From 1825 to 1828 Apple Hill was the residence of the afterward distinguished Judge Samuel Nelson, and during the next five years was owned and occupied by General John A. Dix, who had resigned from the army, and settled down in Cooperstown to practise law. His first cases were prepared in a little office that stood near the gate of the Apple Hill property. At that time it is said that he made a poor impression as a public speaker, and gave small promise of his later fame. In 1833 he became secretary of state of New York, and afterward was United States Senator. During the Civil War he raised seventeen regiments, and as Secretary of the Treasury at the outbreak of the war issued the famous order which first convinced the country that the executive government at Washington was really determined to meet force with force: "If anyone attempts to pull down the American flag, shoot him on the spot!" After the war General Dix was minister to France, and in 1872 was elected Governor of the State of New York. Among the children of General Dix who played hide-and-seek amid the trees of Apple Hill was Morgan Dix, afterward the distinguished rector of Trinity parish, New York, who in later years passed many summers in Cooperstown. It was remembered of Dr. Dix's childhood that when his mother sent him away from Cooperstown to school, being apprehensive of his safe conduct on the journey, she put him into the stage-coach completely enveloped in a green baize bag that she had made for the purpose, with nothing but the boy's head emerging from the opening which was snugly tied around his neck. Dr. Dix's last visit to Cooperstown was in 1891 when he was a guest at the Cooper House, and was driven forth, with two hundred and fifty other guests, by the fire which burned it to the ground in the early dawn of the eighth of August. This summer hotel stood within the grounds occupied by the Present High School. Its burning was a calamity to Cooperstown, for under the management of Simeon E. Crittenden it had become widely famous, and drew guests from every part of the country.
From 1833 to 1839 Apple Hill was the home of Levi C. Turner, who married the daughter of Robert Campbell, and afterward was for some years county judge. During the Civil War Turner was Judge Advocate in the War Department under President Lincoln, concerning whom he had many intimate reminiscences.