e had long
advocated, and of which, as chairman of the five commissioners appointed
by the Governor in 1811, he became the author.[64]

Some of the asperities of political life in the early days of Otsego
county may be inferred from certain affidavits, printed copies of which,
such as were apparently used as campaign documents, were found among
Judge Cooper's papers, endorsed in his handwriting, "Oath how I whipped
Cochran." The Cochran referred to was a political opponent.

Jessie Hyde, of the town of Warren, being duly sworn, saith,
that on the sixteenth day of October in the year 1799, he this
deponent, did see James Cochran make an assault upon one
William Cooper in the public highway. That the said William
Cooper defended himself, and in the struggle Mr. Cochran, in a
submissive manner, requested of Judge Cooper to let him go.

_Jessie Hyde._

Sworn this sixteenth day of
October, 1799, before me
Richard Edwards, Master in Chancery
_Otsego County._ SS.

Personally appeared Stephen Ingalls, one of the constables of
the town of Otsego, and being duly sworn, deposeth and saith,
that he was present at the close of a bruising match between
James Cochran Esq., and William Cooper Esq., on or about the
sixteenth of October last, when the said James Cochran
confessed to the said William Cooper these words: "I
acknowledge you are too much of a buffer for me," at which
time it was understood, as this deponent conceives, that
Cochran was confessedly beaten.

_Stephen Ingalls._

Sworn before me this
sixth day of November, 1799,
Joshua Dewey, Justice of the Peace.

The same incident, viewed from another angle, appears in a letter
written by the Rev. John Frederick Ernst to his son in Albany, and dated
at Cooperstown, October 20, 1799.

"There is nothing of any particular news here, except that a
Mr. Cochran, late member of Congress, in whose place I. Cooper
is now elected, came here last week, and on one of the
court-days, with a great deal of brass had the impertinence to
assault our honorable Wm. Cooper in the street, & to give him
a Cowskinning--because, as it is reported, he should have told
lies about Cochran. As both fell a clinging & beating one
another Mr. Mason stepped between and parted them."

Still another account of the epis