John M. Bowers died in the year 1846. His widow continued to occupy Lakelands until her death in 1872, and a daughter, Martha S. Bowers, continued the occupancy during her life. After the death of the latter Lakelands was sold in making division of the Bowers estate. Henry J. Bowers married in 1848 a daughter of William C. Crain, a prominent citizen of the adjoining county of Herkimer. She was a woman of large intellectual gifts and undaunted spirit, and personally undertook the education of their eldest son, John Myer Bowers, who sat on the floor before her, while the mother, book in hand, instilled into his mind the importance of the three R's, with much stress upon the principles of fidelity and loyalty as elements of success in business. At the age of sixteen years she sent him to New York to study law under one of the leading attorneys of that city. He became one of the foremost lawyers of the State, and a few years after its sale repurchased Lakelands, with its forty acres along lake and river, as his summer home. No native son of Cooperstown has had a more successful career than John M. Bowers. In 1915 he won a verdict for Theodore Roosevelt in the celebrated trial at Syracuse in which suit for libel was brought against the former President of the United States by William Barnes, the proprietor of the _Albany Evening Journal_.
A mansard roof was added to Lakelands at the period during which the property was out of the possession of the Bowers family, but the remainder of the house is of the original building, and the carved wooden doors and mantel-pieces within testify to the skill of old-time workmanship in Cooperstown. The wide stretches of lawn shaded by venerable trees, and the long sweep of lake shore commanded by Lakelands make it a charming country seat.
In 1801 George Pomeroy, a young man of twenty-two years, arrived from Albany, and set up in business as the first druggist in the village and county. His store stood on Main Street on the site of the present Clark Gymnasium. Some of the hardships of the early settlers to which history may only allude are suggested by a sign which hung in front of the drug store of Dr. Pomeroy, as he was called. This sign depicted a hand pointing to these words: "Itch cured for 2 cts. 4 cts. 6 cts. Unguentum. Walk in."