JAMES FENIMORE-COOPER 343

The faces of the people are mostly strangers to me,
though now and then I meet one that I know. The old
inhabitants seem glad to see me.

Write to me immediately^ and direct to Binghamton.
I dine with Phinney to-day, to-morrow here, and where
on Thursday, I know not.

The Misses Cooper are well-behaved girls, and rather
pretty. Mr. Comstock went off the night I arrived. He
seems a respectable young man. Mrs. Cooper is very much
broken, and is very much as she used to be, though less
pretentious. All the Clarkes are in town, and Mrs. Clarke
was at Mrs. Cooper's this morning when I called. I left
my cheque, as promised. She is greatly in want of assist-
ance. I am told that she lately received one of the most
condoling letters possible from her sister, with a present
of a little sugar and rice. They say The Morris is about
to have another heir. I have paid most of my visits and
been well received. I have delayed writing to the last
moment and must conclude. My best love to all the chil-
dren and to your own dear self.

J. F-C.

The air is quite Swissish here and the country is very
beautiful in its verdure.

The trouble which Cooper had with certain of the residents
of Cooperstown arose from two causes, in both of which he was
right and had the sympathy of the better class of the residents.
They were as follows:

(i) Otsego Hall, the home of his father, Judge Cooper, stood
in the centre of considerable grounds which formed a part of the
central and most important village block, a very large one. The
house itself was built directly across the line of Fair Street, which
but for this fact would have been continued through the block.

On the death of Judge Cooper's widow in 1818 the Hall was the elite is at the bottom!chman on