The first came unexpectedly on Monday, when the Chamber received a package from Jodi Wiley, who did not include a return address but had found a book about Cooperstown, "News and Views," in her grandmother's possessions. Having no attachment to the book, Wiley said she sent it on hoping it would be taken into the proper hands.

Then, while helping a friend move later in the week, Polly and Jim Renckens found three more treasures- a book about the Hartwick Seminary, "Throughout All the Years," by Henry Hardy Heins in 1946, a pamphlet called "Cooperstown in Brief," written by Victor Salvatore Jr. and Vicci Demarest with photographs by Frank Rollins and a brochure published by the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce called "Cooperstown, New York, in the Heart of the Leatherstocking Land."

"News and Views" appears to have been published in 1906, the latest year mentioned in the text, according to Wiley. It begins with a section called "A Bit of History," and a picture of Judge William Cooper, the founder of Cooperstown. It was the middle of October, 1790, when Cooper brought his family to Cooperstown from New Jersey.

"From this time dates the more progressive growth of the village, its population being about fifty people with seven framed houses and three barns," wrote Erastus T. Bailey, editor and publisher.

The book is packed with pictures of citizens, a changing landscape, including the destruction caused by the fire of 1862, and technological advances of times past, like a steamroller, under which a caption reads, "This machine is responsible for Cooperstown's good roads." In a chapter called "Fine Residences," some of Cooperstown's earliest homes are photographed and described.

One of these is 8 Pine Boulevard, now owned by Jack and Gail Smith who operate The Overlook Bed and Breakfast from the spacious place. The building has changed over the years, Jack Smith said, including extensive renovations. A graduate student from NYSHA once chronicled the history of the house, a story that includes a woman's 1946 suicide by hanging on the top floor.

"In 1946, there was a gas ration," Jack Smith said. "The story is that she had one ration ticket left which wasn't enough to get her to Florida for the winter. Apparently she killed herself to avoid spending another winter in Cooperstown."

The history compiled by the grad student was given to a calligrapher. The framed results of this collaborative work hang along the stairwell at The Overlook.

"Cooperstown in Brief" was written in 1976. Victor Salvatore Jr., co-author, is the son of the sculptor who created the statue of James Fenimore Cooper in Cooper Park. This book depicts an updated, more modern community, with Bassett Hospital and a walking tour of historic sites included. Fifty stops dot the path.

The book about the Hartwick Seminary details the school's rules and describes Christopher John Hartwick as "the father of Lutheran education."

The age of the brochure published by the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce is not as easy to determine, though the Renckens' pored over it, trying to figure out if any of the businesses advertised were no longer operating by the time they arrived in Cooperstown in 1971. A bowling alley used to be where Great American now sits, and resorts, like Rathbun's on the lake, are no longer there. The brochure was most likely published in the late sixties, because neither of the Renckens recall a boat called "The Paula Lee," a Mississippi Stern Wheeler aboard which fifty people could "relax and enjoy one and a quarter hours on historic Otsego Lake."

"We're just very excited to have these treasures," said Polly Renckens.