o linen.
"Cooper was so polite," added the mirth-loving Hendrik Frey, as he used
to tell the story for many years afterward, "that he supplied a shirt
with ruffles at the wristbands, which made Ebbal very happy for the rest
of the night. Mein Gott, how his hands did go, after he got the
ruffles!"[59]

In the summer of 1790 the house at the northwest corner of Main and
River streets was erected by Benjamin Griffin. It now survives as the
oldest house in the village. Not long after its erection the house
became the residence of the Rev. John Frederick Ernst, the Lutheran
minister who came here in connection with the work of the projected
seminary at Hartwick; and for many years the old cottage was the
homestead of the Ernst family.[60]

[Illustration: _C. A. Schneider_

THE OLDEST HOUSE]

In this year William Cooper decided to give up his residence in New
Jersey, and to bring his family to Cooperstown for their permanent home.
Accordingly he returned to Burlington, and early in the autumn completed
arrangements for the transportation of his family and belongings to
Otsego. Only in one quarter did he find any opposition to his project,
but that opposition was serious. His wife positively refused to go.

Three years before, Mrs. Cooper had had a brief experience of the new
settlement. She remembered the tippy boat, the rough pioneers, and the
carriage that had to be steadied with ropes as it careened through the
woods. In Burlington there was a well-established society, congenial
friends, an atmosphere of culture, and such comforts as civilization was
then able to afford. Mrs. Cooper had no mind to exchange her residence
in Burlington for the wild uncertainties of life in the wilderness; and
so with the conveyance ready and waiting at the door, and with her
husband pleading, she sat firmly in the chair at the desk in the library
of her Burlington home, and positively refused to budge.

Mrs. Cooper was a strong-minded woman, but William Cooper was a
stronger-minded man. He seized the chair, with his wife seated in it,
and putting her aboard the wagon, chair and all, began the long journey
to Otsego. Thus William Cooper carried his point, while his wife also
carried hers, for she travelled the whole distance in the chair from
which she vowed she would not move. The chair itself, sacred to the
memory of two strong minds, is still in use in the Cooper family.

This journey had much to do with the shaping of another mind