r in communities partly given over to the pursuit of pleasure. In
some innovations against which she protested, Mrs. Clark at last
gracefully yielded to the inevitable. This was the case with
automobiles, which, when they first appeared upon the country roads, she
regarded with the alarm and disgust of one devoted to a carriage and
horses, and would have banished them from Otsego if she had had the
power. In that period of transition few country roads were adapted to
the use of motors, and to meet one of the new machines while driving in
a carriage along the lake shore was to suffer the apprehension of
imminent death from the fury of plunging horses, and to be nearly choked
in a cloud of dust.

Mrs. Clark was fond of walking, and she was a familiar figure in the
residence streets of the village in summer, usually dressed in white,
without a bonnet, and carrying a white parasol above her head, as she
moved with quick step upon some errand.

The homestead at Fernleigh represents much that has contributed to the
development of Cooperstown. The greater part of the industry controlled
by the Clark estates is managed from the offices of the Singer Building
in New York, which when it was erected in 1909 was the tallest office
building in the world. But a large part of the interests of the estates
is centered in the picturesque old building, originally built for a
bank, which stands near the entrance of the Cooper Grounds in
Cooperstown. The Cooper Grounds themselves were rescued from a condition
of desolation in which they had lain for many years after the death of
Fenimore Cooper, and are maintained by the Clark estates for the benefit
of the public. The Village Club and Library across the way is a creation
of the Clark estates. On the hills east and west of the village, and
along the eastern shore of the lake for a stretch of nearly six miles,
the same ownership has preserved for all lovers of nature the noble
forests that lend a charm of wildness to the region.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 119: _A Few Omitted Leaves_, Keese, p. 12; _History of
Cooperstown_, Livermore, p. 46.]

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LAKE OF ROMANCE AND FISHERMEN

The period from 1870 to 1880 was one of rapid growth and development in
Cooperstown. The permanent population increased to over two thousand
souls, and a number of fine summer residences were erected. Almost all
of its natural advantages Cooperstown owes to Otsego Lake. These had
been long