[Illustration: _C. A. Schneider_ AVERELL COTTAGE] In 1794 a state road was laid out between Albany and Cooperstown. This road came over Mount Vision and descended toward the village by a route that may still be traced down the hillside from Prospect Rock. Cooperstown was then first included in a post route, and a post office was opened in the village, with Joseph Griffin as postmaster. The mail arrived weekly for some years; it then came twice a week; then thrice. The daily mail was not established until 1821. The arrival of the mail was something of a ceremony in the early days of Cooperstown. Toward evening the sound of the postman's horn was faintly heard as he rounded the slopes of Mount Vision; the blasts grew louder as he descended the hill and approached the village; then the thunder of the four post-horses as they crossed the bridge was heard, and the postman drew up with a flourish at the post office, where the villagers had gathered to await the news of the outer world. _The Otsego Herald_ publishes a letter from an indignant citizen, complaining that the mails were opened in a bar-room. Since the first postmaster was also a tavern keeper, the charge was probably true. Among the new houses built in 1796 was one that has survived to the present time, and stands on Main Street adjoining the Second National Bank on the east. This house, distinguished for the quaint beauty of its doorway, was first occupied by Rensselaer and Richard Williams. At about this time the Academy was erected on the hill at the corner of Pioneer and Church streets, where the Universalist church now stands. It was "65-1/2 feet long, 32 wide, and 25 feet posts," while the summit of its belfry was seventy feet high. It was erected by public subscription, at a cost of about $1,450. "It was one of those tasteless buildings that afflict all new countries," says Fenimore Cooper, "and contained two school rooms below, a passage and the stairs; while the upper story was in a single room." The first school in the village had been opened a year or two earlier by Joshua Dewey, a graduate of Yale, who taught Fenimore Cooper his A B C's. He was succeeded as village schoolmaster by Oliver Cory. The latter assumed charge of the new Academy. The school exhibitions of this institution in which Brutus and Cassius figured in hats of the cut of 1776, blue coats faced with red, of no cut at all, and matross swords, were long afterward the subject of mirth in the village. Fenimore Cooper, at one time a pupil in the Academy, took part in a school exhibition, and at the age of eight years became the pride of Master Cory for his moving recitation of the "Beggar's Petition"--acting the part of an old man wrapped in a faded cloak and leaning on his staff.