he exacted. Shocked at the informality of
their wedding, she required them to be remarried with the full rites of
the Church.

Young Beall and his wife went West, where he prospered, and, returning
to Cooperstown in 1836, purchased Woodside as their residence. After a
few years at Woodside, they settled once more in the West.

In Edgewater garden the locust that sheltered the secret marriage was
long known as the Bridal Tree, and grew to lofty size. In the winter of
1908 the first fall of snow came upon the wings of a great wind. During
the night the big locust fell crashing to the ground, and in the morning
was found covered with a mantle of virgin snow, gleaming white like a
bridal veil.

In 1828, Edgewater having passed into the hands of a company which had
organized to establish a seminary for girls, the house was rearranged
for such occupancy. The numerals which then marked the rooms of the
students are still to be seen on the doorways of the top floor. The
school was a financial failure, and in 1834 the trustees sold Edgewater
as a summer residence to Theodore Keese of New York, who, eight years
previously, had married the eldest daughter of George Pomeroy and Ann
Cooper, sister of Isaac Cooper. Thus the property came back into the
family of the original owner.

In 1836 Mr. and Mrs. Keese came to Cooperstown to live, and their
eight-year-old son, George Pomeroy Keese, then began a residence at
Edgewater that continued for seventy-four years. In 1849, at the age of
twenty-one years, he brought to Edgewater his bride, Caroline Adriance
Foote, a daughter of Surgeon Lyman Foote, of the United States Army. In
this house their eight children were born, and all of these, with the
exception of one who died in infancy, lived to celebrate the sixtieth
wedding anniversary which their parents commemorated with a notable
gathering of friends at Edgewater in the autumn of 1909. Living to old
age in perfect health of body and mind Mr. and Mrs. Keese made Edgewater
a famous centre of hospitality.

During this long residence in Cooperstown Pomeroy Keese stood in the
forefront of its affairs, and came to occupy a unique position in the
life of the village. In boyhood, as the grand-nephew of Fenimore Cooper,
he was brought into close contact with the novelist, and at the
beginning of the twentieth century was one of the few residents of the
village who distinctly recalled the famous writer's personality. He was
best known to t