tavern, and Mrs. Johnson in her hut of logs.

In the spring of 1787 Cooper arrived, accompanied by his wife, who came,
however, only for a short visit. They reached the head of the lake in a
chaise, and descended to the foot in a canoe. Mrs. Cooper felt so much
alarm during this passage that she disliked returning in a boat, and the
chaise was brought to the foot of the lake, astride two canoes, for her
homeward journey. Mrs. Cooper's timidity occasioned the building of the
first real bridge across the Susquehanna, an improvement which had
already been contemplated as a public service. The road beyond the
bridge was so rude, and difficult to pass, that when the chaise left the
village men accompanied it with ropes, to prevent it from upsetting.

During the spring and summer of 1787 many settlers arrived, a good part
of them from Connecticut; and most of the land on the patent was taken
up. Several small log tenements were constructed on the site of the
village, and the permanent residents numbered about twenty souls.
Meantime Cooper had been extending his holdings in adjacent patents,
until he had the settlement of a large part of the present county more
or less subject to his control. In other parts of the State also he came
to own or control large areas of land, until, toward the end of his
life, he had "settled more acres than any man in America."

[Illustration: OTSEGO LAKE, FROM COOPERSTOWN]

Early in 1788, Cooper erected a house for his own residence. Aside from
the log huts it was the second dwelling erected in the place. It stood
on Main Street at the present entrance of the Cooper Grounds, looking
down Fair Street, and commanding a view of the full length of the lake.
The building was of two stories, with two wings. It is represented on
the original map of the village, where it is marked "Manor House." This
house was removed a short distance down the street in 1799, on the
completion of Otsego Hall, William Cooper's second residence in
Cooperstown, and was destroyed by fire in 1812.

In 1788 John Howard came, and established a tannery on the north side of
Lake Street west of Pioneer Street, near the waters of Willow Brook,
which there gurgles to the lake. Howard, who was distinguished as the
father of the first child born in the settlement, afterward became
captain of the local militia, and is commemorated as a hero in Christ
churchyard, where his epitaph recites that he was drowned, July 13,
1799: