Mount Ovis, near Cooperstown in central New York, preserves an early nineteenth-century local connection to sheep raising. Around 1813, James Fenimore Cooper’s grandfather named the mountain after keeping some of the first imported Merino sheep there. The name derives from Ovis aries, the scientific name for sheep, reflecting the significance of that flock in the area’s early history. Local memory especially recalled a ram named Sinbad, which died after falling into a well. Moe Pond lies west of the mountain.