1870s First National Bank Cooperstown, New York Check

140-Year-Old Check From The Home Of The Baseball Hall Of Fame

Here is a signed personal check from the 1870s, from the First National Bank in Cooperstown, New York. Cooperstown, of course, is well-known as the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame established by Stephen Clark and dedicated on June 12, 1939. Sixty years earlier, when these Checks were deposited in the Cooperstown Bank, people had no idea that the town would become the mecca for baseball fans everywhere.

Cooperstown, Baseball And Natty Bumppo

These historic checks have an ornate border around a vignette that depicts the Leatherstocking monument located by Lake Otsego in Cooperstown. The marble statue was erected in 1850 to celebrate Cooperstown locating in Upstate New York’s Central Region, which was nicknamed the “Leatherstocking Region.” The region received that popular moniker thanks to the unique leather leggings worn by frontiersmen made famous by the work of American author James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) in a series of five novels in America’s early frontier period. The statue is of Leatherstocking himself, a character named Natty Bumppo in the novels that was based on real-life frontiersman Daniel Boone. Cooperstown was founded in 1786 by Cooper’s father, William Cooper, and the author lived the last 15 years of his life there in what was then a small village.

Despite this connection to literary history, Cooperstown is famous around the world as the birthplace of baseball. According to baseball lore, Abner Doubleday is credited with inventing the game in Elihu Phinney’s cow pasture in Cooperstown in 1839. One Hundred years later it became the official home of baseball with the establishment of the Baseball Hall of Fame. As a General during the Civil War, Doubleday often organized baseball games to help increase the morale of his troops.

This check measures 3" x 8½" and features the signature of the First National Bank cashier from more than 140 years ago. Limited availability. Act fast!