e of George Clarke of Hyde Hall.

From 1825 to 1828 Apple Hill was the residence of the afterward
distinguished Judge Samuel Nelson, and during the next five years was
owned and occupied by General John A. Dix, who had resigned from the
army, and settled down in Cooperstown to practise law. His first cases
were prepared in a little office that stood near the gate of the Apple
Hill property. At that time it is said that he made a poor impression as
a public speaker, and gave small promise of his later fame. In 1833 he
became secretary of state of New York, and afterward was United States
Senator. During the Civil War he raised seventeen regiments, and as
Secretary of the Treasury at the outbreak of the war issued the famous
order which first convinced the country that the executive government at
Washington was really determined to meet force with force: "If anyone
attempts to pull down the American flag, shoot him on the spot!" After
the war General Dix was minister to France, and in 1872 was elected
Governor of the State of New York. Among the children of General Dix
who played hide-and-seek amid the trees of Apple Hill was Morgan Dix,
afterward the distinguished rector of Trinity parish, New York, who in
later years passed many summers in Cooperstown. It was remembered of Dr.
Dix's childhood that when his mother sent him away from Cooperstown to
school, being apprehensive of his safe conduct on the journey, she put
him into the stage-coach completely enveloped in a green baize bag that
she had made for the purpose, with nothing but the boy's head emerging
from the opening which was snugly tied around his neck. Dr. Dix's last
visit to Cooperstown was in 1891 when he was a guest at the Cooper
House, and was driven forth, with two hundred and fifty other guests, by
the fire which burned it to the ground in the early dawn of the eighth
of August. This summer hotel stood within the grounds occupied by the
Present High School. Its burning was a calamity to Cooperstown, for
under the management of Simeon E. Crittenden it had become widely
famous, and drew guests from every part of the country.

From 1833 to 1839 Apple Hill was the home of Levi C. Turner, who married
the daughter of Robert Campbell, and afterward was for some years county
judge. During the Civil War Turner was Judge Advocate in the War
Department under President Lincoln, concerning whom he had many intimate
reminiscences.

In early days, before the common sc