My last blog post was about the long trek to Adams taken by the Doxtater family. The Cooper family also settled in Adams originally being from Connecticut and then Durham, New York. (Hoping to get to those places on next year’s vacation.) While we were in Adams on this year’s vacation we did attempt to find some places significant to the Cooper family.
Our first stop was the Adams Rural Cemetery. Many members of the Cooper Family are buried there.
I believe Miles Cooper and his wife Asenath Cowles had a house at the corner of North Park and East Church Streets. Unfortunately I think the spot where their house was is now the parking lot of a Family Dollar store. Their son John Cowles Cooper was also supposed to have a house at that intersection, but I think that house is gone too.
The Historical Association of South Jefferson office was closed the day we were there, so we couldn’t find out some info I was hoping to find. According to the 1870 US Census George Cooper and his wife Roxina Doxtater owned a hotel. (George was the son of Miles and Asenath). The census also lists George and Roxina’s son George Doxtater Cooper as a hotel keeper. I have read about the “Cooper House Block”. I assume the Cooper House was the hotel. I was really hoping to get some information about it at the Historical Association. According to the 1905, 1910, and 1915 census records George D was living on North Park St. The 1915 census did list house numbers, but they were missing for some of the houses on North Park St. So the conclusion was that George Sr was living with his daughter Marietta Cooper Stillman somewhere between house #24 and #36. On the 1910 census siblings George D Cooper, Marietta Cooper Stillman, and Charles C Cooper were all living on North Park St. Specific house numbers were not listed on that census. We walked down North Park St and took some pictures of some houses that looked old. Not sure if any of them were Cooper houses or not, but some of them may have been.
We believe that Miles and George Sr also owned farmland. In a land deed from 1810 Miles bought land in Lot 54 and in 1824 he sold land in Lot 55. I have a map from 1864 showing G Cooper with land in Lot 55. So we drove out of town to the area where those lots would have been and took some pictures.
We also stopped at Fisher’s Landing on the St Lawrence River. John Cowles Cooper had a house on an island in the Thousand Islands across from there. I have no idea exactly where the house was, or if it still exists, but I took pictures of the area.
