depended on rare visits of missionaries for the little religious
instruction they received. The settlers in the region were divided as to
religious faith; the Presbyterians, though the most numerous, were the
least able to offer financial support for any regular religious
establishment. Missionaries occasionally penetrated to this spot, and
now and then a travelling Baptist, or a Methodist, preached in a tavern,
schoolhouse or barn. On August 28, 1795, a letter appeared in the
_Otsego Herald_ deploring the general indifference to religion which
prevailed in the settlement, and calling for a public meeting to
organize a church congregation. The Rev. Elisha Mosely, a Presbyterian
minister, was thereupon engaged for six months, and during that period
held the first regular religious services in Cooperstown. He preached
the first Thanksgiving sermon in the village, on November 26, 1795, in
the Court House.

Through the vigorous efforts of the Rev. Nathaniel Stacy, an itinerant
preacher, the doctrine of Universalism gained a strong foothold in this
region. Under his ministrations the society at Fly Creek was organized
in 1805, said to be the first society of the Universalist denomination
established in this State. Stacy was a man of small stature, a rapid
speaker, full of Biblical quotations, apt in comparing the Old and New
Testaments, and happy in the use of vivid illustrations. The vehemence
and rapidity of his utterance sometimes sprinkled with saliva the
hearers seated near him, which gave occasion for a famous taunt flung at
Ambrose Clark, one of Stacy's converts and an early settler of
Pierstown, when his brother Abel said that "Ambrose had rather be spit
upon by Stacy than to hear the gospel preached."

In 1797, the Rev. Thomas Ellison, rector of St. Peter's Church, Albany,
with the Patroon, both regents of the university of the State, visited
the Cherry Valley academy, and then extended their journey to
Cooperstown, where Dr. Ellison held service and preached in the Court
House. This was the first time that the services of the Episcopal Church
were held in the village. Dr. Ellison was an Englishman, a graduate of
Oxford, a king's man, and a staunch defender of the Church against all
dissent. He was a sporting parson, of convivial habits, and after his
first visit to Cooperstown frequently enjoyed the hospitality of Judge
Cooper, whom he joined in sundry adventures.

The Presbyterians and Congregationalists in and