and windows of the house. As the midnight hour approached Major Duff sallied forth and inspected the disposal of his forces. During the long winter darkness of that night the boys marched up and down the village streets, with imaginations so fearfully wrought up as to deny the need of sleep which lay heavy upon them. If any of the inhabitants of the village sympathized in this watchfulness in their behalf, or kept awake to see what was going on, there was no evidence of it. The boys were left to their vigil. They passed the night in anxious watching. No Indians appeared, and all danger was dispelled by the rays of the rising sun. Too much prosperity was the ruin of Duff's school. It became so successful that the principal neglected duty for pleasure, leaving the school in charge of subordinates. Then, in less than five years from its beginning, it failed. At the outbreak of the Mexican War, Duff obtained a captain's commission in the United States Army, and when last seen by his old friends he presented an imposing appearance as he rode down Broadway in New York at the head of his company, with martial music and flying colors, to embark for Vera Cruz.[119] George A. Starkweather purchased Apple Hill in 1847, and lived there until he sold it in 1856 to Edward Clark. The latter had been attracted to Cooperstown as at one time the home of his distinguished father-in-law, and law-partner, Ambrose L. Jordan. Mrs. Clark, who was Jordan's eldest child, was born while the Jordans were resident in Cooperstown in the house which still stands at the northwest corner of Main and Chestnut streets, and after they removed to Hudson the daughter was sent back to Cooperstown to attend the boarding school which was conducted for a time in Isaac Cooper's old house at Edgewater. It was through these associations that Edward Clark and his bride, after their marriage in 1836, began to be frequent visitors in Cooperstown.