relief,"
Cooper's letter continues; "it was reported to me that unusual shoals of
fish were seen moving in the clear waters of the Susquehanna. I went,
and was surprised to find that they were herrings. We made something
like a small net, by the interweaving of twigs, and by this rude and
simple contrivance we were able to take them in thousands. In less than
ten days each family had an ample supply, with plenty of salt. I also
obtained from the Legislature, then in session, seventeen hundred
bushels of corn."

Those who settled the first farms in the Otsego region had not the means
of clearing more than a small spot in the midst of thick and lofty
woods, so that their grain grew chiefly in the shade; their maize did
not ripen; their wheat was blasted; and for the grinding of what little
they gathered there was no mill within twenty miles, while few were
owners of horses. Some walked to the mill at Canajoharie, twenty-five
miles away, carrying their grist on their shoulders.

William Cooper, after coming to live here, realized that the situation
of the settlers was precarious. He brought a stock of goods to the new
settlement, and established a general store under Richard R. Smith, son
of the Richard Smith who had visited Croghan at Otsego Lake twenty years
before. Cooper also erected a storehouse, and filled it with large
quantities of grain purchased at distant places. He borrowed potash
kettles, which he brought here, and established potash works among the
inhabitants. He obtained on credit a large number of sugar kettles. By
these means he was able to exchange provisions and tools for the labor
of the settlers, giving them credit for their maple sugar and potash,
until in the first year he had collected in one mass forty-three
hogsheads of sugar, and three hundred barrels of pot and pearl ash,
worth about nine thousand dollars. These industries held the colonists
together.

Cooper collected the people at convenient seasons, and under his
leadership they constructed such roads and bridges as were then suited
to their purposes. Perhaps it was at this time that Cooper devised the
cunning method which he afterward confided to William Sampson: "A few
quarts of liquor, cheerfully bestowed, will open a road, or build a
bridge, which would cost, if done by contract, hundreds of dollars."

In 1789 Cooper set up at his newly finished Manor House a frontier
establishment that became famous for its hospitality. For a year b