the shore, while the effulgence set
the waters ablaze from Council Rock to the Sleeping Lion, and flung a
weird splendor upon the forests of the surrounding hills.

[Illustration: _J. B. Slote_

THE LYRIC AT COOPER'S GRAVE]

A lovable patriarch of the village was Samuel M. Shaw, well known
throughout the state as editor of the _Freeman's Journal_. He had once
been an editor of the _Argus_, in Albany, and became editor and
proprietor of the _Freeman's Journal_ in Cooperstown in 1851. In this
position he continued more than half a century, and had a history almost
unique in village journalism. When he began his work Shaw was regarded
as an innovator, for he was one of the first editors in the country to
introduce columns of local news and personal items, a practice which, at
a time when newspapers were wholly devoted to politics, speeches,
foreign affairs and literary miscellany, was widely ridiculed. He
survived long enough to be regarded as an exemplar of conservative and
old-fashioned journalism, and became the Nestor of Cooperstown. In the
office of the _Freeman's Journal_, with its clutter of old machinery,
piles of grimy books, its floor littered with newspapers, its wall
streaked with cobwebs, the aged editor seemed exactly to fit into the
surroundings. Here he received his friends, for the bed-ridden wife at
Carr's Hotel, where he had rooms, was unequal to much social duty. The
printing-office was his kingdom, and here, at the battered desk, he
reigned supreme, a benevolent-looking man, with white beard closely
enough trimmed to show a firm mouth, while the bald head shone above the
desk as he bent his eyes closely to the pen in writing, and the left
hand occasionally stroked the cluster of silvery locks that overhung the
back of his collar. Late every afternoon he put aside his pen and
proof-sheets, and with a coat held capewise about his bent shoulders,
toddled to the Mohican Club to play bottle-pool with his old friend, G.
Pomeroy Keese. Every Sunday the editor's venerable figure was
conspicuous in a front pew of the Baptist church, in which he was a
pillar, and always held up as an example to the youth of the village.

When Samuel Shaw died, in 1907, occurred a dramatic episode which only a
village community can produce. During his long career Shaw had
accumulated a fair amount of property, and in his will had made kindly
bequests to certain friends. Not until his death did it become generally
known that