Otsego County is a county in the U.S. state of New York located within the Mohawk Valley Region. As of the 2020 census, the population was 58,524. The county seat is Cooperstown. The county's population center is Oneonta. The name Otsego is from a Mohawk or Oneida word meaning "place of the rock."
Cooperstown is a village in and the county seat of Otsego County, New York, United States. Most of the village lies within the town of Otsego, but some of the eastern part is in the town of Middlefield. Located at the foot of Otsego Lake in the Central New York Region, Cooperstown is approximately 60 miles southwest of Albany, 67 mi (108 km) southeast of Syracuse and 145 mi (233 km) northwest of New York City. The population of the village was 1,794 as of the 2020 census.
Otsego is a town in the north-central part of Otsego County, New York, United States. The population was 3,641 at the 2020 census. The town is named after Lake Otsego, which forms part of the town's eastern border.
James Fenimore Cooper was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonial and indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought him fame and fortune. He lived much of his boyhood and the last fifteen years of life in Cooperstown, New York, which was founded by his father William Cooper on property that he owned. Cooper became a member of the Episcopal Church shortly before his death and contributed generously to it. He attended Yale University for three years, where he was a member of the Linonian Society.
Susan Augusta Fenimore Cooper was an American writer and amateur naturalist. She founded an orphanage in Cooperstown, New York and made it a successful charity. The daughter of writer James Fenimore Cooper, she served as his secretary and amanuensis late in his life.
Otsego Lake is a 4,046-acre (16.37 km2) lake located in Otsego County in the U.S. state of New York. It is the source of the Susquehanna River and largest lake in Otsego County. The Village of Cooperstown is located at the lake's southern end. Glimmerglass State Park is located on the lake's northeastern shore, and includes Hyde Hall, a large mansion constructed in 1817, that overlooks the lake. The Glimmerglass Opera, opened in June 1987, is located on the western shore.
Glimmerglass State Park is a 593-acre (2.40 km2) state park located north of Cooperstown, in Otsego County, New York. Most of the park is located inside the Town of Springfield.
William Cooper was an American merchant, land speculator and developer, the founder of Cooperstown, New York. A politician, he was appointed as a county judge and later served two terms in the United States Congress, representing Otsego County and central New York. He was the father of James Fenimore Cooper, who became a noted writer of historical novels related to the New York frontier.
John Christopher Hartwick was an American Lutheran minister in Colonial America and founder of Hartwick College.
David Shipman is generally considered to be the real-life inspiration for James Fenimore Cooper's character Natty Bumppo in the Leatherstocking Tales along with a pioneer man named Thomas Leffingwell, a co-founder of Norwich, CT, whose son founded the Leffingwell Inn, now a museum. When Cooper's father Judge William Cooper settled in what is now Otsego County, New York in the mid-1780s, Shipman lived alone in a small cabin in the hills south of the village of Cooperstown, a squatter on the land of Cooper's neighbor John Christopher Hartwick.
Stephen Carlton Clark was an American art collector, businessman, newspaper publisher and philanthropist. He founded the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Edward Cabot Clark was an American lawyer, businessman and investor.
Elihu Phinney (1755–1813) was the first printer in Cooperstown, New York. In the early 1790s he lived in Canaan, Columbia County, New York, where he published the Columbian Mercury, and Canaan Repository of Rural Knowledge.
The Fenimore Art Museum is a museum located in Cooperstown, New York on the west side of Otsego Lake. Collection strengths include the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art, American fine and folk art, 19th and early 20th century photography, as well as rare books and manuscripts. The museum's mission is to connect its audience to American and New York State cultural heritage by organizing exhibits and public programs that "engage, delight and inspire."
Edward Severin Clark was an American businessman, and the owner of the New York City apartment building The Dakota.
Hyde Hall is a neoclassical country mansion in Springfield Center, New York, designed by architect Philip Hooker for George Clarke (1768–1835), a wealthy landowner. The house was constructed between 1817 and 1834, and designed with English and American architectural features. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986 for its architecture, and the completeness of its architectural documentary record. It is one of the few surviving works of Philip Hooker, a leading 19th-century American architect.
Three Mile Point also known as Wild Rose Point is a geographic cape extending into Otsego Lake in the Town of Otsego in Otsego County in the U.S. State of New York. It is located north of the Village of Cooperstown and is accessible via State Route 80. In the summer months it is also a public swimming beach and offers changing rooms, a picnic area, and a pavilion. In the winter months it serves as a place for ice fishers to park.
Henry Spotswood Fenimore Cooper was a writer and local environmentalist. He was a longtime contributor to The New Yorker, predominantly covering NASA's space program. Cooper also wrote eight books about space exploration throughout his lifetime. He was a noted chronicler of events at the Century Association, a private club in New York City.
Horace Hawkins Comstock was an American businessman, lawyer, and politician. He was very successful in business as a young man, purchased large quantities of land in the Michigan Territory in the early 1830s, founded the town of Comstock, Michigan, and served multiple terms in the Michigan Legislature. He built a reputation as a generous and helpful citizen, but following the death of his first wife, his family began to fall apart and his finances suffered, and he died intestate with little of his fortune left.
