Hyde Clarke was exactly the man to have lived in what Levi Beardsley called the "Baronial establishment" of Hyde Hall, amid broad acres of wooded hill, and farm, and pasture. Besides being a practical farmer and hop-grower, he was a leader among politicians of the better sort in the Democratic party of the county and State. Through many avenues of interest he reached all sides of life, and gained experiences that saved his culture from dilettanteism, and made him a man among men, a true democrat. In his judgments of men, he was big enough to overlook the little imperfections that often conceal a fundamental soundness of character; he saw the good in all, and spoke evil of none. He had friendships among people of all sorts and conditions. Nor did he limit his friendship to the human race; he knew horses and cows and dogs. He loved all moods of nature, and faced all kinds of weather. Hyde Hall, in the first century of its existence, measured the lives of three men, passing from father to son, and leaving its traditions to the great-grandson of the builder, another George Hyde Clarke, who, in 1915, married Emily Borie Ryerson, a daughter of Arthur Ryerson of Chicago, a gentleman affectionately remembered as the host of "Ringwood" at the head of the lake, and mourned for his untimely death at sea, in the loss of the _Titanic_. [Illustration: A WEDDING-DAY AT HYDE] Hyde Hall is at its best as the centre of a function, crowded with guests, buzzing with conversation, while the company overflows from the house to the lawn, presenting a kaleidoscope of color in the shifting throng that moves to and fro in the spacious foreground of the venerable mansion. There are those to whom one scene stands out as typical of Hyde Hall in its glory: a brilliant autumn afternoon in 1907, the wedding day of the daughter of the house; a picturesque concourse of wedding guests upon the lawn before the doorway; a sudden lifting of all eyes to the balcony above the portico, where the bride appears, clad in her wedding gown, stands radiant, with her bridal bouquet poised aloft, and flings it to the bridesmaids grouped below. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 94: _History of Otsego County_, 1877, p. 285.] [Footnote 95: _Reminiscences_, from which the description of Clarke is taken.] CHAPTER XIII THE BIRTHPLACE OF BASE BALL The game of Base Ball was invented and first played in Cooperstown in 1839. Few statements of historical fact can be supported by the decision of a commission of experts especially appointed to examine the evidence and render a verdict, but in fixing the origin of Base Ball it is exactly this solemn form of procedure that has placed the matter beyond doubt.