Chapter 2
On December 12, 1775, at Burlington, New Jersey, William Cooper married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Fenimore, whose family came from Oxfordshire of Old England, and, at intervals, held office in her provinces. James, the future author and named for his grandfather Cooper, was the eleventh of twelve children. About 1807 Cooper, by request of his mother, said he would adopt the name of Fenimore as there were no men of her family to continue it. The change was delayed by the untimely death of Judge Cooper, and also to make less difficult the settlement of his large estate. But in 1826 James Cooper applied to the legislature for his change of name to James Cooper _Fenimore_. This request was not granted, but the change to "James Fenimore Cooper" was made. Cooper's comment on this outcome is a graphic record and "suggests," says an authority, that "the legislature would do well to assume that a petitioner, in such a case, knew better than they did what he wanted." The hyphen, at first used, was soon dropped. And so it was for his mother's sake that he made world-wide his fame by the name of James _Fenimore_ Cooper.
"The Fenimore Box" is an "English measure box, curious, and centuries old, brought over by the first of the name." It descended to Cooper from his mother, Elizabeth Fenimore, and is now treasured as a family heirloom by his grandson, James Fenimore Cooper of Albany, New York.
As the first James Cooper and his wife were Quakers, perchance the same Quaker thrift influenced William Cooper to follow the lead of George Washington, who, two years before, in order to find out the inland waterways of our country, came from the Mohawk Valley to the headwaters of the Susquehanna--this stream which Fenimore Cooper called "the crooked river to which the Atlantic herself extended an arm of welcome." Lake Otsego--the "Glimmerglass"--William Cooper saw first in the autumn of 1785. "Mt. Vision" was covered with a forest growth so dense that he had to "climb a tree in order to get a view of the lake, and while up the tree" he saw a deer come down "from the thickets and quietly drink of its waters near Otsego Rock." "Just where the Susquehanna leaves the Lake on its long journey to the sea" this famous Council Rock "still shows its chin above the water and marks the spot where Deerslayer met Chingachgook the Great Serpent of the Delawares." Now "its lake margin belongs to a grandson of the author, who also bears his name," is a record found in Dr. Wolfe's "Literary Haunts and Homes." In the red man's tongue Otsego means "a place of friendly meeting" of Indian warriors. The author of "Deerslayer" has immortalized that lake-country in the opening chapter of this book.
Of this visit to his future home and lands William Cooper has written: "In 1785 I visited the rough and hilly country of Otsego. I was alone, three hundred miles from home, without food of any kind. I caught trout in the brook and roasted them in the ashes. My horse fed on the grass that grew by the edge of the waters. I laid me down to sleep in my watch-coat, nothing but the wilderness about me. In this way I explored the country and formed my plans of future settlement. May, 1786, I opened a sale of forty thousand acres of land, which in sixteen days were all taken up by the poorest order of men." Here William Cooper laid out the site of Cooperstown, which, until 1791, when it became the county-town, was at times also called "Foot-of-the-Lake." He built a store for his sturdy pioneers, giving credit for their simple needs of life, and traded settlement products for them. His tenants put up log houses, and paid rent in butter, wheat, corn, oats, maple-sugar, and finally in pork;--so much that rentals known as "pork leases" were sold like farms. Money was scarce in those days,--when one John Miller, and his father, coming to the Lakeland's point of the river, felled a pine, over which they crossed to the Cooperstown site. Its stump was marked with white paint and called the "bridge-tree" by Fenimore Cooper. His sister Nancy's grandson, Mr. George Pomeroy Keese, from whom much will appear in these pages, has all there is left of that stump.
In a few years the town's growth gave such promise that William Cooper began to build his own home. It was generally known as "The Manor," but the patent of Cooperstown was not according to law a manor. It was finished in 1788, when a few streets were laid out and the town's first map was made. And October 10, 1790, he brought his family and servants, some fifteen persons, and their belongings, from Burlington New Jersey, to this early pioneer home. Mr. Keese says that "The Manor" was of wood with outside boarding, unplaned; that it was two stories high, had two wings and a back building added in 1791. It first stood facing Main St. and Otsego Lake and directly in front of the later Otsego Hall, now marked by the Indian Hunter. In 1799 it was moved down the street, and was burned down in 1812. In its time it was the most stately private house for miles around. The second home, Otsego Hall, built in 1798, was of bricks which were made at the outlet of the lake. It had seventy feet of frontage by fifty-six of depth, and had two stories with attic and basement. The main hall measured twenty-four by forty-eight feet and the rooms on either side were twenty feet wide. Otsego Hall is said to have been of the exact, generous proportions of the Van Rensselaer Manor House at Albany, New York, where Judge Cooper was a frequent visitor. His own Hall home on Otsego's southern shore ever had "the air and capacity of a mansion and a history of hospitality well deserved."
To a friend William Cooper wrote: "I began life with a small capital and a large family, and yet I have already settled more acres than any man in America; and I trust no one can justly impute to me any act of oppression. Your good sense and knowledge will excuse this seeming boast." He elsewhere said that he owed his success to "a steady mind, a sober judgment, fortitude, perseverance, and above all, common sense." And here he lived as a wise and kind landlord among his people. For nine years he was First Judge of the County Court of Common Pleas, and he served two terms in Congress. Of Judge William Cooper there are three portraits,--Gilbert Stuart's of 1797-98, Trumbull's of 1806, and one by an unknown artist. His kindly gray eye, robust figure, and firm expression bear out the story of his life as told by these portraits.
James Fenimore Cooper, in a letter to his wife, dated Canajoharie, 1834, wrote of his father: "I have been up to the ravine to the old Frey house. It recalled my noble-looking, warmhearted, witty father, with his deep laugh, sweet voice, and fine, rich eye, as he used to light the way with his anecdotes and fun. Old Frey, with his little black peepers, pipe, hearty laugh, broken English, and warm welcome, was in the background. I went to the very spot where one of the old man's slaves amused Sam and myself with an imitation of a turkey that no artist has ever yet been able to supplant in my memory." This Heindrick Frey was a noted character of the Mohawk Valley over one hundred years ago.
It was, however, to the first home on Otsego's shore that the future creator of American romance was brought when a babe some thirteen months old. Here, in the heart of the wilderness, his infancy was passed. Otsego Hall sheltered his budding boyhood and young manhood. Grace and refinement dwelt within the household; without, voices of the forest awakened and nurtured his naturally active mind, which later on was not less influenced by the mysteries of the sea. The Six Nations were yet a power in the Mohawk Valley, then the highway to the land of the setting sun beyond. And they are now remembered in the names of the principal lakes and streams of the country that once was theirs. The boy was face-to-face with the "grim warriors, braves, and chieftains that the man, Fenimore Cooper, translated into his pages, with a touch true to the red man's life," his instinct in trading, his friendly and hostile intent. Here Nature was his first and unforgettable teacher. From "Pages and Pictures," by his daughter, Susan Fenimore Cooper, much will be given in this book. Miss Cooper has drawn some pretty pen-pictures of her father's child-life. She writes: "From the first bow and arrow, kite and ball, to later feats in fishing, riding, shooting, and skating, all were connected with his highland home." He was "healthy and active; a brave, blithe-hearted, impetuous, most generous and upright boy." Of his childhood another record is: "A gray-eyed, light-haired, ruddy boy, nimble as a deer and gay as a bird; on the lake, plying his oar lustily or trimming his sail to the mountain breeze; and whenever he found a wave high enough to lift his little boat, his veins would thrill with a strange delight, and he would ask himself whether this was like those ocean waves of which he had heard such wonders." The little lad's next step in learning was taken under the gentle rule of his elder sister, Hannah, who had her schooling in New York City, and afterwards improved her leisure by extensive reading. She was a model of domestic virtues and was greatly beloved, especially by the poor, to whom she was ever an angel of mercy. She often went with her father on his official visits to the seat of government, and when, in 1800, at the age of twenty-three years, she lost her life by a fall from her horse, her early death was widely and deeply mourned. Her memory was always cherished with peculiar tenderness by her brother James, the special charge of her loving care.
A letter, written by him in 1841 to his old "messmate," Commodore Shubrick, reveals no wane of Cooper's love for and pride in this sister, and his letter's "political discovery" reveals that Miss Cooper's attractions were as fully appreciated by the eminent of her own country as by those of foreign shores. So comes into these pages a youthful, slender romance of the later hero of Tippecanoe and still later President of the United States.
OTSEGO HALL, COOPERSTOWN, February, 28, 1841.
I have made a great political discovery lately, which must not go any further than Mrs. Shubrick and Mary. In 1799, when Congress sat in Philadelphia, my father was a member, as was also General Harrison. You know I had a sister killed by a fall from a horse in 1800. This sister passed the Winter in Philadelphia with my father. Miss Anne Cooper [the author's daughter] was lately in Philadelphia, where she met Mr. Thomas Biddle, who asked if our family were not Harrison men. The reason of so singular a question was asked, and Mr. Biddle answered that in 1799 Mr. Harrison was dying with love for Miss Cooper, that he (Mr. Biddle) was his confidant, and that he _thinks_ but does not _know_ that he was refused. If not refused it was because he was not encouraged to propose, so you see I stand on high grounds and am ready to serve you on occasion. Don't let this go any further, however. I confess to think all the better of the General for this discovery, for it shows that he had forty years ago both taste and judgment in a matter in which men so often fail. Mary will open her eyes at this somewhat wider than ever, but she must not open her mouth until she gives her allegiance to him who will know all her thoughts. With best regards
_Yours as ever_,
J. FENIMORE COOPER.
NOTE.--Later light on the subject reveals Mr. Harrison's "dying of love" as a hearty admiration and esteem for the rare grace and charm of character, mind, and person possessed by Judge Cooper's young daughter.
During 1795 many distinguished exiles came to this new-country home, and among those who found their way to Otsego Hall was the Marquis de Talleyrand, who was pleased to write an acrostic on Miss Cooper, then seventeen. The famous Frenchman's record, in part, of this visit was "_Otsego n'est pas gai_." Compared to the France of Talleyrand's day this record was true. The _Otsego Herald's_ motto of that time was
Historic truth our _Herald_ shall proclaim, The Law our guide, the public good our aim.
In its issue of October 2, 1795, appeared the celebrated diplomat's Acrostic.
Aimable philosophe au printemps de son âge, Ni les temps, ni les lieus n'altèrent son esprit; Ne cèdent qu' à ses goûts simples et son étalage, Au milieu des deserts, elle lit, pense, écrit.
Cultivez, belle Anna, votre goût pour l'étude; On ne saurait ici mieux employer son temps; Otsego n'est pas gai--mais, tout est habitude; Paris vous déplairait fort au premier moment; Et qui jouit de soi dans une solitude, Rentrant au monde, est sur d'en faire I'ornement.
In affectionate remembrance of Miss Cooper the hill just northwest of Cooperstown was named for her, and "Hannah's Hill" commands one of the town's finest views. In the quiet shades of Christ's Church yard "belle Anna" rests beneath a slab bearing some lines by her father, but not her name.
The August before this sad event Judge Cooper gave the first of the many "lake parties" that floated over Otsego--"which no waters can rival." In the fairness of her youth Miss Hannah was there with her little sister, later Mrs. Pomeroy; and also, among the gay "five and twenty friends from Philadelphia," were their brothers. Indian canoes and flat-bottomed skiffs conveyed them to the eastern shore, where, at Two-Mile Point, a frightened fawn, startled from its forest home by the dogs of Shipman the hunter,--who later outlined "Leatherstocking,"--darted from the leafy thicket and plunged into the lake. At once all were in motion to rescue the little creature now swimming for life. It was successfully brought to land and became a great pet with Judge Cooper's children; but one day, frightened by strange, fierce dogs, it bounded into the forest depths for refuge, and never returned.
The centennial anniversary of this first picnic was celebrated by the third and fourth generation of Judge Cooper's descendants, who met at Point Judith to honor the occasion. Of the verses written by Mr. George Pomeroy Keese concerning this event two are:
And one hundred years have come and gone Since our country then was new, And now we keep in memory dear Our love for the good and true. To one who came to his forest home And gave to our village its name; To the son, the touch of whose magic pen Has lifted to world-wide fame.
In this summer of 1800 Richard, Judge Cooper's eldest son, built his house of frame on "Apple Hill." It was the second villa-like home in the village. Its site, now known as "Fernleigh," is the country-seat of Stephen Clark, Esq. "Edgewater," overlooking Lake Otsego, is the land that, after Judge Cooper's death in 1809, fell to his son Isaac. Here, the following year, Isaac Cooper built his home of brick. Later, it changed in form, use, and ownership, but again became a family possession through the marriage of Mr. Theodore Keese with the daughter of George Pomeroy and Ann Cooper. Renewing in all ways the charm and grace of its early days, "Edgewater," as the home of Mr. George Pomeroy Keese, the grandson of Fenimore Cooper's youngest sister Ann, commands at the foot of the lake its length, breadth, beauty, and inspiration.
The old stone house, known as the "Deacon Pomeroy's place," that stood at the corner of Main and River streets, gives--in a quaint gable--an enduring record of romance in this sister Ann's young-life. It was built of stone in the peculiar herring-bone style by Judge William Cooper for a wedding gift to his only living daughter, Ann, when she married George Pomeroy, grandson of Gen. Seth Pomeroy and lineal descendant of that Sir Ralph de Pomeroy who came to England with William the Conqueror. In this quaint gable appear the intertwined letters G.A.P.C.--the initials of the bridegroom and bride,--with the date 1804 beneath.
The Cooper room of this old stone house, now the home of Mrs. Benedict, a granddaughter, shelters family portraits from William Cooper's time down to the present day--five generations. What stories might it not tell of the attractive originals? Many were the letters that Fenimore Cooper wrote from Europe to this sister, Mrs. George Pomeroy, of the old stone house.
Mrs. Benedict has also placed there many souvenirs of her sister, Constance Fenimore Woolson, gathered during-her long residence in Europe, including the author's writing-table and her chair.
"Master Oliver Cory kept the village school" in those child-days of Fenimore Cooper, and long after. "He was well qualified for that post; laborious, upright, firm, yet patient and kindly by nature. His training of the boys was excellent. Saturdays were given to religious lessons, and he paid careful but quiet attention to their morals and manners." From his sister Hannah's teaching Judge Cooper's youngest son went to Master Cory's school. It was kept in "one of those tasteless buildings that afflict all new countries," and here was called the "Academy." It served Cooperstown in timely ways for religious and political meetings; public courts were held here, and a ball was given now and then under its roof. As to the school, time and incident brought out a taste for music in the pupils of Master Cory. It seems that Judge Cooper had brought from Philadelphia a large upright organ of imposing appearance and power, which he placed in his manor-house hall. Its arrival in the village made a summer's sensation. When put up and adjusted, a rehearsal of country dances, reels, and more serious music came floating through the broad door and ample windows of Otsego Hall into Master Cory's domain, the Academy, which stood in the adjoining street. As, with magic effect the strains of "Hail Columbia" poured into the schoolroom, Master Cory skilfully met a moment of open rebellion with these words: "Boys, that organ is a remarkable instrument. You never heard the like of it before. I give you half an hour's intermission. Go into the street and listen to the music!"
These "Academy boys" were ambitious; each annual exhibition was crowded, to listen to the speeches "of Coriolanus, Iago, Brutus, and Cassius" by "raw lads from the village and adjoining farms," in all the bravery of local militia uniform--blue coats "faced with red, matross swords, and hats of '76." On such an occasion James Cooper, then a child of eight years, became the pride and admiration of Master Cory for his moving recitation of the "Beggar's Petition"--acting the part of an old man wrapped in a faded cloak and leaning over his staff. It is recorded that James had the fine, healthy pie-appetite usual to his age, for, says the record, when his eldest brother "was showing the sights of New York to the youngest, he took him to a pasty-shop, and, after watching the boy eat pasty after pasty, said to him: 'Jim, eat all you want, but remember that each one costs the old man a lot.'" Pasty then outbalanced property for "Jim."
In due time the lad outgrew the Academy's instruction, but from boy to-man he never outgrew Master Cory's affection, nor his own for the dear home scenes on the shores of the "Haunted Lake," which he was so soon to leave for his first important schooling. The books he wrote later tell how he never forgot the howl of the wolf across the icy field of Otsego on cold winter nights, the peculiar wail of the sharp-toothed panther in the quiet wood roads, nor the familiar springs where the deer lingered latest. One autumn day, while still a pupil under Master Cory's charge, the future author of "The Pioneers" was at play in his father's garden, when suddenly he was surprised by a deer which came leaping over the fence from the street, almost brushing his face as it bounded away into the pine woods at the back of the house. This incident he often related to his children.
It was not long before this youngest son was sent from home. The eventful journey to Albany was made in the care of a near and worthy farmer, "who was carrying toward the Hudson a load of wheat from the fields of Otsego." They went over the fine turnpike,--the great highway of that day,--"just finished from the Hudson to Cherry Valley." The child had heard much of this wonder of roads from the gentlemen at his father's table who were interested in it, and he was eager to see its toll-gates and stone bridges. After leaving "the corduroy tracks" leading to it from Cooperstown, the famous turnpike burst upon the gratified schoolboy's vision. As they trotted slowly along the farmer pointed out, among-other marvels of the way, "a tavern for every mile" of the sixty between Albany and Lake Otsego. A long-train of farmers' wagons, filled with the precious wheat, was slowly rolling eastward, passing-emigrant wagons of "growing families" and household gear moving westward to the great lake countries. All this delighted the boy of nine, who was finally set down at the door of St. Peter's Rectory at Albany, New York. Here for four years he became one of the four young pupils of the Rev. Thomas Ellison, rector of the church. Dr. Ellison was an Englishman and a graduate of Oxford--a rare scholar and a king's man. From him came Cooper's strong preference for English church government and equally strong feeling against the Puritans of Old and New England. While the Puritan's character was not pleasing to Cooper, he himself was called a "Puritan of Puritans," and it was to them he referred in the following: "Whatever else I may think of the Yankees,--a calmer, firmer, braver people do not walk this earth." Of this sentiment "The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish," published in 1829, gives ample proof.
The Rev. Joseph Hooper, author of the "History of St. Peter's Church, Albany, N.Y.," related an incident of Cooper's old Rectory school days there. The story came to Dr. Hooper from Mr. Edward Floyd de Lancy, son of Bishop de Lancy of Western New York, and is as follows: