gala day
in Cooperstown. The infamy of Arnold's crime had stirred public
indignation throughout this section of the State, and the prospect of
witnessing his execution had been eagerly anticipated, through motives
ranging from morbid curiosity to a stern sense of duty, in the most
distant hamlets of the region. By seven o'clock in the morning on the
day fixed for the hanging the main street of Cooperstown was filled with
people who had travelled from so great a distance that not one in twenty
was known to any of the villagers. The concourse increased until shortly
after noon, when, in the village which normally contained about five
hundred people, the crowd included about eight thousand.

The first centre of interest was the county courthouse and jail which
stood at the then western limits of the village, on the southeast corner
of Main and Pioneer streets. The door of the jail was on the Pioneer
street side of the building, and across the way were the stocks and
whipping-post. These rude symbols of justice might well be a terror to
evil doers. A sample of the punishment meted out to petty offenders is
found in the record that in 1791 a local physician was put in the stocks
for having mixed an emetic with the beverage drunk at a ball given at
the Red Lion Inn; and four years later a man was flogged at the
whipping-post, for stealing some pieces of ribbon. Both culprits were
also banished from the village, apropos of which form of punishment
Fenimore Cooper at a later day was moved to remark, "It is to be
regretted that it has fallen into disuse."

The crowds that gathered to witness the hanging of Stephen Arnold filled
the street in the neighborhood of the jail until the prisoner was
brought forth at noon, when some remained to watch the parade, while
others hurried on to the place of execution to secure good points of
view for the spectacle. A procession was formed in front of the court
house under the direction of the sheriff. The ministers of religion and
other gentlemen, preceded by the sheriff on horseback, moved with
funeral music after the prisoner, who was carried on a wagon and guarded
by a battalion of light infantry and a company of artillery. In this
array the procession moved solemnly down the main street and across the
bridge to the place of execution on the east bank of the river. There
stood the gallows; at its foot was a coffin.

The condemned man was assisted to a seat upon his coffin. About him
gat