1684 as a part of a treaty of alliance with the English, although the
Indians retained the right to live and hunt on the river. The granting
of land titles by the Provincial government began not long
afterward.[18] The first recorded patent on Otsego Lake was obtained in
1740 by John J. Petrie at the northern end. John Groesbeck, an officer
of the court of chancery, acquired in 1741 a patent lying northeast of
the lake, including what afterward became the Clarke property and the
site of Hyde Hall. Nearly the whole east side of the lake, with the
present Lakelands tract just east of the Susquehanna at its source, was
covered by the patent which Godfrey Miller obtained in 1761, and upon
which, according to the journal of Richard Smith, twelve persons were
resident eight years later.[19]

Early in the eighteenth century it is probable that traders were from
time to time resident at the foot of Otsego, but the first attempt
toward a permanent settlement on the present site of Cooperstown was
made by John Christopher Hartwick in 1761. In that year Hartwick
obtained from the Provincial government a patent to the lands which,
southwest of Cooperstown, still perpetuate his name, and began a
settlement at the foot of Otsego Lake under the misapprehension that the
site was included in his patent. It was not long before Hartwick
discovered his error, and withdrew to the proper limits of his tract,
but this attempt to found a village upon the spot which William Cooper
afterward selected connects with the history of Cooperstown a unique
character and memorable name.

Hartwick, who was born in Germany in 1714, came to America at about
thirty years of age as a missionary preacher, and in his time was as
famous for his eccentricities, as he afterward became for his pious
benefactions. He held some settled charges, but, except for twelve years