USA > New York > Genealogical and family history of central New York : a record of the achievements of her people in the making of a commonwealth and the building of a nation, Volume III > Part 82
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gomery county, Pennsylvania, and the latter was a representative of one of the old Hugue- not families that settled in the same region. Children of James Cooper, eight by first mar- riage: 1. Susanna, married, October 25, 1771, John Breeze. 2. James, born March 6. 1753, died May 1, 1849 ; married (first) Naomi Nel- son, (second) before 1791, Mary Albritson, (third) in 1792, Sarah Comly. 3. William, referred to below. 4. Letitia, married (first), January 1, 1775. Joseph Ashton, (second ) Woodruff. 5. Levi, married (first ) Rich. (second) a woman whose name is unknown. 6. Benjamin, married his first cousin, Mary, daughter of Thomas and Phebe (Hibbs) Cooper, referred to above. 7. Ann, married (first ) Kelly, ( second)
Hubbell. 8. Hannah, born in 1777, died in 1853: married, in 1792, Samuel Johnson. 9. Amelia, born in 1779. died in 1806; married John Morton. 10. Marmaduke, born in 1781. died in 1863. 11. Meshach, born in 1783, died in 1853; married Elizabeth Ludwick. 12. Laodosia, born in 1784, died in 1861 : married Henry B. Rosin. 13. Naboth, born in 1785; married Jane Blair. 14. Noah, born in 1787. died in 1817; married Martha Carpenter. 15. Alphens, born June 25, 1789. died February 21, 1845; married, April 15, 1819, Margaret Grier.
(IV) William (2), son of James (2) and Hannah ( Hibbs) Cooper, was born in By- berry, Philadelphia county, Pennsylvania. De- cember 2, 1754, died in Albany, New York, December 22, 1809, and is buried at Coopers- town. He removed from Byberry to Burling- ton. New Jersey, where he married and set- tled down for a while. In 1785 he went to Otsego county, New York, and examined the lands there on which the settlements had failed. In May, 1786, he disposed of large areas there, and settled himself at the south end of Otsego lake. In1 1790 he removed his family from Burlington to Cooperstown, as the place had even then been named. Febru- ary 17, 1791, he was appointed judge of the court of common pleas of Otsego county, and he was a representative from New York state to the fourth and sixth congresses, December 7. 1792, to May 3, 1797, and December 2. 1799, to March 3. 1801. He married, in 1775. Elizabeth Fenimore, who died December 15. 1817, a descendant of Richard Fenimore, of Burlington, and a member of one of the most distinguished and highly connected of the old
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Quaker families of West Jersey. Children : 1. Richard Fenimore, born in 1776. died in 1813: married Ann Low Carey; their son, Richard, born in 1808, died December 16. 1862, married Maria Frances, daughter of James Fenimore and Susan Augusta ( DeLan- cey ) Cooper, referred to below. 2. Hannah, born in 1778, died in 1800. 3. Ann, died in infancy. 4. Abraham, died in infancy. 5. Isaac, born in 1781, died in 1818; married Mary Ann. daughter of General Jacob and Mary ( Cox ) Morris, of Butternuts, New York, and granddaughter of Lewis Morris, the signer of the Declaration of Independence. 6. Abraham, died in infancy. 7. Ann, born in 1784. died April 7, 1870: married George Pomeroy, a grandson of the revolutionary general. Seth Pomeroy, who was born in 1779, died December 24, 1861; their eldest daughter, Georgianna. married Theodore Keese, and became the father of the late George Pomeroy Keese, of Cooperstown; their daughter, Hannah Cooper Pomeroy, married Charles Jarvis Woolson, and became the mother of the distinguished novelist, Con- stance Fenimore Woolson. S. William, mar- ried Elizabeth Clason. 9. Elizabeth, died young. 10. Samuel, married Elizabeth Bart- lett. 11. James Fenimore, referred to below. 12. Henry Fry, died in infancy.
(\') James Fenimore, son of the Hon. Wil- liam (2) and Elizabeth (Fenimore) Cooper, was born in Burlington. New Jersey, Septem- ber 15. 1789. died in Cooperstown, New York, September 14, 1851. He was not quite one year old when his father removed his family to Cooperstown, and he spent his boyhood years on the frontier of civilization, surround- ed by primeval forests, and never far removed from the possibility of Indian raids, while in daily contact with the red men who came to Cooperstown for trade. The environment stimulated his imagination, made him respon- sive to the sense of mystery, and gave him materials for the most important section of his writings. He passed through the village schools and received private instruction in the family of the Rev. Mr. Ellison, rector of St. Peter's. Albany, whose fine culture and un- American ideals had not an altogether desir- able effect on the style and character of the future novelist, who was something of an aris- tocrat at heart. In January, 1803, James F. Cooper went to Yale College, where he learned more out-of-doors than in the class room. In-
deed he neglected his studies with such per- sistent defiance of academic restraints that he was expelled in his third year. His father re- sented the action of the faculty, but it led to Cooper choosing a naval carcer. Ile entered the merchant service as a sailor before the mast. September, 1800, and after sixteen months' experience on the sea, in London and at Gibraltar, received his midshipman's com- mission. June 1, 1808. Ile served for a time on the "Vesuvius," then with a construction party, on Lake Ontario, where he saw a new aspect of frontier life and became familiar with the details of shipbuilding. He also saw other forms of naval service before his resig- nation, at the time of his marriage. This mar- riage was happy, but his resignation on the eve of the war of 1812 did not escape criti- cism, because his wife being of a conspicuous Tory family the action seemed to imply a lack of patriotism. For the following ten years Mr. Cooper lived chiefly in Westchester coun- ty, his wife's home, devoting himself to farm- ing, and becoming the father of six children before he conceived the idea of authorship.
As it was, he began to write less through emulation of the success of others than through conviction of their failure. He had been reading an English novel aloud, when he suddenly said to his wife. "I believe I could write a better story myself," and proceeded to try it. But "Precaution," published in 1820. dealing with high life in England, about which Cooper knew nothing, was naturally a failure, and not at all characteristic of his future work. Being advised to deal with more local themes, he remembered a story John Jay had told years before about a spy, and his home
in Westchester, the scene of much fighting during the revolution, furnished a fit stage for the play of his fancy. The result was "The Spy" ( 1821-22), which achieved a success un- til then unapproached in America, and deter- mined its author to pursue his new-found ca- reer. It proved to a very self-conscious gen- eration that it was not impossible for America to produce a novelist almost worthy of being ranked with the great author of "Waverley.' Even to-day it remains a stirring narrative that deals adequately with important events, and in Harvey Birch, the Spy, it has added to our national fiction one of its few imperishable characters. In 1823 Mr. Cooper began what is now known as the Leather-stocking Tales, with "The Pioneers," for he did not compose
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the famous five romances in their natural chronological order. Early in the following year he published "The Pilot." thus practically for the first time joining the ocean to the do- main of fiction, just as he had previously add- ed the backwoods, and as he was soon to add the prairie. He also added to Harvey Birch and Natty Bumppo his third great char- acter, Long Tom Coffin. He now removed to New York City, and shortly after had a serious illness. In 1825 he published "Lionel Lincoln." a story of Boston during the revo- lution, and in 1826 "The Last of the Mohi- cans," placed him at the summit of his popu- larity, and probably represented his highest achievement.
In 1826, in compliance with the wishes of his grandmother, he changed his name from simple James Cooper, to James Fenimore- Cooper, but soon dropped the hyphen, which caused much misapprehension of his act. Im- mediately afterwards he went abroad, where he resided for seven years, being the recipient in foreign capitals of many attentions from distinguished people, although he felt called upon, as in "The Bravo" ( 1831 ), to proclaim vigorously the beneficent greatness of republi- can institutions. His pride in the better fea- tures of American government and society did not prevent him from being one of the first Americans to perceive how really crude his fellow citizens were, and he told them their faults with a frankness that was not discreet. He exploited his prejudices against New Eng- land, and in favor of the Episcopal church, although he was not even baptized until a few months before his death, and soon became in his native land a synonym of all that was unpopular and snobbish. His honest, if over- emphatic strictures outweighed with his comj- cally sensitive critics such fine romances as "The Prairie" ( 1827). "The Red Rover" (about 1828) and "The Water Witch" ( 1830). Returning to America in 1833, he at first spent his winters in New York City, but soon took up his permanent abode at Cooperstown. Here he published several volumes of travels. which embroiled him in bitter controversy with his countrymen, especially concerning his criticisms of them in his "Home as Found" (1838). This exposed him to almost incom- prehensible vituperation, which was increased by the fact that in the previous year a dispute had arisen touching the claims of his towns- people to a certain tract of the Cooper estate.
Cooper now published his "History of the United States" ( 1839). his "Pathfinder" ( 1840), his "Deerslaver" (1841), his "Two Admirals" and "Wing-and-Wing" ( 1842). For the admirable English and Mediterranean setting of the last two stories he was as much indebted to his European stay as he was to his return to the home of his boyhood for his equally admirable setting of the two novels preceding.
In 1845 and 1846 he published his anti-rent novels. "Satanstoe," "The Chain-Bearer," and "The Redskins," dealing with the well-known demagogia agitation against the proprietors of certain large estates in New York. The first of these contains one of the best pictures that we have of life in colonial New York. While Cooper was thus composing novels, which have been translated into many lan- guages and have gained him an undying repu- tation abroad, especially in France, he was bringing libel suits against many of the Whig editors of his native state, among them Hor- ace Greeley, Thurlow Weed and Jamies Wat- son Webb. He was quixotic enough to con- duct these suits himself, and he proved able to win verdicts which finally brought his crit- ics to their senses, although they did little to restore his popularity. A later generation smiles wonderingly at the whole matter, but sympathizes with the pugnacious author. The last few years of Cooper's life saw the publi- cation of enough novels to occupy an ordinary lifetime, but they added little to his reputation. He maintained his proud independence to the last, and just before his death forbade his family to give any biographer access to his papers, an injunction which has been obeyed, but which has not prevented the life written by Professor T. R. Lounsbury in the Ameri- can Men of Letters Series from being an ad- mirable piece of work. Six months after Cooper's death a public meeting in New York, addressed by Daniel Webster and William Cullen Bryant, did something to atone for the evil treatment America had accorded one of the very greatest of her writers. Since then his popularity and the appreciation of his real worth have been steadily though slowly in- creasing : but even after the lapse of more than half a century, it can hardly be said that Americans are prepared to do Cooper full jus- tice. Judged in the large by the effects of his best works, and when he is compared with his rivals like Simms and Bird, and with his pre-
Sands Higginbotham FOUNDER OF ONEIDA
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decessor. Brockden Brown, his full genius and the service he did American literature emerge splendidly. For carrying power his work has probably had no equal in America ; with fewer crying faults, he would easily have been our greatest author.
Mr. Cooper married, January 1, 1811, Susan Augusta, born January 28, 1792, died January 20, 1852, daughter of John Peter and Eliza- beth (Floyd) DeLancey. Her father was a representative of the distinguished Tory fam- ily of Westchester county, New York, while her mother belonged to the eminent Long Island family which had produced William Floyd, the signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence. Children: 1. Elizabeth. 2. Susan Augusta Fenimore, born in 1813, died in 1894; the American authoress of "Rival Hours," "Rhyme and Reason of Country Life," "Mount Vernon to the Children of America," and other works. 3. Caroline Martha, married Henry P. Phinney, of Cooperstown. 4. Anne Charlotte Fenimore, born in 1817, died March 22, 1885, unmarried. 5. Maria Frances, mar- ried her first cousin, Richard, son of Richard Fenimore and Ann Low ( Carey ) Cooper, re- ferred to above. 6. Fenimore, died in infancy. 7. Paul Fenimore, married Mary Fuller Bar- rows; children: Susan Delancey, James Fenimore, Catharine Fuller, Mary Barrows Cooper.
HIGINBOTHAM Dr. Charles Higin- botham, the earliest known ancestor of the branch of the family here under considera- tion, was born in England in 1690, and came to this country from England in 1720, ac- companied by a brother, name unknown, go- ing first to the Barbadoes, where his brother purchased a plantation and remained there throughout his lifetime, dying unmarried and intestate. His property, then valued at $100,- 000, was never claimed, as far as known, cer- tainly not by the American branch of the fam- ily.
Dr. Charles Higinbotham was a graduate of the Royal Academy of Physicians and Surgeons (of London?). He emigrated to the colony of Rhode Island in 1720 and lived there from that time until his death. He married, in 1722, Mary Niles. Children : 1. Charles, see forward. 2. Alice, married Na- thaniel (or Henry) Sherman, of Rhode Island, in 1748; their son Nathaniel married
Lucy Tisdale, of Rhode Island, and they had two sons, Henry and Watts Sherman.
(11) Dr. Charles (2) Higinbotham, son of Dr. Charles ( 1) and Mary ( Niles) Higin- botham. was born in Rhode Island, about 1723, died in his native state between the years 1793 and 1706. Hle served in the cat- pacity of surgeon general in General Na- thaniel Greene's army throughout the revo- lutionary war. He married, in 1747.
who bore him three sons and three daugh- ters, Niles, see forward, being the eldest son.
(111) Captain Niles Higinbotham, son of Dr. Charles (2) Higinbotham, was born in Rhode Island, in 1748, died in Decatur, ()t- sego county, New York, in 1823. Ile being the eldest son and married remained at home to attend to home affairs, while his father and two younger and unmarried brothers served in the revolutionary army. He was large and strong, and on one occasion, being annoyed while at work in the fields by a certain pow- erful man, who insisted on a test of strength, Captain Higinbotham picked him up and threw him over a fence. He was an excellent sailor and became captain of a merchant vessel, in which capacity he served for many years. and finally settled down as a farmer in the state of New York. He married ( first ) in 1772, a Miss Lippet. of Rhode Island. Chil- dren : Charles: Mercy, married William Gardner, of DeRuyter, New York:
married a Mr. Sutphen, of Sherburne, New York : -, married a MIr. Oothout, of Genesee county, New York. Mrs. Higin- botham died in 1780. Captain Higinbotham married ( second) Lucy ( Tisdale ) Sherman, widow of his cousin, Nathaniel Sherman (by whom she had two sons, Henry and Watts ). Children of second marriage: Lucy, mar- ried (first) Frederick Albert, and ( second ) Asa Gifford; Sands, see forward; Betsey. died the day appointed for her marriage to Tilly Lynde.
( \\') Sands, son of Captain Niles and Lucy ( Tisdale-Sherman ) Iliginbotham, was born at Stephentown, New York, March 18, 1790. He resided for a time in Utica, New York, in the family of his half-brother. Watts Sher- man, who was several years his senior, and while there attended school and afterward was a clerk in the Sherman's store. Later he was a merchant in Vernon, Oneida county, New York, and in partnership with Nathan Davis owned and conducted a glass factory
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there for many years. It is said that "during his twenty-four years' residence in Vernon he was known as an honorable and prosperous merchant, and as a wise and conscientious man whom all esteemed." He was an inti- mate friend of many of the public men of the state, Governor Seward, Thurlow Weed and others. He removed with his family from Vernon to Oneida in 1834, where he had pre- viously purchased large tracts of land-two hundred acres in 1827, and several hundred more in 1829. This is the land upon which the greater part of the city of Oneida now stands. In 1832 he sent Henry Dygert to make a clearing. The Utica & Syracuse rail- road, now the New York Central, was opened with a grand celebration, July 4, 1839. The track ran through the woods across Mr. Hig- inbotham's farm, and in 1839 a clearing was made and Mr. Higinbotham erected the Rail- road House, which he intended (as he wrote in a letter at the time) should be the finest eating house between Albany and Buffalo. He bargained with the railroad that they could have free right of way through his land if they would stop every train at "Oneida Depot" ten minutes for refreshments. This acted as a stimulus to the growth of the vil- lage. Mr. Higinbotham was a trustee of Hamilton College for the last thirty years of his life, and regularly attended the meetings of the board, giving them the benefit of his wisdom and great experience. He was al- ways prominent in public affairs, and active and zealous for the welfare of the village, feeling great confidence that Oneida was des- tined some time to become a large and pros- perous town. "His strict integrity, his sound sense, his genial spirit and his large heart were elements of attraction which drew around him a large circle, not only of citizens and business men, but of friends."
Mr. Higinbotham married (first) in De- cember, 1811, Temperance Carpenter, born June 25, 1791, died at Aurora, New York, August 2, 1831. Married (second ) in 1832, Cornelia Sheldon. Married (third) in 1853. Mrs. Catharine Garrison. Children of first wife: Niles, see forward; Elizabeth, born March 29. 1817, married Theodore F. Hand, of Vernon; Abigail Josephine, born July 10. 1819, married Stephen H. Goodwin, of Ver- non. Children of second wife: Lyman Cha- pin, born June, 1834, married, March, 1867. Mary Kohlmer; Adelaide, born in 1839, died
in the spring of 1852. Temperance (Carpen- ter) Higinbotham was a descendant of Wil- liam Carpenter (in the fifth generation), of Whorwell, England, who came to America in 1638 in the ship, "Bevis," and settled in Re- hoboth, Massachusetts. Hler great-great- grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather and father all bore the name of John. Her father was born in Jamaica, Long Island, in 1745, and was a resident of Goshen, New York. Her mother, Abigail ( Moore) Carpen- ter, was the second wife of John Carpenter, and she married for her second husband Rev. llezekiah N. Woodruff.
(V) Niles (2), son of Sands and Temper- ance (Carpenter ) Higinbotham, was born in Vernon, Oneida county, New York, March 9. 1813. He received an excellent common school education in Vernon, and afterward was sent by his father to the well-known school of Mr. Morse in Hamilton, New York. At the age of nineteen he entered the store of Alexander Seymour in Utica, New York, where he remained about one year. In 1834, when twenty-one years of age, he entered the store of his uncle, Isaac Carpenter, in Ithaca, with whom he later formed a partnership. When twenty-four years old he severed this connection, and with the little money he had saved in the five years of his mercantile life, went west with his close friend, Samuel Breese, prospecting. They purchased large tracts of land which in after years became quite valuable. Upon returning east in 1840 Mr. Higinbotham with J. P. Manrow took a contract on the old Erie railroad from Os- wego to Corning. After that was finished he joined his father in Oneida, purchased large portions of land there from his father, and in 1844 built the Goodwin store on Madison street, where he remained a silent partner with his brother-in-law, Mr. Goodwin, for some years. Mr. Higinbotham was a man of wonderful integrity and uprightness, a character above reproach in every way, very public-spirited and always working for the good of the town, giving the land for many of the churches, for the old Cherry street school house and the village park at the foot of Broad street. Most of the streets in Oneida were opened by himself or his father; they set out trees and labored in every way to advance the attractiveness and good morals of the town. He labored long and earnestly in the interests of Oneida Seminary, striving
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to keep up a school of the very highest stan- dard, which it was for many years. His father and he aided in the establishment of this institution. In 1851, in connection with his father and Samuel Breese, Mr. Higin- botham organized the first bank opened in Oneida, naming it the Oneida Valley Bank. In 1852 it was incorporated as a state bank, and in 1865 as a national bank. Mr. Higin- botham was elected first president and re- tained that position until his death, March 17, 1890. He always refused to hold any politi- cal office, but he was a steadfast Republican, taking a very lively interest in all the affairs of the Nation, state and his own town, and always aided to the best of his ability in ad- vancing the interests of the party and his home town, Oneida. He was baptized and became a member of the Presbyterian church when he was about sixty years of age. His father's family attended that church, but his wife and children were members of the Epis- copal church.
Mr. Iliginbotham married, in Christ Church, Manlius, Onondaga county, New York, October 30, 1849, Eliza Randall, born in Manlius, New York, November 16, 1823, daughter of Nicholas Phillips and Sybil (Dyer) Randall, the latter of whom was a descendant of Mary Dyer, who was con- demned to death and hung on Boston Com- mon by the Massachusetts authorities for her Quaker belief and teachings. Nicholas P. Randall was always spoken of as "Judge Randall"; he was a prominent lawyer, a de- voted Christian, was a vestryman and warden for many years of Christ Episcopal Church of Manlius, New York, and a graduate of Yale College in 1806. Children of Mr. and Mrs. Randall: Eliza, Julia, Nicholas Dyer, and another Nicholas and a Charles, both of the latter dying in infancy. Children of Mr. and Mrs. Niles Higinbotham : Julia Randall, Louise Adelaide, Eliza Rhobie (Lily). The eldest daughter died unmarried, February 3, 1895.
ADDENDA AND ERRATA
The following addenda and errata were received after the narrative matter had gone through the press
Annabel, p. 1177, Ist col., 28th line, name should be Daniel Collier instead of Daniel Collins; 4Ist line, name in parentheses should be Overhiser instead of Overhisen; 2d col., Ist line, name should be Judge John F. Parkhurst instead of Judge Parker; 5th line, after county should be inserted on January 3, 19II, upon motion of Hon. Alton B. Parker, he was admitted to prac- tice in the United States supreme court; 7th line, instead of Waverly the name should be Bath, New York; 15th line, date of birth of Bernetta, March 18, 1905, and date of birth of Alton, January 2, 19II, instead of January 3. Cowdrey, p. 1428, 2d col., 46th line, should read "as a carriage maker at Ithaca," instead of "a black- smith at Ithaca."
Curtiss, p. 46, Ist col., at end of first par., add : Mr. Curtiss now (1912) has in press and is about to publish a work entitled "The Industrial Rise and Development of Nations" and a "His- tory of the Tariff Policies of the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia and Other European Countries."
Freer, p. 247, Ist col., next to last line should read "in the employ of H. M. Kellogg," instead of "in partnership with"; 2d col., 28th line, name should be Adele instead of Della.
Gilbert, p. 197. 2d col., last line, date of marriage ยท should read 1884, at Fulton, instead of 1881; p. 198, Ist col., 3d line, instead of "in Fulton high school," it should read "at Wheaton Sem- inary at Norton, Massachusetts."
Hawkins, p. 1422, Ist col., 29th line, should read, "He is an attendant of the Protestant Episcopal church," instead of "He is a communicant."
Henderson, p. 307, Ist col., 20th line, name should be Orin instead of Orrin.
Miller, p. 384, Ist col., 40th line, after Rev. A. E. Munson it should read, "she died in January, 1897."
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