OTSEGO LAKE.
At three o’clock A.M. on a cloudy
and somewhat chilly morning, left the door of the
Eagle in a very comfortable extra coach, which was
chartered to convey a freight of four persons to the
mansion of Mr. C e, lying upon
Otsego Lake, distant from Albany some sixty miles.
My companions were Mr. H e,
whom I had with me at starting, and Mr. I. V. B n,
for whom we had agreed to halt at his hotel on the
top of the State House hill, and a long halt we had
of it; for, having no great confidence in our punctuality,
he had very wisely, as far as his own comfort was
concerned, left orders to be called whenever we should
appear: and not a moment earlier was he in the
least danger of being roused, for we had to awaken
one of the Irish waiters before he could be come at;
a task of no small difficulty. After some half-hour’s
delay at the top of the hill, we set forward.
Mem.In future,
always arrange on all early expeditions to have my
quarters beat up last.
Although the morning broke gloomily,
the sun rose brave and bright, and managed throughout
the day to keep the field against both wind and cloud,
that sought to overcast him. For the most part,
this line of country is very tame, and offers little
to compensate for the bad road leading through it.
The amusement, therefore, which a series of fine landscapes
affords the traveller not being found here, we had
to draw upon our own personal resources to banish
weariness; happily these were not wanting: the
youngest of my friends was the son of a leading Whig,
or Oppositionist, and newly inoculated with the right
degree of political fervour becoming the time and
his age; the senior was a Tory, or of the Government
party, possessed of much natural humour, and having
a thorough knowledge of the people.
Previous to starting, the young politician
was bold in his assertion that in Schoharie county,that
through which our route lay,the Whig interest
was in the ascendant; this assertion his better instructed
opponent as stoutly contradicted, insisting on the
contrary, that Jacksonism was the political creed
cherished as orthodox amongst the country people.
The mode of coming at the true state
of the parties was simple enough; we had only, whilst
halting to change horses or bait, to touch upon the
absorbing topic of the day, and the village loungers,
landlord, bar-keeper, and guests, might have been
placed upon a canvassing roll without a chance of
error, so decidedly did they make “their love
known.”
I soon discovered that the “ould
Gineral” had a hollow thing of it on this line
of march, as, indeed, I have uniformly observed to
be the case in all the agricultural districts; and
although it may be argued that the confidence of these
sons of the soil may neither be wisely nor well placed,
it must, I conceive, be on all hands admitted that
it is at least the result of honest conviction; for,
if a stranger may be permitted to judge, I should
say, a more virtuous and right-meaning class does
not exist than the agriculturists generally of these
States; indeed it appears clear to me that it is to
this great body of truly independent electors the
political seer must turn when he would desire fairly
to calculate the probable changes likely to be worked
out in this vast region. They are the owners
of the land which their votes govern; they are invulnerable
to the anarchist and the mad agrarian; they are observant
and intelligent; and although liable, as are all men,
to be for a time hoodwinked, or led astray, by interested
brawlers, only let the veil be once lifted, and a
glimpse afforded which shall inform them that their
property or the country’s freedom are endangered,
and they will be found a rampart behind which all
true patriots, the lovers of order and country, may
rally, and which they may hold impregnable against
the furious assault of the leveller, or the insidious
sap of the disguised despot.
But enough of this: chacun
a son metier; yet here I am betrayed into a homily
where I only contemplated a jest. The truth is,
my allusion to this topic at all arose from the vivid
recollection I still have of the great fun I derived
from this canvassing of my companions in support of
their opinions previously expressed.
At each new stopping-place, my Whig
friend would jump out with eager anticipations that
here his majority would be made too palpable for denial;
after him would quickly stride his long-legged, long-headed
rival; and in a moment both were hard at it with the
inmates of the house.
At places where a weak minority gave
signs of hardihood, I usually adopted their side in
argument; and, as I was fully au fait to all
the slang of party at least, it became my business
in promotion of fun, to fan the flame, which in one
instance had nearly ended in getting myself and my
allies turned out of an honest Jacksonian’s house,
who swore no such libellous Whigs should drink at
his bar. In fact, my ears being kept on strict
duty during our noisy debates, in order to determine
the exact moment for prudently backing out, I, in
this case, concluded it wise to anticipate the expulsion
which was decreed by a large majority, having caught
certain ominous disjointed words, which, by the aid
of a copulative conjunction or two, would have read,
“Take ’em down and duck them in the river.”
About two o’clock we reached
the neat little village called Cherry Valley, and,
in a couple of hours after, entered upon the well-kept
domain of Mr. C e. The view
of the lake and mansion, as it is approached from
the main road, is exceedingly good; and, when the
spirited proprietor’s tasteful designs shall
be completed, will have no equal in this country.
Our reception at Hyde-hall was as
hospitable as heart could wish. It was the birthday
of our host’s son; and we found a large party
assembled, amongst whom were three or four remarkably
handsome women.
Otsego, or, as it is commonly called,
Cooper’s-Town Lake, has been best described
by the novelist of that name, in, I think, his admirable
American book, “The Last of the Mohicans.”
He looked upon it with the eye of a poet and the love
of a son; for he was born and passed his boyhood upon
its banks, and in the pretty town reflected in its
clear water the name of his father is perpetuated.
The son has founded his name upon a yet surer basis:
towns may fall as they have risen, and their founders
be forgotten; but the pleasure we derive from genius
enshrines its possessor within our hearts, and transmits
his name to be a household word amongst our children.
Ages may pass away, and empires may flourish and may
fade, but the hand of a Cicero will ever be found
to pluck the weeds from the tomb of an Archimedes!
This mansion, at which I continued
for three or four days, is built upon a natural terrace,
part of a fine hill that juts out into the lake, and
creates a little bay that laves its south side,
and forms a safe harbour for the boats of the family,
in one of which I remember to have had the pleasure
of making an exploring cruise under the infliction
of as pitiless a shower as ever a party of fair voyagers
was pelted by.
On either hand range the bold finely-timbered
hills by which the lake is bordered, until, gradually
rounding at the southern extremity, it affords space
for one of the neatest little towns I ever visited,
and whose white buildings and glittering vanes give
a charming termination to the view from Hyde, from
which it is distant some eight or nine miles; but
the character of the vista, and there being only water
between, makes it look nearer by half this space.
On Monday, June 30th, after abiding
three cold, wet days, quitted Mr. C e’s
family, drove along the bank of the lake to Cooper’s
Town, and thence took stage for Utica, accompanied
by my young Whig companion, who now had the field
of politics to himself; for our Tory friend had turned
upon his steps for Albany.
We did not reach Utica till late in
the afternoon, the distance being forty miles, and
our rate of going not exceeding six miles per hour:
we made no halt here, but, hiring a carriage, immediately
pushed for the Retreat at Trenton Falls, which we
did not arrive at until after ten o’clock P.M.
The people, however, were yet up, and with much civility
set to work to provide us with a broiled chicken and
a fresh trout, over which we quickly forgot a very
rough day’s ride.