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[Illustration: _Joseph B. Slote_
COOPERSTOWN FROM THE NORTHWEST]
THE STORY OF COOPERSTOWN
BY
RALPH BIRDSALL
Rector of Christ Church
_With Sixty-eight Illustrations from Photographs_
NEW YORK,
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
1925
Copyright, 1917, by
RALPH BIRDSALL
_First printing, July, 1917_
_Second printing, December, 1917_
_Third printing, August, 1920_
_Fourth printing, August, 1925_
* * * * *
_Printed in the United States of America_
FOREWORD
The ensuing narrative is a faithful record of life in Cooperstown from
the earliest times, except that the persons and events to be described
have been selected for their story-interest, to the exclusion of much
that a history is expected to contain. The dull thread of village
history has been followed only in such directions as served for
stringing upon it and holding to the light the more shining gems of
incident and personality to which it led. Trivial happenings have been
included for the sake of some quaint, picturesque, or romantic quality.
Much of importance has been omitted that declined to yield to such
treatment as the writer had in view. The effort has been made to exclude
everything that seemed unlikely to be of interest to the general reader.
Those who seek family records, or the mention of all names worthy to be
recorded in the history of the village, will find the book wanting.
The local history has been already three times recorded, first in 1838
by Fenimore Cooper, whose work was brought down to date by S. T.
Livermore in 1863, and by Samuel M. Shaw in 1886. While now out of print
many copies of these books are still accessible.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE INDIANS 1
II. THE COMING OF THE WHITE MEN 26
III. A BYPATH OF THE REVOLUTION 51
IV. THE BEGINNING OF THE SETTLEMENT 74
V. A VILLAGE IN THE MAKING 89
VI. OLD-TIME LOVE AND RELIGION 109
VII. HOMES AND GOSSIP OF OTHER DAYS 130
VIII. THE PIONEER COURT ROOM 150
IX. FATHER NASH 163
X. THE IMMORTAL NATTY BUMPPO 174
XI. STRANGE TALES OF THE GALLOWS 192
XII. SOLID SURVIVALS 211
XIII. THE BIRTHPLACE OF BASE BALL 247
XIV. FENIMORE COOPER IN THE VILLAGE 258
XV. MR. JUSTICE NELSON 299
XVI. CHRIST CHURCHYARD 326
XVII. FROM APPLE HILL TO FERNLEIGH 339
XVIII. THE LAKE OF ROMANCE AND FISHERMEN 364
XIX. TWENTIETH CENTURY BEGINNINGS 393
VILLAGE MAP AND GUIDE 432
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
COOPERSTOWN, from the northwest _Joseph B. Slote_ Frontispiece
THE COOPER GROUNDS _Arthur J. Telfer_ 2
COUNCIL ROCK _Arthur J. Telfer_ 8
THE OTSEGO IROQUOIS PIPE 13
AT MILL ISLAND _Charles Frederick Zabriskie_ 21
JOSEPH BRANT, from the Romney portrait 52
SITE OF CLINTON'S DAM _A. J. Telfer_ 71
OTSEGO LAKE, from Cooperstown _A. J. Telfer_ 78
THE OLDEST HOUSE _Charles A. Schneider_ 86
WILLIAM COOPER, from the Stuart portrait 91
AVERELL COTTAGE _C. A. Schneider_ 104
THE WORTHINGTON HOMESTEAD _Forrest D. Coleman_ 110
CHRIST CHURCH _A. J. Telfer_ 127
THE HOUSE AT LAKELANDS, as originally built 131
MRS. WILSON 133
LAKELANDS _C. A. Schneider_ 137
POMEROY PLACE _J. Patzig_ 141
AMBROSE L. JORDAN 151
JORDAN'S HOME, AND HIS LAW OFFICE _C. A. Schneider_ 156
THE HOME OF ROBERT CAMPBELL _J. B. Slote_ 158
FATHER NASH 171
LEATHERSTOCKING MONUMENT _A. J. Telfer_ 185
NATTY BUMPPO'S CAVE _C. A. Schneider_ 188
RIVERBRINK _C. A. Schneider_ 193
EDGEWATER _A. J. Telfer_ 212
RESIDENCE OF W. H. AVERELL AND JUDGE
PRENTISS _C. A. Schneider_ 221
WOODSIDE HALL _Forrest D. Coleman_ 226
THE GATE-TOWER AT WOODSIDE _Walter C. Stokes_ 228
SWANSWICK _A. J. Telfer_ 230
SHADOW BROOK _James W. Tucker_ 233
HYDE HALL _A. J. Telfer_ 238
HYDE CLARKE, from the Emmet portrait 243
A WEDDING DAY AT HYDE _A. J. Telfer_ 246
BASE BALL ON NATIVE SOIL _A. J. Telfer_ 249
THE ORIGINAL HOUSE AT APPLE HILL (now Fernleigh) 256
FENIMORE _A. J. Telfer_ 259
OTSEGO HALL, from an old drawing 260
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 263
THE CHALET _A. J. Telfer_ 265
THE NOVELIST'S LIBRARY, a drawing by G. Pomeroy Keese 267
A PAGE OF COOPER'S MANUSCRIPT 269
THE HOME OF NANCY WILLIAMS _C. A. Schneider_ 271
THREE-MILE POINT _A. J. Telfer_ 282
THE CALL FOR THE INDIGNATION MEETING 284
THE COOPER SCREENS IN CHRIST CHURCH _F. D. Coleman_ 293
AT FENIMORE COOPER'S GRAVE _Alice Choate_ 297
SAMUEL NELSON, LL.D. 300
THE HOME OF JUSTICE NELSON _C. A. Schneider_ 314
NELSON AVENUE _A. J. Telfer_ 320
CHRIST CHURCHYARD, from the Rectory _Alice Choate_ 327
THE COOPER PLOT, IN CHRIST
CHURCHYARD _A. J. Telfer_ 334
A FUNERAL IN CHRIST CHURCHYARD _J. B. Slote_ 337
MAIN STREET, LOOKING WEST FROM FAIR STREET, 1861 347
FERNLEIGH _A. J. Telfer_ 357
KINGFISHER TOWER _M. Antoinette Abrams_ 359
THE LAKE, FROM THE O-TE-SA-GA _J. B. Slote_ 365
FISHERMEN'S SHANTIES ON THE FROZEN
LAKE _A. J. Telfer_ 374
HOP-PICKING _Elizabeth Hudson_ 378
MAP OF OTSEGO LAKE _Henry L. Eckerson_ 381
THE SUSQUEHANNA, NEAR ITS SOURCE _A. J. Telfer_ 383
LEATHERSTOCKING FALLS _A. J. Telfer_ 387
FIVE-MILE POINT _A. J. Telfer_ 388
MOHICAN CANYON _M. Antoinette Abrams_ 389
GRAVELLY POINT _A. J. Telfer_ 391
BISHOP POTTER _A. F. Bradley_ 395
THE RECTORY _C. A. Schneider_ 396
THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY AND THE
BISHOP OF NEW YORK _A. J. Telfer_ 405
BYBERRY COTTAGE _C. A. Schneider_ 407
THE CLARK ESTATE OFFICE _A. J. Telfer_ 409
THE LYRIC AT COOPER'S GRAVE _J. B. Slote_ 420
COOPERSTOWN, FROM MOUNT VISION _A. J. Telfer_ 430
MAP OF COOPERSTOWN _H. L. Eckerson_ 432
The Story of Cooperstown
CHAPTER I
THE INDIANS
The main street of Cooperstown traverses the village in a direction
generally east and west. While the street and its shops are far superior
to those of most small towns, the business centre, from which the
visitor gains his first impression, gives no hint of the quaint and
rustic beauty that makes Cooperstown one of the most charming villages
in America.
Following the main street toward the east, one reaches the original part
of the settlement, and the prospect is more gratefully reminiscent of an
old-time village. In summer the gateway of the Cooper Grounds opens a
pleasing vista of shaded greensward, while the cross street which runs
down to the lake at this point attracts the eye to a half-concealed view
of the Glimmerglass, with the Sleeping Lion in the distance at the
north.
The historical associations of the village, from the earliest times, are
centered in the Cooper Grounds. Within this space, when the first white
man came, were found apple trees, in full bearing, which Indians had
planted, showing an occupation by red men in the late Iroquois period.
On these grounds the first white settler, Col. George Croghan, built in
1769 his hut of logs. During the Revolutionary War it was upon this spot
that Clinton's troops were encamped for five weeks before their
spectacular descent of the Susquehanna River. On this site William
Cooper, the founder of the village, built his first residence, and
afterward erected Otsego Hall, which later became the home of his son,
James Fenimore Cooper, the novelist.
[Illustration: THE COOPER GROUNDS]
Beyond the Cooper Grounds, on the main street, the buildings seen on
either hand belong to the earlier period of village history, except the
Village Club and Library, which gracefully conforms to the older style.
After passing the next cross-street, the main thoroughfare leads across
the Susquehanna River, and, beyond the bridge, becomes identified with
the old road to Cherry Valley. Keeping on up the incline, one finds
Mount Vision rising before him, and begins to gain fascinating glimpses
into the grounds of Woodside Hall, whose white pillars gleam amid the
pines above the Egyptian gate-tower, and whose windows, commanding the
whole length of the main street westward, reflect the fire of every
sunset.
Just before reaching Woodside, one observes a road which makes off from
the highway at the right, and runs south. Opening from this road to
Fernleigh-Over, and quite close to the corner, is a small iron gate that
creaks between two posts of stone. The gate opens upon a path which
leads, a few paces westward, to a large, terraced mound, well sodded,
and topped by two maple trees.
Sunk into the face of this mound is a slab of granite which bears this
inscription:
WHITE MAN, GREETING!
WE, NEAR WHOSE BONES YOU STAND,
WERE IROQUOIS. THE WIDE LAND
WHICH NOW IS YOURS WAS OURS.
FRIENDLY HANDS HAVE GIVEN BACK
TO US ENOUGH FOR A TOMB.
These lines offer a fitting introduction to the story of Cooperstown.
There is enough of truth and poetry in them to touch the heart of the
most indifferent passer-by. No sense of pride stirs the soul of any
white man as he reads this pathetic memorial of an exiled race and its
vanished empire. From this region and from many another hill and valley
the Indians were driven by their white conquerors, banished from one
reservation to another, compelled to exchange a vast empire of the
forest for the blanket and tin cup of Uncle Sam's patronage.
The mound in Fernleigh-Over is probably an Indian burial site of some
antiquity. In 1874, when the place was being graded, a number of Indian
skeletons were uncovered in various parts of the grounds. The owner of
the property, Mrs. Alfred Corning Clark, caused all the bones to be
collected and buried at the foot of the mound. Some years afterward she
marked the mound with the granite slab and its inscribed epitaph.
The lines were composed by the Rev. William Wilberforce Lord, D.D., a
former rector of Christ Church, in this village, once hailed by
Wordsworth as the coming poet of America. He had written some noble
verse, but wilted beneath the scathing criticism of Edgar Allan Poe,[1]
and after becoming a clergyman published little poetry. This epitaph
alone, however, fully justifies Dr. Lord's earlier ambition, for no poet
of his time could have included more of beauty and truth and pathos
within the compass of so brief an inscription.
In a comment upon the placing of this tablet, Mrs. Clark afterward
wrote: "The position of the stone is misleading, and gives one an idea
that the mound contains the bones--whereas they are buried at the foot
of the mound. I have sometimes wondered if this rather curiously shaped
mound, with the two maple trees thereon, might not contain undisturbed
skeletons; and I feel sure that throughout this strip of land, which the
grading only superficially disturbed, there are many bones of the
Iroquois, for in 1900, when we cut down some trees, a skull was found in
the fork of a root."
Mrs. Clark's record shows that the mound existed prior to 1874, and
since this particular corner of ground was unoccupied before that date
except, for a period, by the barns and stables of Lakelands across the
way, it is reasonable to suppose that the mound was made by the Indians.
While the mounds of New York State cannot be compared in size and extent
with those of the West, writers on Indian antiquities, from
Schoolcraft[2] onward, have identified as the work of red men many such
formations within the Empire State. The mounds were commonly used by the
Indians as places of burial, and sometimes as sites for houses, or as
fortifications.[3] The mound in Fernleigh-Over may be reasonably
regarded as a monument erected by the Indians to the memory of their
dead.
Two Indian skeletons were found in Fernleigh grounds in 1910, when a
tennis court was being made, and the skeletons of Indians have been
unearthed in some other parts of the village. A concealed sentry keeps
vigil not far away from Fernleigh. The garden at the northwest corner of
River and Church streets, nearly opposite to Fernleigh, has had for many
years, on the River Street side, a retaining wall. When Fenimore Cooper
owned the property this wall was his despair. For at a point above
Greencrest, the wall, which then consisted of dry field stone, could
never be kept plumb, but obstinately bulged toward the east; and as
often as it was rebuilt, just so often it tottered to ruin. There was a
tradition that this singular freak was caused by the spirit of an Indian
chief whose grave lay in the garden, and whose resentment toward the
village improvements of a paleface civilization found vigorous
expression in kicking down the wall. It was at last decided to replace
the retaining wall with one of heavier proportions and more solid
masonry. On tearing down the wall the tradition of former years was
recalled, for there sat the grim skeleton of an Indian, fully armed for
war! The new wall included him as before, but to this day there is a
point in the wall where stone and mortar cannot long contain the Indian
spirit's wrath. This Indian sentinel was first discovered by William
Cooper when River Street was graded, and four generations of tradition
in the Cooper family testified to his tutelary character.
The banks of the Susquehanna, near the village, and the shores of
Otsego Lake, have yielded a plentiful harvest of Indian relics in
arrow-heads and spearpoints, with an occasional bannerstone, pipe, or
bit of pottery. Often as the region has been traversed in search of
relics, there seems always to be something left for the careful gleaner;
and the experienced eye, within a short walk along riverbank or
lakeshore, is certain to light upon some memento of the vanished Indian,
while every fresh turning of the soil reveals some record of savage
life.
Morgan describes an Indian trail as being from twelve to eighteen inches
wide, and, where the soil was soft, often worn to a depth of twelve
inches. Deeply as these trails were grooved in the earth by centuries of
use, it is to be doubted if many traces of them now remain, although
over the summit of Hannah's Hill, sheltered by thick pine woods, just
west of the village, there runs toward the lake a trail, which, though
long disused, is clearly marked, and is believed to have been worn by
the feet of Indians. It is indeed possible that this is a remaining
segment of the great trail from the north, which, as Morgan's map[4]
shows, here touched Otsego Lake, and bent toward the southwest. For, in
1911, a likely trace of it was found by Frank M. Turnbull while clearing
the woods on the McNamee property west of the village. In line with the
trail on Hannah's Hill, and southwest of it, were two huge hemlocks that
bore upon their trunks the old wounds of blazes made as if by the axes
of Indians. The blazes were vertical, deeply indented, and the thick
bark had grown outward and around them, forming in each a pocket into
which a man might sink his elbow and forearm. These patriarchal trees of
the forest were about four feet in diameter at the base, and on being
felled showed, by count of the rings, an age of nearly three hundred
years.
[Illustration: COUNCIL ROCK]
When Fenimore Cooper, in _The Deerslayer_, describes Council Rock as a
favorite meeting place of the Indians, where the tribes resorted "to
make their treaties and bury their hatchets," he claims a picturesque
bit of stage setting for his drama, but also records an early
tradition. This rock, sometimes called Otsego Rock, standing forth from
the water where the Susquehanna emerges from the lake, had been a
favorite landmark for the rendezvous of Indians. As one views it now,
from the foot of River Street, it lifts its rounded top not quite so
high above the water as when Cooper described it in 1841. The damming of
the Susquehanna to furnish power for the village water supply has raised
the whole level of Otsego Lake, and gives an artificial fullness to the
first reaches of the long river.
Whether Cooperstown stands upon the site of an old Indian village is a
debated question. Richard Smith's journal describes his visit at the
foot of Otsego Lake in 1769, before the time of any considerable
settlement by white men, and makes no mention of any Indian residents of
the place. He saw many Indians here, but gives the impression that they
were come from a distance to visit the Indian Agent whose headquarters
lay at the foot of Otsego Lake. On the other hand, a stray hint comes
from the papers of William Cooper, among which is a memorandum including
various notes relating to population and other statistics, jotted down
apparently in preparation for a speech or article on early conditions
here, and containing the item, "Old Indian Village." A more significant
record appears in the _Chronicles of Cooperstown_, published in 1838, in
which Fenimore Cooper asserts that "arrow-heads, stone hatchets, and
other memorials of Indian usages, were found in great abundance by the
first settlers, in the vicinity of the village." In _The Pioneers_, his
description of Cooperstown includes, in a location to be identified with
the present Cooper Grounds, fruit trees which he says "had been left by
the Indians, and began already to assume the moss and inclination of
age," when the first settlers came.
The fruit trees would indicate permanent though late occupation of this
site by Indians; "stone hatchets in great abundance" would suggest that
a prehistoric village was here. But it is difficult to understand how so
little trace should now remain of the one-time "great abundance" of
hatchets. Such is not the case at any other permanent prehistoric site
in the general region, where pestles and hatchets continue to be found
even in streets, as well as in yards, and well-tilled gardens.
Every few years the inhabitants of ancient villages in the east were
wont, for various reasons, to build new cabins on new ground, though not
far removed from the old. Not all the sites of ancient Otesaga, if
ancient Otesaga existed, can have been covered by Cooperstown. Some
fields should still produce something out of "an abundance" of village
debris. Yet only one hatchet has come, in many years, from all the foot
of the lake.[5] Many points, spear and arrow, have been found on all
shores of Otsego; for beyond doubt the lake, from very early time, was a
resort for aboriginal hunters and fishermen. But points indicate only
camp sites.
On the whole, by reason of the notable absence at this time of stone
relics indicating permanent residence, it seems possible that the
statement concerning their original abundance was exaggerated, and there
is no good reason for supposing, on the strength of this statement
alone, that there was a prehistoric village on the site of Cooperstown.
Perhaps in early times, during the contests with Southern Indians, the
place lay too much in the way of war parties. But the apple trees,
concerning which there is no doubt, would indicate rather conclusively
an occupation by Indians within the historic period, which, as in the
case of many another of the later villages, might have left small
trace.[6]
In 1895 two young men of Cooperstown who afterward adopted callings in
other fields of science, Benjamin White, Ph.D., and Dr. James Ferguson,
conducted amateur archeological expeditions which resulted in the
discovery of a regular camp site formerly used by the Indians. This lies
within the present village of Cooperstown, on a level stretch along the
west bank of the Susquehanna, in what used to be called the Hinman lot,
but now belongs to Fernleigh, a few rods south of Fernleigh House. It
includes an even floor of low land not far above the level of the river,
containing a spring on its margin, and forming a plot perhaps two
hundred yards in length and half as much in breadth. The ground begins
thence to rise rather steeply toward the north and west, sheltering from
wind and storm the glen below, while affording points of observation,
looking up and down the stream.
The young explorers went carefully over the surface of this ground,
digging to a considerable depth in some parts, and using an ash-sifter
for a thorough examination of the debris. "We found spearheads, game and
war points in large numbers," says Dr. White, "as well as drills,
punches or awls, scrapers, knives, hammer-stones, and sinkers. Deer
horn, bones, and thick strata of ashes were found, the latter in one
place only. Whether or no this was the site of an Indian village, I
cannot say. Altogether it must have yielded six or eight hundred
implements of various sorts. Fernleigh-Over, Riverbrink, and Lakelands
yielded arrow-heads and sinkers, but no other implements. The present
site of the Country Club was a profitable field for arrow-heads."
Dr. Ferguson, referring to the same spot, writes, "I have long had an
idea that there had been a small Indian village located in what we knew
as Hinman's lot. After the land was ploughed we found many arrow-heads,
awls of bone and flint, and fragments of pottery. There were several
areas where fires had been located, the soil being well baked, with
mingled charcoal and burned bones. There were also about the fire sites
fragments of deer horn, bears' teeth, and much broken pottery. Spear
heads were rather few, sinkers and hammer-stones more numerous. I never
found any perfect axes, but did find fragments."
The great number of imperfect arrow-heads and flint chips found here, as
well as on the flat northeast of Iroquois Farm house, and on the low
land between the O-te-sa-ga and the Country Club house, shows the
frequent occupation of these places as Indian camps.
[Illustration: THE OTSEGO IROQUOIS PIPE
(Seven-tenths actual size)]
In 1916 David R. Dorn conducted a more intensive examination of the plot
explored by Dr. White and Dr. Ferguson. His investigation revealed a
site that showed two distinct layers of Indian relics, the lower and
more ancient being of Algonquin type, while the signs of later occupancy
were Iroquois. At about eighteen inches beneath the surface was found
the complete skeleton of an Iroquois Indian. With the skeleton was
unearthed a pipe, of Iroquois manufacture, which Arthur C. Parker, the
State archeologist, declared to be one of the most perfect specimens
known.
Taking all the evidence together, it may be asserted that the present
site of Cooperstown was from ancient times the resort of Indian hunters
and fishermen, and at a later period, more than a generation before its
settlement by white men, as indicated by the size of the apple trees
which they found, included a settled Indian village.
On Morgan's map of Iroquois territory as it existed in 1720, he shows a
village at the foot of Otsego Lake to which he gives the Indian name
Ote-sa-ga.[7] Our present form, Otsego, is a variant of the same
original. Morgan wrote the word in three syllables, adding the letter
"e" after the "t" merely to make sure that the "o" should be pronounced
long. It seems certain that Morgan never pronounced the word as
"O-te-sa-ga." This form of the name, however, when the third syllable
carries the accent and a broad "a," is defensible on the ground of its
majestic euphony, for it should be permitted to take some liberties with
a name that has been spelled by high authorities in a dozen different
ways.
The explanation of Otsego, or Otesaga, as signifying "a place of
meeting" has been generally abandoned by scholars, in spite of the vogue
which Fenimore Cooper gave it along with the interpretation of
Susquehanna as meaning "crooked river." But as to the latter the doctors
disagree, some claiming that Susquehanna, which is not an Iroquois but
an Algonquin word, means "muddy stream"; others, following Dr.
Beauchamp, that it is a corruption of a word meaning "river with long
reaches." It must be confessed that Cooper credited the Indian words
with intelligible and appropriate meanings, so that, in the absence of
agreement among the specialists, the interpretations which he made
popular will continue to satisfy the ordinary thirst for this sort of
knowledge.
Assuming the existence of an Indian village on the present site of
Cooperstown, before the coming of the white man, the question of the
probable character of its inhabitants opens another field of study. Most
of the relics found in this region belong to the Algonquin type. On the
other hand Otsego is an Iroquois word, and it seems to be generally
agreed that the Otsego region was included, in the historic period, in
the possessions of the Iroquois, as the league of the Five Nations was
called by the French. The league included the Mohawks, Oneidas,
Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas; and took in also, in the eighteenth
century, as the sixth nation, the Tuscaroras.[8] While the village at
the foot of the lake would properly be called Mohawk, owing obedience to
the council of the original Mohawk towns, it might well have been
composed largely of Indians from other tribes. Fragments of shattered
tribes found refuge with the Iroquois in the latter days. Some were
adopted; some stayed on sufferance. The Minsis, a branch of the
Delawares, as well as the Delawares proper, were allowed to occupy the
southern part of the Iroquois territory. It will be recalled, in this
connection, that Cooper's favorite Indian heroes, Chingachgook and
Uncas, are of Delaware stock.
It is quite possible that, near the beginning of the eighteenth
century--basing the date, among other things, on the appearance of the
apple trees when the first white man came--there was a cosmopolitan
Indian community at the foot of Otsego Lake. Besides Mohawks, there
would have been included Oneidas, their nearest neighbors on the west;
and probably Delawares, or Mohicans. There might have been also some
one-time prisoners, adopted by the Iroquois, but belonging originally to
distant nations.[9]
All writers on the history of the Eastern Indians agree in assigning the
highest place to the Iroquois. Parkman asserts that they afford perhaps
an example of the highest elevation which man can reach without emerging
from the primitive condition of the hunter. Morgan declares that in the
width of their sway they had reared the most powerful empire that ever
existed in America north of the Aztec monarchy. The home country of the
Iroquois included nearly the whole of the present State of New York, but
at the era of their highest military supremacy, about 1660, they made
their influence felt from New England to the Mississippi, and from the
St. Lawrence to the Tennessee. Within this league, the tribal territory
of the Mohawks extended to the Hudson River and Lake Champlain on the
east, northward to the St. Lawrence, and westward to a boundary not
easily determined, but which included Otsego Lake. In the great league
of the Iroquois the name of the Mohawk nation always stood first, and of
all the Iroquois nations they were the most renowned in war. Joseph
Brant, whom John Fiske calls the most remarkable Indian known to
history, was a Mohawk chief.
Although the field of Iroquois influence was so wide, and their military
fame so great, it is a mistake to imagine that the forests of their time
were thickly peopled with red men, or that they were perpetually at war.
The entire population of the Iroquois throughout what is now the State
of New York probably never numbered more than 20,000 souls. Of these the
whole Mohawk nation counted only about 3,000, grouped in small villages
over their wide territory.[10] The avowed object of the Iroquois
confederacy was peace. By means of a great political fraternity the
purpose was to break up the spirit of perpetual warfare which had wasted
the Indian race from age to age.[11] To a considerable degree this
purpose was realized. After the power of the Iroquois had become
consolidated, their villages were no longer stockaded, such defences
having ceased to be necessary.
Otsego has witnessed other aspects of Indian life than those of war and
the chase. The Iroquois were agriculturists, and they, or rather their
women, cultivated not only fruit trees, but corn, melons, squash,
pumpkins, beans, and tobacco.[12] They had other human interests also,
not unlike our own. As the young people grew up amid sylvan charms that
are wont to stir romantic feelings in the heart of youth to-day, one is
tempted to imagine the trysts in the wood, the flirtations, the
courtships, among Indian braves and dusky maidens, that touched life
with tender sentiment in the days of the red man's glory. During many
summers before the white man came the breath of nature sighing through
the pines of Otsego, the winding river murmuring lovelorn secrets to the
flowers that nodded on its margin, the moon rising over Mount Vision and
shedding its splendor upon the lake, were subtle influences in secret
meetings between men and maidens, in whispered vows beneath the trees,
in courtships on the border of the Glimmerglass, in lovemaking along the
shores of the Susquehanna.
The greater part of the Iroquois were allies of the British in the
Revolutionary War, although some Mohawks remained neutral, and most of
the Oneidas and Tuscaroras became engaged on the side of the Americans.
It is not strange that, in a war whose causes they could not understand,
the Iroquois should have been loyal to the King of England, with whom
their alliances had been made for nearly two centuries. The Indians had
nothing to gain in this war, and everything to lose. They lost
everything, and after the war were thrown upon the mercies of the
victorious Americans. The Iroquois confederacy came to an end, and few
of the Mohawks ever returned to the scene of their council fires, or to
the graves of their ancestors.[13]
Many friendly relationships were established between the white men and
the Indians, both before and after the Revolutionary War. In 1764 there
was a missionary school of Mohawk Indian boys at the foot of Otsego Lake
under the instruction of a young Mohawk named Moses, who had been
educated at a missionary institution for Indians at Lebanon. A report of
one of the missionaries, the Rev. J. C. Smith, written at this time,
gives a glimpse of the Indians as they came under civilizing influence
on the very spot where Cooperstown was afterward to flourish:
"I am every day diverted and pleased with a view of Moses and his
school, as I can sit in my study and see him and all his scholars at any
time, the schoolhouse being nothing but an open barrack. And I am much
pleased to see eight or ten and sometimes more scholars sitting under
their bark table, some reading, some writing and others studying, and
all engaged to appearances with as much seriousness and attention as you
will see in almost any worshipping assembly and Moses at the head of
them with the gravity of fifty or three score."[14]
Miss Susan Fenimore Cooper, daughter of the novelist, says that for some
years after the village was commenced, Mill Island was a favorite resort
of the Indians, who came frequently in parties to the new settlement,
remaining here for months together. Mill Island lies in the Susquehanna
a short distance below Fernleigh, near the dam, where the river reaches
out two arms to enclose it, and with so little effort that it is
difficult to distinguish the island from the mainland. In the early days
of the village the island was covered with woods, and the Indians chose
it for their camp, in preference to other situations. Miss Cooper thinks
it may have been a place of resort to their fishing and hunting parties
when the country was a wilderness. In _Rural Hours_, writing in 1851,
she gives a curious description of a visit made at Otsego Hall by some
Indians who had encamped at Mill Island. There were three of them,--a
father, son, and grandson,--who made their appearance, claiming a
hereditary acquaintance with the master of the house, Fenimore Cooper.
[Illustration: _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 among his 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, that he 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 the
_Leather-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 the _beau-ideal_ of 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 that certainly 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 strange history, 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:
[Footnote 1: Poe. _Works_, "William W. Lord," Vol. vii, p. 217
(Amontillado Ed). Edmund Clarence Stedman, in his _Poets of America_, p.
41, 123, champions Lord.]
[Footnote 2: _Notes on the Iroquois_, Henry R. Schoolcraft, Chap. vi.]
[Footnote 3: Major J. W. Powell, _The Forum_, January, 1890.]
[Footnote 4: Lewis H. Morgan's map, 1851, in the _League of the
Iroquois_.]
[Footnote 5: From Fernleigh garden, near the river, 1895.]
[Footnote 6: These opinions are quoted from a communication kindly
written by Willard E. Yager, of Oneonta.]
[Footnote 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 were _waiontha_, "calm." (Bruyas,
64).--_Willard E. Yager._]
[Footnote 8: _League of the Iroquois_, Lewis H. Morgan, Lloyd's Ed.,
Vol. I, p. 93.]
[Footnote 9: Yager.]
[Footnote 10: _The Old New York Frontier_, Francis W. Halsey, 16.
_League of the Iroquois_, II. 227.]
[Footnote 11: _League of the Iroquois_, I. 87.]
[Footnote 12: do., I. 249-251.]
[Footnote 13: _The Old New York Frontier_, 150.]
[Footnote 14: _The Old New York Frontier_, 75, 160.]
[Footnote 15: _Address at the Cooperstown Centennial._]