Dr. Sill was much consulted in relation to the civic and religious welfare of the community. His conscientious habit of deciding in all things, great and small, upon the absolutely right course of action gave him an air of slowness and hesitation in manner. He would stand listening intently, without comment, to violent arguments for and against a project, turning toward each speaker the frank dark eyes that illumined his pale countenance. When it came to his decision he had a way of planting his right heel forward, and compressing his lips, which he then opened with a slight smack of determination, giving quiet utterance to his judgment. It was usually quite impossible to move him from a decision thus made, and those who misinterpreted the mildness of his manner soon learned that the man himself was adamant.
The first years of the twentieth century included an era of new buildings. Just above Leatherstocking Falls, in 1908, William E. Guy of St. Louis built and established the beautiful summer home at Leatherstocking Farm. The remains of the old grist mill at the falls were torn down, and the stones from the foundation were used in the new building.
In 1910, James Fenimore Cooper of Albany, grandson of the novelist, built Fynmere (the name being an old form of the word Fenimore) as a country residence. Its site on the hillside above the road that curves about the southern end of Mount Vision commands a superb view down the Susquehanna Valley, while the eastern windows of the house look into the heart of the ascending forest. The use of native field stone in the construction of this house is most effective, and at once gave to the residence, when fresh from the builder's hands, the air of being long habituated to the spot, and quite in harmony with the antiquities that abound in the appointments and ornamentation of the place. Within a niche of the main hall of the house is the bust of Fenimore Cooper which David d'Angers made in Paris in 1828; and embedded in the foundation of the building is the corner-stone with the original marking that Cooper carved in 1813 for the house that he built, but which was burned before he could move into it, at Fenimore. Fynmere has contributed to the revival of pleasures that belonged to an elder day in Cooperstown, for it has drawn hither large house-parties of young people to enjoy the holidays of Christmastide, to join in winter sports, and to appreciate the splendors of snow and ice in a region usually renowned only for the charm of its summer season.