while her husband was of commanding presence, military bearing, and captivating manners. Whether he was entitled to the rank of Major, which he assumed, was always doubted.
Duff was well informed in all branches of army tactics, and the school that he established was well known as a military academy. The institution became popular, and the boys in their uniforms gave a new and welcome touch of color to the life of the village. The afternoon drills were witnessed by many spectators, and when the school increased until a mounted field-piece, drawn by four horses, was added to the equipment, the exhibit became quite sensational. Few pupils of that day could ever forget the winter drills on the frozen lake, with the thermometer near zero, as requiring an endurance worthy of hardier veterans.
One incident connected with the school made a sensation at the time. During the winter of 1840 a strong party of Indians found their way to the village, and remained for several days. One of them got into a drunken bout, and died quite suddenly. Shortly after the departure of the band the rumor was circulated among the loungers in the streets that the friends of the dead Indian suspected foul play, and were coming from their encampment on the following night to wreak vengeance upon the village. These flying rumors came to the ears of some of the pupils of Duff's Academy, who hastened to communicate the alarming intelligence to their principal. Whether Duff really accepted the truth of the reports, or wished to test the military efficiency and courage of his pupils, he promptly called his troops together, delivered an impressive harangue on the danger of the situation and the glory to be won by rallying to the defence of the village against a savage foe. Plans were soon made to repel the attack. Muskets were made ready for service. Some boys were sent into the village for powder, others for lead from which they were soon actively engaged in moulding bullets. A detachment was sent to remove to the house all effects from the schoolroom which stood near the gate, and the doors and windows of the house were strongly barricaded. Preparations were made to patrol the village at night, and the school was detailed into squads, who were to protect the principal streets. Sentries paced from the house to the gate, and from Christ churchyardto the corner of Main Street, while outposts were stationed across the river who were to give warning of the enemy's approach by the discharge of a musket. The younger boys were left at home on guard at the doors and windows of the house. As the midnight hour approached Major Duff sallied forth and inspected the disposal of his forces. During the long winter darkness of that night the boys marched up and down the village streets, with imaginations so fearfully wrought up as to deny the need of sleep which lay heavy upon them. If any of the inhabitants of the village sympathized in this watchfulness in their behalf, or kept awake to see what was going on, there was no evidence of it. The boys were left to their vigil. They passed the night in anxious watching. No Indians appeared, and all danger was dispelled by the rays of the rising sun.
Too much prosperity was the ruin of Duff's school. It became so successful that the principal neglected duty for pleasure, leaving the school in charge of subordinates. Then, in less than five years from its beginning, it failed. At the outbreak of the Mexican War, Duff obtained a captain's commission in the United States Army, and when last seen by his old friends he presented an imposing appearance as he rode down Broadway in New York at the head of his company, with martial music and flying colors, to embark for Vera Cruz.[119]
George A. Starkweather purchased Apple Hill in 1847, and lived there until he sold it in 1856 to Edward Clark. The latter had been attracted to Cooperstown as at one time the home of his distinguished father-in-law, and law-partner, Ambrose L. Jordan. Mrs. Clark, who was Jordan's eldest child, was born while the Jordans were resident in Cooperstown in the house which still stands at the northwest corner of Main and Chestnut streets, and after they removed to Hudson the daughter was sent back to Cooperstown to attend the boarding school which was conducted for a time in Isaac Cooper's old house at Edgewater. It was through these associations that Edward Clark and his bride, after their marriage in 1836, began to be frequent visitors in Cooperstown.
In the year 1848 Isaac M. Singer had become a client of Jordan & Clark in New York City. He was an erratic genius, and had taken up various occupations without much success, besides having invented valuable mechanical devices which had brought him no profit. The form of sewing-machine that he invented, and which has ever since been associated with his name, was not profitable at first, and under Singer's management the title to the invention became involved, and was likely to be lost. In this emergency the inventor applied to his legal adviser, Clark, to advance the means to redeem an interest of one-third in the sewing-machine invention and business, and to hold that share as security for money advanced. Afterward was formed the co-partnership of I.M. Singer & Co., in which Clark was the legal adviser and half owner. The business was carried on by this firm with great success from 1851 to 1863, during which period Edward Clark established his residence in Cooperstown. After Singer's death Clark became president of the Singer Manufacturing Company.
FernleighFernleigh
Fernleigh
Edward Clark spent many winters in Europe, residing at different times in Paris and in Rome, but his summers were usually devoted to Cooperstown, and the present stone house at Fernleigh was his summer home for twenty-three years. When this house was erected it was regarded as a wonder. It took four years in building, andwas indeed of remarkable workmanship, with substantial masonry and the most exquisite elaborations of woodwork. But it had the misfortune to be built in the "black walnut period," when taste in domestic architecture was at a low ebb, so that much of the interior, and some of the exterior, has since been altered. The stone building southwest of the house was built as a Turkish bath.
In 1873, Edward Clark purchased Fernleigh-Over from the Bowers estate, and from time to time added to his property in Cooperstown, notably in the purchase of farms on either side of the lake. He became much identified with the interests of the village, and built the Hotel Fenimore.
Edward Clark was entranced by Otsego Lake, upon which he spent much time in sailing. HisNinaandElisewere beautiful sailing yachts, and would have been an ornament to any waters. Clark was described by village contemporaries as a man of somewhat peculiar temperament. He was naturally reticent, and seemed to be most highly appreciated by his intimates. In educational matters he was greatly interested, having given largely to Williams College, of which he was a graduate and Doctor of Laws. He contributed generously to the welfare of the schools of Cooperstown, in which he established the Clark Punctuality prizes. In Cooperstown, and elsewhere, he did much charitable work in a quiet way.
Kingfisher TowerM. Antoinette AbramsKingfisher Tower
M. Antoinette Abrams
Kingfisher Tower
In 1876 Kingfisher Tower was completed,which Edward Clark had caused to be erected at Point Judith, about two miles from Cooperstown, on the eastern shore of Otsego Lake. It was said that Clark's motive in building the tower was to furnish work for many in the community who were out of employment. Scoffers referred to the building derisively as "Clark's folly." At the request of a village newspaper, Clark himself wrote an account of it which was published anonymously.
"Kingfisher Tower," he wrote, "consists of aminiature castle, after the style of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, standing upon the extremity of the Point and rising out of the water to a height of nearly sixty feet. It forms an objective point in the scene presented by the lake and surrounding hills; it adds solemnity to the landscape, seeming to stand guard over the vicinity, while it gives a character of antiquity to the lake, a charm by which we cannot help being impressed in such scenes. The effect of the structure is that of a picture from medieval times, and its value to the lake is very great. Mr. Clark has been led to erect it simply by a desire to beautify the lake and add an attraction which must be seen by all who traverse the lake or drive along its shores. They whose minds can rise above simple notions of utility to an appreciation of art joined to nature, will thank him for it."
When Edward Clark died, in 1882, his youngest and only surviving son, Alfred Corning Clark, much of whose life had been spent abroad, inherited the greater part of his father's property, and became proprietor of Fernleigh.
Alfred Corning Clark possessed in a magnified degree certain qualities which had distinguished his father. He was more retiring, more reticent, more inclined to find the full joy of life only among intimates. He became a patron of art and music, and himself an amateur in singing. He built Mendelssohn Hall, in New York, for the use of a musical organization to which he belonged. Of books he was not only a lover, but a student, devoted to the classics, and well versedin modern languages. In the village of Cooperstown he was known as a bookworm. He enjoyed walking about his own grounds, but hardly ever went into the village, and there were many residents of Cooperstown who had never seen his face. The proprietor of the corner book store in his day remarked that he had never but once seen Alfred Corning Clark in the village street, and this was when he had an errand at the book store to make an inquiry concerning a newly published volume.
In the use of his great fortune Clark was extremely liberal in charities and toward such other objects as commended themselves to his judgment; while he was correspondingly powerful in opposition to whatever involved a principle with which he disagreed.
Mrs. Clark, who was Elizabeth Scriven, was a woman of exceptional gifts of mind and benignance of character, well qualified to assume the responsibilities which fell upon her when Alfred Corning Clark died, at the age of fifty-three years, in 1896. With cultivated tastes, she had also a practical talent for business, and, although well served by agents in the management of her large interests, was always thoroughly informed and full of initiative. In New York, among men of affairs, she was regarded as one of the most far-seeing judges of real estate values in the city. In the management of her domestic and other concerns she had an extraordinary faculty for administration, which failed of attaining genius only through the effort which she put forth to givepersonal attention to details. This amiable weakness nevertheless added the interest of her personality to undertakings that might have failed for the lack of such a spirit as hers; and in her many charities the personal touch which she took the trouble to give added infinitely to the happiness and self-respect of those to whom her kindness, as in neighborly thoughtfulness, was extended.
In Cooperstown Mrs. Clark became an arbiter of the social and moral virtues, and the things that she frowned upon were usually not done. She had a wholesome influence in resisting certain excesses which not seldom appear in communities partly given over to the pursuit of pleasure. In some innovations against which she protested, Mrs. Clark at last gracefully yielded to the inevitable. This was the case with automobiles, which, when they first appeared upon the country roads, she regarded with the alarm and disgust of one devoted to a carriage and horses, and would have banished them from Otsego if she had had the power. In that period of transition few country roads were adapted to the use of motors, and to meet one of the new machines while driving in a carriage along the lake shore was to suffer the apprehension of imminent death from the fury of plunging horses, and to be nearly choked in a cloud of dust.
Mrs. Clark was fond of walking, and she was a familiar figure in the residence streets of the village in summer, usually dressed in white, without a bonnet, and carrying a white parasol aboveher head, as she moved with quick step upon some errand.
The homestead at Fernleigh represents much that has contributed to the development of Cooperstown. The greater part of the industry controlled by the Clark estates is managed from the offices of the Singer Building in New York, which when it was erected in 1909 was the tallest office building in the world. But a large part of the interests of the estates is centered in the picturesque old building, originally built for a bank, which stands near the entrance of the Cooper Grounds in Cooperstown. The Cooper Grounds themselves were rescued from a condition of desolation in which they had lain for many years after the death of Fenimore Cooper, and are maintained by the Clark estates for the benefit of the public. The Village Club and Library across the way is a creation of the Clark estates. On the hills east and west of the village, and along the eastern shore of the lake for a stretch of nearly six miles, the same ownership has preserved for all lovers of nature the noble forests that lend a charm of wildness to the region.
FOOTNOTES:[119]A Few Omitted Leaves, Keese, p. 12;History of Cooperstown, Livermore, p. 46.
FOOTNOTES:
[119]A Few Omitted Leaves, Keese, p. 12;History of Cooperstown, Livermore, p. 46.
[119]A Few Omitted Leaves, Keese, p. 12;History of Cooperstown, Livermore, p. 46.
The period from 1870 to 1880 was one of rapid growth and development in Cooperstown. The permanent population increased to over two thousand souls, and a number of fine summer residences were erected. Almost all of its natural advantages Cooperstown owes to Otsego Lake. These had been long appreciated by residents of the village, and now began to be generally sought by visitors from afar. In summer, the shores of the lake come to be dotted with the camp-houses and tents of those who sought relief from the swelter of cities in the cool forests of Otsego, and found delight in the sailing and fishing for which the Glimmerglass is famous.
The Lake from the O-te-sa-gaJ. B. SloteThe Lake from the O-te-sa-ga
J. B. Slote
The Lake from the O-te-sa-ga
In the summer of 1870 Capt. Daniel B. Boden began regular steam navigation of Otsego Lake by means of a small steamboat which he had brought to Cooperstown by railroad, and which had been used as a gunboat in Southern waters during the Civil War. The boat was renamed theMary Boden. In the following summer a rival steamboat was launched, much larger than the former, called theNatty Bumppo, and owned principally by A. H. Watkins and Elihu Phinney.At the beginning of the next season the conservative folk of the village were scandalized by theMary Boden, which then commenced to make lake trips on Sunday, a breach of ancient custom in which the owners of theNatty Bumppoindignantly declined to compete. On a night early in July there was an alarm of fire, a great blaze at the lake front, and villagers running to the scene found that one of the steamboats was in flames and beyond hope of salvage. A small child at a front window of Edgewater, watching the fire, clapped her hands, and cried out, "It's the wicker[wicked] boat! It's the wicker boat!" But it was not the wicked boat that was ablaze. It was theNatty Bumppo, which burned to the water's edge a total loss, the boat that had never left its dock on Sunday. The event was long recalled by some in the village as an instance of grave error in the usually correct dispensations of Providence. TheNatty Bumppowas replaced, in the next season, by a new steamboat bearing the same name. The newNatty Bumppoand the oldMary Bodenwere the famous boats of the lake until they were succeeded by thePioneerand theCyclone, and later by theDeerslayer, thePathfinder, and theMohican.
Aside from the use of canoes, the first general navigation of the lake was undertaken in 1794 by a man known as Admiral Hassy, who in his day was the most celebrated fisherman of Otsego. He had a large flat boat which he called the shipJay, and upon which he used boards for sails. This craft was safe, but not speedy.
Some thirty years later a group of enterprising individuals built a horse-boat as a means of transporting lake parties. The boat had at each end a high cabin topped by a platform. These excrescences caught whatever breeze was blowing, and made the craft unmanageable. The struggles of the two poor horses who were expected to propel the boat were not equal to a gale of Pierstown trade-winds. More than once a lake party starting for Three-Mile Point, aboard this vessel, found itself stranded on the opposite shore.
During the first half of the century a "generallake party" in the summer corresponded to the "select ball" of each winter as constituting one of the two great social events of the year in Cooperstown. It ought to be said that the term "lake party" had a distinct social significance, and the word "picnic," which came later to be used to describe the same thing, meant to the elder inhabitants an affair that had quite lost the flavor of the older custom, and the use of the word was regarded as one of the signs of social decadence.
The means of navigation most often used by the lake parties was a huge scow propelled by long oars. A typical lake party was given in July of 1840, when Governor Seward visited Cooperstown. On the way home upon the lake the old scow, according to custom, was stopped opposite to the Echo, and several persons tried their voices to show off the wonderfully clear reverberations that would be flung back from the eastern hillside. But the master of this art was "Joe Tom," the negro who had been chief cook of the lake party, and was now at one of the long oars of the scow. On being asked to awaken the famous echo, Joe Tom shouted, "Hurrah for Governor Steward!" and when the echo came back, "You've got it to a 't,' Joe!" exclaimed Governor Seward.
At this period the authority in aquatic affairs, and the most renowned fisherman of the lake, was Commodore Boden. Miss Cooper says of her father's novelHome as Foundthat the one character in it "avowedly and minutely drawn from life" was that of the Commodore, "a figurelong familiar to those living on the lake shores—a venerable figure, tall and upright, to be seen for some three score years moving to and fro over the water, trolling for pickerel or angling for perch, almost any day in the year, excepting when the waters were icebound in winter."[120]The commodore was of quite imposing appearance, handsome alike in form and figure, straight as an arrow, and lithe as an Indian, with silvery locks that hung gracefully down upon his shoulders. His method of fishing was fascinating to watch. Standing erect in his boat, the commodore would paddle from the outlet of the lake to some inviting patch of weeds, and there, in quite shallow water, noiselessly drop his anchor. Then, wielding a rod nearly twenty feet in length, he would "skip" his tempting bait—generally the side of a small perch—with amazing vigor and marvellous dexterity, oftentimes taking fifteen or twenty pickerel in less than an hour. To see him strike, manipulate and land a fish weighing three or four pounds, his pliant rod bending nearly to a semicircle, was a spectacle not to be forgotten.[121]
In 1850 Peter P. Cooper brought from the Lake Ontario a little schooner, and became so famous as a boatman and fisherman that he was regarded as the successor of Admiral Hassy and Commodore Boden. Capt. Cooper established a boat livery which included five sailboats and twenty rowboats. He developed the fisheries ofOtsego Lake on a big scale, having introduced the gill net as a means of catching bass. In the spring of 1851 there were taken from the lake 25,000 bass. The gill net which Capt. Cooper introduced is made of the best kind of linen thread, with meshes from two to two and a half inches square. The net is about three feet wide, having leads attached to one edge, and corks fastened to the other. The leaded edge is carried to the bottom of the lake, while the other is buoyed up by the corks, making a complete fence across the lake at its bottom, even where it is very deep. The fish swim against the fence, which at once yields to their force, but as it yields, forms a sack whose meshes gather about their fins and tail, making it impossible to back out or otherwise escape. Their efforts serve only to entangle the fish more deeply in the net. Elihu Phinney, the most expert amateur fisherman of the period, denounced Capt. Cooper's gill net as the "most deadly and abominable of all devices."
The Otsego bass never exceed about six pounds in weight, the average being much smaller. Occasionally a lake trout of larger size is caught. With hook and line trout of great size are not often taken. On Friday, August 21, 1908, Alexander S. Phinney caught with hook and line, near Kingfisher Tower, a trout thirty-six inches long and weighing twenty pounds. He tussled with this trout for an hour, with six hundred feet of line, before he succeeded in landing him in the boat. In the next season the same fisherman caught a trout weighing eighteen pounds. So far asauthentic records go, these two trout are the largest fish ever caught in the lake with hook and line.
The conditions in Otsego Lake are favorable for the artificial propagation of fish, and many plantings have been made, at first by private enterprise, and afterward by the State. The lake extends in a direction from N. N. East to S. S. West about nine miles, varying in width from about three quarters of a mile to a mile and a half. The surface of the lake is 1,194 feet above tide-water. The average depth is about fifty feet, although about two miles north of the village soundings have been taken to a depth of one hundred and fifty feet, while toward the midst of the lake the depths are greater. In many places the water deepens gradually from the shore, but along the eastern bank there are points at which, Fenimore Cooper declared, "a large ship might float with her yards in the forest." The lake is chiefly supplied from cold bottom springs. Its only constant tributaries are two small streams, whose entire volume is not half that of its outlet, the Susquehanna River, which here begins its long journey to Chesapeake Bay. The upper and lower portions of the lake, being shallow and weedy, afford ample pickerel grounds, while the middle portion and whole eastern shore are admirably adapted, by deep water and soft marl bottom, to the coregoni and salmon trout, and nearer shore, by rocky bottom and sharp ledges, to the rock bass, black bass, and yellow perch. Large fish find an abundant food supply in the "lake shiner," an exquisitely beautiful creatureand dainty morsel, about four inches long.
The fish for which the lake has become famous among epicures is the "Otsego bass." InThe Pioneers, published in 1823, Fenimore Cooper expressed the general opinion when he put into the mouth of one of his characters this eulogy of the Otsego bass: "These fish are of a quality and flavor that in other countries would make them esteemed a luxury on the tables of princes. The world has no better fish than the bass of Otsego; it unites the richness of the shad to the firmness of the salmon." More than sixty years later much the same opinion prevailed, when Elihu Phinney described Otsego bass as "beyond all peradventure the very finest fresh water fish that swims."
There has long been a difference of opinion as to whether the so-called Otsego bass is to be regarded as a distinct species. Louis Agassiz, the highest authority of his time, after careful analysis pronounced the Otsego bass to be "in its organic structure a distinct fish, not found in any other waters of the world." In 1915 Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, the New York State fish culturist, declared that the so-called Otsego bass "is merely the common Labrador whitefish which has become dwarfed in size by some peculiarities of its habitat." De Witt Clinton, a former governor of New York, wrote the first scientific description, accompanied by a drawing, of this fish, which he called "the Salmo Otsego, or the Otsego Basse."[122]At the time when Clinton wrote, the whitefishes were placed in the genus Salmo. In 1911, in the bulletin of the United States bureau of fisheries,[123]Dr. Evermann asserted concerning Clinton's drawing of Otsego bass, which he had examined, that "the cut, although crude, plainly showsCoregonus clupeaformis. The form is elliptical, and the back shows the dark streaks along the rows of scales usually characteristic of that species." The same author, in collaboration with Dr. Jordan,[124]says concerning the common whitefish: "This species, like others of wide distribution, is subject to considerable variations, dependent upon food, waters, etc. One of these is the so-called Otsego bass, var Otsego (Clinton), a form landlocked in Otsego Lake at the head of the Susquehanna River."
There are Otsego fishermen who are not impressed by this array of learning, and still insist that the Otsego bass is quite different from any other fish in the world. TheOtsego Farmerin 1915 summed up the matter thus: "Otsego bass is not what is ordinarily termed whitefish, but is probably a species of the same family. As a matter of fact, Otsego Lake has been stocked with whitefish fry from the Great Lakes, and now the nets of fishermen are always filled with a mixture of whitefish and Otsego bass. Whatever Dr. Bean may think about it, any Otsego Lake fisherman can tell the difference, and any epicure havingonce tasted Otsego bass is never again deceived by whitefish."
A view which seems to reconcile these diverse opinions is that of Alexander S. Phinney, the most famous amateur fisherman of Otsego at the beginning of the twentieth century. He holds that Otsego bass is quite distinct from whitefish, but believes that the true Otsego bass has disappeared, giving place to a hybrid fish, now called Otsego bass, but really a cross between that variety and the whitefish with which Otsego has been stocked from the Great Lakes.
As many as five thousand Otsego bass have been taken with one draught of the seine, but in view of the great difficulty of catching any with hook and line, the following suggestion from an old authority, Seth Green, is still of interest: "The Otsego bass can be taken with small minnows or red angle worms. I think if your tackle is very fine, and you do not twitch when they bite, they will swallow the bait. Put five or ten hooks (O'Shaunessy 8's, forged) on a fine snell, and loop them five feet apart; with a small sinker at the end. Bait some with small minnows (an inch or so in length) and some with worms. Cast out as far as you can from the boat, and let it lie half or three quarters of an hour on the bottom, feeling now and then to see if you have one on. The best way is to let them hook themselves. The angle worms, if used for bait, should be strung on to the hook with both ends left dangling. A light stroke must be made and the fish handled very carefully."
Fishermen's Shanties on the Frozen LakeFishermen's Shanties on the Frozen Lake
Fishermen's Shanties on the Frozen Lake
Many fishermen are successful in taking Otsego bass with hook and line in winter, by fishing through the ice. No sooner has the lake become frozen from shore to shore, usually after Christmas, than the whole surface becomes dotted with the shanties of fishermen, which remain until the ice begins to weaken in the spring. The typical fisherman's shanty on the ice-bound lake is about five by six feet in floor space, and six feet high. It has a window, and the floor is so arranged that it can be raised to keep the fisherman above the water that sometimes floods the surface of the ice. Holes are cut through the floor, and through the ice beneath, for the admission of the fishinglines. The shanty is warmed by a small stove, with its stove-pipe sticking out through the roof. A chair and a coal box complete the furniture.
Two methods of fishing through the ice for Otsego bass are used by the occupants of the shanties. According to one method the hook is dropped to the bottom of the lake, and the fish are attracted to its vicinity by bait strewn on the bottom. The other method is used nearer shore, where the baited hook is let down part way toward the bottom, to tempt the fish that move amid the grass and weeds.
There are others besides fishermen to whom the frozen surface of Otsego Lake offers the means of pleasure and occupation. In some seasons the freezing of the lake occurs within a few hours, after a great and sudden fall in temperature, during a night of calm and intense cold. At such times, before snow has fallen upon the surface, the lake presents a scene of splendor. The ice is quite transparent, and has the effect of a great sheet of glass spread out amid the hills. This offers a perfect surface for skating, and attracts not only the boys and girls of the village, but a large number of their elders. The lake grows lively with the gracefully gliding promenade of skaters, with here and there a group playing at hockey, while others disport themselves at "crack the whip." The friction of so many gliding feet imparts to the frozen surface a low and weirdly humming sound, and the droning note is echoed by the hills, until the valley resounds with monotonous music. Thereare times when the lake is so well frozen that skaters traverse the entire length. In some seasons ice-boats have been used, slanting from end to end of the lake with prodigious speed. As the winter advances and the ice grows stronger, driving upon the lake becomes common, and horse-races upon the ice have sometimes been included among the winter sports.
At about five miles above the foot of the lake, and extending across it from shore to shore, a large fissure in the ice usually appears during the winter. This fissure is sometimes so wide that a team cannot cross it, and many years ago a span of horses was accidentally driven into it. The crevice in the ice has caused much speculation. The lake is narrow at the place where the crack appears, and the fissure is supposed to be created by expansion from the north and from the south, causing the ice to rise several feet in gable-like form until the ridge cracks, for fragments of ice are found on each side of the crevice.[125]
The tremendous forces exerted by the expansion of the freezing lake cry aloud on still winter nights, whenever, after a period of thawing weather, the mercury suddenly drops to a point far below zero. On such nights, while the trees of the surrounding forest here and there begin to be so penetrated with the fierce cold that they crack like rifle-shots, the ice-bound lake sets up an unearthly groaning, and the cavernous soundof its bellowing echoes dismally over the sleeping village, like the trumpetings of some huge leviathan in agony.
Cooperstown has a winter harvest-time, in January or February, when ice is cut from the lake for the summer supply. This industry occupies a large force of men, with plows, saws, hooks, crowbars, horses and bob-sleds, for several weeks. The ice taken from Otsego Lake, from ten to twenty inches thick, according to the severity of the winter, is always pure as mountain dew, and clear as crystal.
The midsummer view of Otsego Lake at one time included, in the clearings along the western shore and hillsides, a great luxuriance of hop-vines. The golden wreaths of hops, as they hang ripening in the August sunshine, sweeping in graceful clusters from the tall poles, or swinging in the breeze in umbrella-like canopies, add a more picturesque feature to the landscape than any other growing crop.
Hops have a part in the story of Cooperstown, which was at one time the centre of the most important hop-growing industry in America. Hop culture was introduced into Otsego county about the year 1830. In 1845 only 168,605 pounds were produced. In 1885, within a radial distance of forty miles from Cooperstown was included more than half of the hop-producing region of the United States.
Hop PickingElizabeth HudsonHop Picking
Elizabeth Hudson
Hop Picking
The hop-picking season, during the latter part of August, has given a picturesque character of its own to the life of the village and environs. Inthe primitive days of the industry, when the harvesting of the crop did not require any additional help from outside of the immediate region, the task of hop-picking was lightened by the enjoyment of social pleasures and romantic excitements that came to be associated with it by the young people of Otsego. At the beginning of the picking season, in those days, anyone passing through the country would meet wagon after wagon, of the style known as a "democrat," loaded down with gay and lively maidens, with one or two young men to each load. On reaching the hop-yard to which they were assigned, these frolicsome parties exchanged their holiday attire forbroad-rimmed hats and working dresses. Boxes were placed about the hop-yard, four pickers to each, the boxes being divided into four sections holding ten bushels apiece, and into these were dropped the clusters picked from the vines by nimble fingers. Experienced hands can fill two or more boxes in a day, for which as much as fifty cents a box used to be paid.
The midday lunch was taken beneath the shade of the nearest tree, or, in case the pickers were boarded by the grower, all adjourned to the largest room in an out-building, where a rural feast was spread with no niggard hand. Hop-pickers expect to live on the fat of the farmer's land, and as a rule they are not disappointed. Whole sheep and beeves vanish like manna before the Israelites in the short three weeks of the picking season, while gallons of coffee, firkins of butter, barrels of flour, and sugar by the hundred weight are swallowed up in the capacious maw of the small army. The nightly hop-dance used to be an indispensable adjunct of the picking season, much counted upon by the gay throng, but rather frowned upon, as an occasion of scandal, by staid and proper seniors.