April 3, 1807, was an important day in Cooperstown’s history, and James Fenimore Cooper was around to take it all in. That was the day that Cooperstown became a village.

Little did Cooper realize that he would be the honored man 100 years later for the village’s centennial. As the bicentennial approches, the name Cooper is still heard often and proudly.

Like many of us eventually get to in life, Cooper was at a "what do I want to do with the rest of my life?" stage in 1807, at age 18.

James attended Yale College as its youngest student from 1803 to 1805 but was expelled, apparently for a dangerous prank involving blowing up another student’s door. In 1806, he tried to run away to sea, but his father, Judge William Cooper, intervened and got James a commission in the U.S. Navy. That started around 1808.

It wouldn’t be until 1820 that Cooper’s famous writing career got started with the novel, "Precaution."

Cooper settled in Westchester County and did much of his writing there, later took his wife and family to Europe for seven years, and spent his final years in Cooperstown, until 1851.

One of James Fenimore Cooper’s most valuable contributions of writing about local history came in 1838, when he wrote "The Chronicles of Cooperstown."

Chapter 1 opens: "The site of the present village of Cooperstown, is said to have been a favorite place of resort with the adjacent savage tribes, from a remote period. The tradition which has handed down the circumstance, is rendered probable by the known abundance of the fish and game in its vicinity. The word Otsego, is thought to be a compound which conveys the idea of a spot at which meetings of the Indians were held. There is a small rock near the outlet of the lake, called the Otsego rock, at which precise point the savages, according to an early tradition of the country, were accustomed to rendezvous."

Cooper continued with the earliest land patent holders, including Col. George Croghan, who obtained 100,000 acres of land on the west side of the Susquehanna River and of Otsego Lake. When James was 2, his family moved to this area from Burlington, N.J., in 1791.

In Chapter 5, Cooper reaches the village incorporation. "On the third day of April, 1807, a law was passed authorizing the inhabitants of the village of Cooperstown, to elect trustees, under an act of incorporation, which styled the place The Village of Otsego. This change of name arose from party politics, and a majority of the inhabitants of the village being opposed to the measure, elected trustees, who rendered the law a dead letter, by declining to do anything under its provisions."

"June 12, 1812," Cooper continued, "a new act was passed, incorporating the place, by the name of The Village of Cooperstown under which law, the people proceeded immediately to organize the local government."

In 1907, Cooperstown decided to celebrate their centennial, despite the "Otsego" name. In early April, there was a meeting of residents in the Village Hall on a Friday evening. It was decided the celebration would be a weeklong series of events, from Sunday, Aug. 4, through Saturday, Aug. 10. Additionally, they would celebrate their most famous resident, James Fenimore Cooper.

The Aug. 16 edition of The Otsego Farmer had estimates of the celebration reaching its climax on Thursday, Aug. 8, when between 15,000 and 20,000 attended a massive parade.

The summarizing newspaper article began, "The weather during the week has been ideal and all the ceremonies have been held out of doors in an atmosphere of beauty which could not fail to affect every visitor."

On Monday: We’ll be getting a dog off of a barn in Emmons.

City Historian Mark Simonson’s column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com.