hing his newspaper was done by Judge
Prentiss himself. Besides being sole editor, he attended to the
financial department, and for forty years, except while in Congress, he
gave his personal attention in the printing office to the mechanical
department. A later writer recalls often seeing Col. Prentiss in the
press-room, with coat off, sleeves rolled up, either inking the type
with two large soft balls, or pulling at the lever of the old Ramage
press. He describes him as "an industrious, energetic man, a little
inclined to aristocratic bearing, but open, frank and cordial with his
friends."

The last appearance of Col. Prentiss in public life, from which he had
previously kept aloof for several years, was as a delegate to the
Democratic State convention which was held in Albany on February 1,
1861. In that body of distinguished and able men, of which he was one of
the vice-presidents, he attracted much attention, and the question was
frequently asked by those in attendance, referring to Col. Prentiss,
"Who is that large, fine-looking old gentleman, with white, flowing
hair?"[94]

Colonel Prentiss's next door neighbor, William Holt Averell, son of
James Averell, Jr., was for more than half a century one of the most
prominent citizens of the village, who did more perhaps than any other
for its financial development. He was one of the first directors and for
many years president of the Otsego County Bank, the original of the
present First National Bank, and for which the building across the way
from his house, now used as the Clark Estate office, was erected in
1831. As he issued every day from the doorway of this building with its
portico of fluted columns, his figure was exactly such as the
imagination might now devise as most in harmony with the surroundings;
for in his youth Averell was extremely punctilious in his dress, being a
very handsome man, and for many years it was his custom to wear a white
beaver hat, and ruffled shirt, with ruffles at the cuffs that set off to
good advantage his small and delicate hands. He did all his reading and
work at night. Those who passed his windows at a late hour were sure to
glimpse him bending over his desk, and nobody else in Cooperstown went
to bed late enough to see his lamp extinguished, for the servants often
found him still at work when they came to summon him to breakfast in the
morning. He lived long enough to be regarded as a gentleman of the old
school, positive and d