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Spring 1992 the QUARTERLY Official Publication of the St Official Publication of the St. Lawrence County Historical Association Spring 1992 THE QUARTERLY Official Publication of the St. Lawrence County Historical Association VOLUME XXXVIII SPRING 1992 NO. 2 CONTENTS George E McFarland Travellers and Settlers, 1803-1826 3 Judge Cooper's Settlement at DeKalb 6 A Lark Through the North Woods 12 Creating a Settlement in the Wilderness 14 DeKalb to Cranston, R.I.: The Sarle Letters, 1810-1826 Cover: A painting of the blast furnace and, to the right of it over the raceway, the grist mill which Judge William Cooper had built at a site that came to be known as Cooper's Falls, just a short distance west of the village of DeKalb which Cooper settled and started building in 1804. The name of the painter is unknown as is the location of the painting today. For some years it was in the possession of the Cross family, according to the late Atwood Manley. (Photo SLCHA Archives) This publication is ntade possible in part with public funds front the New York State Council on the Arts. Co-editors: Marvin L. Edwards ISSN 0558-1931 George F. McFarland Copyright St. Lawrence County Historical Association 1992 Advertising: Ruth McKean Contributions: The Quarterly welcomes contributions in the form of manuscripts, drawings, and photographs. If documentation is necessary, we request that it conform The Quarterly is published Winter, Spring, Summer, and to The MLA Style Manual. A summary of the MLA format Fall each year by the St. Lawrence County Historical is available from the editor; manuscripts which do not Association. conform to the MLA format may be revised. Address all Extra copies may be obtained from the St Lawrence editorial communications to Editor, The Quarterly, St. County Historical Association, PO. Box 8, Canton, NY Lawrence County Historical Association, PO. Box 8, 13617, at $3.00 each plus 754 postage and handling. Canton, NY 13617. Spring 1992 3 Judge Cooper's Settlement at DeKalb William Cooper (1754-1809) was born and raised on the modest landholdings of his Quaker parents at Byberry, near Phil- adelphia, Pennsylvania. His grandparents had emigrated to North America from Stratford-on-Avon not many years after the death of Shakesueare. Like others in colonial America, young William grew up excited by the expanding frontier and fas- cinated with the possibilities inherent in the acquisition and settling of new lands. The eight long years of battling with Eng- land in the War of Independence and then the final victory gave added energy and enthusiasm to those inclined to move out into the splendid future offered by the wilderness. William Coouer would dis- tinguish himself as one of this country's best land promoters, not only successful and wealthy, but reasonable and humane as well. In 1785, in his thirty-first year and not many months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris that formallv ended the evolutionary War, cooper' set out in earnest to seek his fortune on the frontier, not to the west but to the north. Perhaus he had heard of another Quaker's visit io the wilderness of east central New York State in 1769 or simply 'heard of one of Richard Smith's major findings, the water- travel circuit offered by the Delaware and the Susquehanna Rivers and the Mohawk and the Hudson. What Cooper saw at the southern end of Otsego ~ak;he liked very much and began to purchase land there throughout much of what became Otse~o county. When George Washington visigd William Cooper, portrait by Gilbert Stuart, 1785. (Courtesy of the New York State the area in 1783 he had had a vision of Historical Association, Cooperstown) "the New Empire" then made possible by the victories of the colonists and "the vast inland navigation" resources of the land. move the entire household north. It is said to build her a grand mansion there which (Lyman H. Butterfield, "Cooper's Inher- that, when just about everything else had they called Otsego Hall. Although it might itance: the Otsego Country and its Foun- been loaded for the trip to the far-off be difficult for us to comprehend, William ders," James Fenimore Cooper, A Re-Appraisal, wilderness, his wife refused to budge; she Cooper would at one point in his career NYS Historical Association, 1954, p. 387). just sat in her rocker holding the baby in own 750,000 acres, not just in Otsego In the following years William Cooper her arms in their empty but civilized country, but to the west and also to the returned to Otsego Lake and methodically house. The determined husband there- north toward the St Lawrence River. In- set about establishing a place for himself upon picked up the chair and its occupants deed, Cooper would include among his and building a home there, accumulating and put them on the wagon. ('The Dictionary land acquisitions, the purchase of the land, devising a plan for the village, and of American Biography, N). town of DeKalb in St Lawrence County bringing in new settlers to buy house It is likely that the Coopers did not from Samuel Oeden. lots and to supply services required by a head for New York City and the Hudson Just how ~oiperachieved all that he growing community. River, but instead sailed up the Delaware did in not much more than twenty years Having mamed at 21, ten years earlier, into New York State and west almost to is not known. As an entrepreneur he Cooper had already established a home for present-day Binghamton, then crossed over demonstrated two -great assets: a remarkable his rapidly growing family in Burlington, to the Susquehanna and took it north- sense of timing, of knowing when to buy New Jersey, near his wife's people and east a bit to where it emptied out of and when to sell; and sound business incidentally not far from the home of Otsego Lake, that is, to Foot-of-the-Lake, sense, knowing what would go and how to Richard Smith. When their eleventh child, their new home. Mrs. Cooper remained provide it so that all parties would be James Fenimore, was one year old in 1790, unhappy with the change until her hus- satisfied. No absentee landlord, Cooper William Cooper decided it was time to band, who continued to prosper, was able lived and worked among the people he Spring 1992 did business with. Confident, honest, in St Lawrence County. (Get Cooper's year later the village of Oswegatchie, later amiable, and practical, he was always ready own description from his Guide in the Ogdensburg, though settled, was populated to put himself out in order to make his Wilderness) Rather than making tenants by only four familes even though that site enterprises work. The man was "every- of his prospective settlers, Cooper sold was accessible by water from Montreal where, doing everything," as Lyman Butter- parcels of land to individuals on an in- or from Oswego (Hough, p. 402). When field said of him. He believed in the stallment payment basis, the new owners Hough tells us that Cooper's party traveled immense potential of the new nation. paying him a percentage of the purchase from the Black River near Carthage to the Rather than sitting in his manor house price each year. Although the system Oswegatchie at Oxbow by way of "the old collecting rents, perhaps in some faraway would eventually break down, it did state road (p. 288), which is oft men- city like New York or even Antwerp, wonders for the spirits of incoming frontier tioned but seldom described, we must Holland, William Cooper devoted a large folk, and it avoided the "Anti-Rent Wars" picture a trail, partially cleared to wagon- part of his energies to the settling of his common elsewhere. Even more impressive width, with random stumps still to be lands, not merely to owning them or selling was the fact that Cooper planned each removed and frequent windfalls lying off at a profit, though he meant to make community that he settled and personally across the clearing as well as innumerable as much or more than other speculators. led each group of settlers to their new rocks and mudhiles to break axles, bog William Sampson, the lawyer to whom homes, taking with him tools and provi- down both animals and wagonwheels, and the Judge wrote the letters that became sions to enable them to make a start punish the bodies and spirits of travelers. the Guide, asked his motive for "first One old settler recalled "the sinrmlarL. In its southern reaches that route was settling in the Wilderness." Cooper an- appearance of Judge Cooper in his two- known as "the old French road," which swered that it was "for the sole purpose of wheeled carriage with several men on each had been cleared by the emigres who promoting my interest; but I may also add, side of it to keep it from upsetting, as settled north of Utica in the Castorland that after having been employed in the he was leading. a large company of area during the French Revolution. South same pursuit for twenty years of improving pioneers through the dense forests to of High Falls, Lyons Falls today, passage land, I am now by habit so attached to it, DeKalb in St Lawrence Countv where he to and from Utica and Albany was not that it is the principal source which re- had erected a house said to be six@ feet nearly so difficult mains to me of pleasure and recreation." square, for their accommodation, until Judge Cooper might have led the way (Guide, p.
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