r_, a weekly journal, appeared on
the third day of April. This was the second newspaper published in the
State, west of Albany, and its title shows that Cooperstown was then
regarded as belonging to the far west of civilization. Like all
newspapers of that period, the early files of the _Otsego Herald_ appear
to the modern reader to be singularly lacking in local news, and only
the rarest mention of what was going on in Cooperstown is to be found in
its faded pages. There is much of the news of Europe, and the political
news of America admits the printing in full of long speeches delivered
in Congress, but the happenings in Cooperstown seem to have been left to
the tongues of village gossips, and the advertising columns stand almost
alone in reflecting the daily life of the place.

Elihu Phinney was a great favorite in the village, being a man of
delightful social qualities, and distinguished for his remarkable wit
and satire. His bookstore in Cooperstown furnished a large section of
the country with an elemental literature, and with many historical
works. A year after his arrival he was made associate judge of the
county. It was in the printing office of Judge Phinney that Fenimore
Cooper, when a boy, was in the habit of setting type "for fun," which
experience he afterward stated was very useful to him in the oversight
of the typographical production of his writings. On the overthrow of
John Adams's administration Judge Phinney changed the political policy
of his newspaper, _The Otsego Herald_, and became a supporter of Thomas
Jefferson, in opposition to the views of his patron, Judge Cooper, who
remained a Federalist. It was this breach of political friendship which
brought to Cooperstown Col. John H. Prentiss, who came from the office
of the _New York Evening Post_, in 1808, to conduct a newspaper in
opposition to _The Otsego Herald_. Thus came into being _The Impartial
Observer_, which shortly changed its name to _The Cooperstown
Federalist_, and in 1828 became _The Freeman's Journal_, under which
name it is still published.

Judge Phinney founded a bookselling and publishing business which,
through his sons and grandsons, was carried on in Cooperstown for the
better part of a century after its establishment. His place of business
was on the east side of Pioneer Street, next south of the building that
stands at the corner of Main Street, and the present building on the
original site of their enterprise was erected