"Striving another's life to save
He sunk beneath the swelling wave."

It was in the summer of 1788 that William Cooper made a definite plan
for the village. Three streets were laid out running south from the
lake, and six streets that crossed them at right angles. The street
along the margin of the lake was called Front Street (now Lake Street),
and the others parallel to it were numbered from Second (the present
Main Street) up to Sixth. Of the streets running south, that next to the
river was called Water Street (now River Street), and that at the
opposite side of the plot, West Street, which is the present Pioneer
Street. The parallel street between these two was divided by the Cooper
Grounds; the section near the lake was called Fair Street, while south
of the Cooper Grounds it was known as Main Street. This last never
gained the importance which its name seemed to demand, and is now known
as part of Fair Street. The map showing the original plan of the village
is dated September 26, 1788.

Aside from the Foot of the Lake, as the settlement was sometimes called,
it was known as Cooperton, and Cooperstown,[57] until 1791, when the
latter name came into general use, on the designation of this village as
the county seat of the newly created Otsego county.

The settlers upon Cooper's tract were mostly poor people, and it
happened that their first efforts were followed by a season of dearth.
In the winter of 1788-9, grain rose in Albany to a price before unknown.
The demand swept all the granaries of the Mohawk country, and a famine
aggravated the privations of the Otsego settlers. In the month of April,
Cooper arrived with several loads of provisions intended for his own use
and that of the laborers he had brought with him; but in a few days all
was gone, and there remained not one pound of salt meat, nor a single
biscuit. Many were reduced to such distress as to live upon the root of
wild leeks; some, more fortunate, lived upon milk, whilst others found
nourishment in a syrup made of maple sugar and water. The quantity of
leeks eaten by the people had such an effect upon their breath that they
could be smelled at many paces distant, and when they came together
there was an odor as from cattle that had been pastured in a field of
garlic. "Judge of my feelings at this epoch," wrote Cooper, "with two
hundred families about me, and not a morsel of bread."

"A singular event seemed sent by a good Providence to our