Dramatic changes reached the area in 1818. Shortly after the arrival of a young hunter named Cornelius Coot.


Illustration 2.1 - The attack on fort Drake Borough.

Shortly after Cornelius Coot arrived Fort Drake Borough to do some trading, the fort was attacked by Spanish troops.

A new owner of Fort Drake Borough


Illustration 2.2 - Cornelius Coot take over the fort.

The British defenders of the fort quickly realized that they couldn't win the battle, but before they could leave they had to surrender the fort to the Spaniards. When an attempt to do so failed the British commander turned the deed of the entire fort and Kill Mule Hill over to Cornelius Coot before he and his troops escaped through a secret passage beneath the fort.

The popcorn trick


Illustration 2.3 - Cornelius Coot scares the Spanish.

When the Spaniards arrived the Fort, Cornelius Coot succeeded to persuade them to join him for a meal as a surrender-ceremony before giving them the deed. Then he gave the Spanish soldiers some maize to heat over the bonfire before eating it. During the heating the maize started to pop. The Spanish who didn't knew about popcorn thus believed that they were attacked by an invisible enemy and thus fled the area as fast as they could. They never returned.

An old fort gets a new name


Illustration 2.4 - The foundation of Duckburg.

Shortly after the Spanish had left the area, Cornelius Coot decided to give the place a new name: "Duckburg". One might say that the sun set over the English Drake Borough and raised again over the American Duckburg.

Some time after he took over the fort, Cornelius Coot revealed the secret room with the lost library in it. All the books had been eaten by rats, except one that was kept in a tight box.

American hunter that arrived in Fort Drake Borough just before Spanish troops tried to conquer it. During the battle the British forces gave the fort over to Cornelius Coot so that they could escape. By trickery with some popping maize Cornelius Coot managed to make the Spaniards flee away. Shortly after he renamed the place "Duckburg". To defend the area from all kind of enemies he later formed the Woodchuck Militia.

Cornelius Coot also revealed the secrets of the fort like the secret room with the lost library. There he found the box that contained the essence of the library. At some later point he gave that stuff to his son Clinton Coot.

There are yet not much known about Cornelius Coot's origin. What is known though, is that the Coots had already been in America for a long time at the time of Cornelius Coot. The first Coots in America probably came over on the Mayflower or to Jamestown. Don Rosa has once described the Coots as "melting-pot" American.

To honour the memory of Cornelius Coot there was raised a statue of him in 1952 (Barks: Statuesque Spendthrifts). However the richest citizen of the city (and in the world) $crooge McDuck did't like that this statue was financed by the Maharaja of Howduyustan, calling him self "richest man in the world", so he raised a bigger statue and thus started a little "war" against the Maharaja. The war resulted in the raising of many big statues of Cornelius Coot and finally also of the Maharaja and $crooge themselves. The war ended when the Maharaja went bankrupt.


The text on the pedestal says: "The friends of Cornelius Coot - chapter one - erected 1952".

In "His Majesty McDuck" Don Rosa show us that the big statues raised by the $crooge and the Maharaja wasn't useless (anyway, not all of them). Below this one there is a library owned by a federation called "The friends of Cornelius Coot". This inscription also tell us that the "statue-war" took place in 1952.