ter world has had a far-reaching effect upon its inhabitants.

Some of the old-fashioned merchants were at first inclined to resent the
demands made by city folk in excess of the time-honored customs of trade
in Cooperstown. Seth Doubleday kept a store at the northwest corner of
Main and Pioneer streets. One day a lady from the city came in airily,
ordered a mackerel delivered at her summer home in the village, and was
out again before Doubleday could recover his breath. At that period all
villagers went to market with a basket, and carried their own goods
home. Nobody thought of having purchases delivered by the merchant.
Doubleday was enraged at what seemed to him an insolent demand, and the
longer he reflected on the matter the more furious did he become. At
last, leaving his shop unattended, he went in person to the customer's
house to deliver the mackerel. The lady herself opened the door.
Doubleday took the fish by the tail, and slapped it down vigorously upon
the doorstep, exclaiming, "There, madam, is your damned three-cent
mackerel, and _delivered_!"

The new phase of village life may perhaps be dated from the purchase of
the Apple Hill property by Edward Clark of New York, who, in 1856, made
his summer home here, and after the close of the Civil War erected his
mansion. The establishment of this country-seat was but the beginning of
the extension of Edward Clark's estate in this region, and created a
relationship to the village which his descendants have ever since
continued.

"Apple Hill," as the place was called before Edward Clark's purchase, or
"Fernleigh," as he renamed it, is thus a connecting link between the old
and the new in Cooperstown. It has a story that brings the elder
traditions of the village into touch with the newer spirit of modern
enterprise.

Apple Hill was originally the property of Richard Fenimore Cooper,
eldest son of the founder of the village. In the summer of 1800 he built
the house which stood until displaced by Fernleigh House in 1869.
Fenimore Cooper described the site as "much the best within the limits
of the village," no doubt with reference to the superb view of the
Susquehanna which the veranda at the rear of the house commands. Richard
Cooper planted the black walnut and locust trees, some of which are yet
standing in front of the house at Fernleigh. To the home at Apple Hill
he brought from the head of the lake as a bride, Anne Cary, who after
his death became the wif