William Heathcote, Bishop of Western New York, was born; and
also his lovely daughter, Susan Augusta; here she was wooed and won by
the handsome young naval officer, and on New Year's day, 1811, became
Mrs. James Cooper. In 1899 Dr. Theodore F. Wolfe writes of Cooper and
Heathcote Hill--that some of the great trees which waved their green
leafage above him lingering here with sweetheart or bride yet shade the
grounds, but the household that welcomed him and gave him a beloved
daughter lie in a little grass-grown cemetery near to this old home.
Mrs. Cooper had a sweet, gracious way of guiding by affection her
husband, and he gave her his heart's devotion through the forty years
of their happily mated life. Cooper and his young bride began life by
playing a game of chess between the ceremony and supper. Then, he
driving two horses tandem, they made their wedding journey to
Cooperstown in a gig. His furlough ended a few months later, and to
please his wife, he resigned in May from the navy. Long afterwards he
wrote, "She confesses she would never have done for Lady Collingwood."
For a year or more Cooper and his wife lived with her father at
Heathcote Hill, Mamaroneck, New York, and afterwards in a near-by
cottage on the "Neck," which Cooper named "Closet Hall" because it was
so small, and he described it as the home of the Littlepage family in
"Satanstoe." Only two old willows remain of the group that almost
concealed Cooper's wee house, now entirely rebuilt, and they named the
place as the home of Alice B. Havens, who wrote here some of her poems
and stories--so Dr. Wolfe writes of Closet Hall. After some brief
housekeeping in this "wee home," the young people again made a part of
the family at Heathcote Hill, where they lived until 1814. Then, with
the two little girls born to them, they went for a short time to
Cooperstown, and thence to their Fenimore farm of some one hundred and
fifty acres along Otsego's southwestern shores. "On a rising knoll
overlooking lake and village a handsome stone house was begun for their
life home." The near-by hill, called Mount Ovis, pastured the Merino
sheep which he brought into the country. He loved his gardening, and
was active for the public good, serving as secretary of the county
Agricultural Society, and also of the Otsego County Bible Society. In
the full flush of youth and its pleasures there were the pleasant
diversions of driving, riding, and rowing. So lived flute-playing
Co