Chapter 14

FENIMORE COOPER IN THE VILLAGE

The childhood memories of James Fenimore Cooper were associated with the village which his father had settled at the foot of Otsego Lake, for hither he was brought a babe in arms, and remained until, at the age of nine years, he was sent to Albany to be tutored by the rector of St. Peter's Church. After his career at Yale and in the Navy, he was married in 1811 to Susan de Lancey, and brought his bride to Cooperstown on their honeymoon. Three years later they came back to take up their residence at "Fenimore" just out of the village, on Otsego Lake, but, after three seasons of farming, circumstances once more drew Fenimore Cooper away from Cooperstown.

It was in 1834, when he had become a novelist of international fame, and had lived for seven years in Europe, that Cooper, at the age of forty-five years, took steps to make a permanent home in the village of his childhood. Otsego Hall, which his father had built upon the site now marked by the statue of the Indian Hunter, in the Cooper Grounds, was repaired and partly remodeled, and here Fenimore Cooper dwelt until his death in 1851.

Two names of later renown are connected with Fenimore Cooper's reconstruction of Otsego Hall. Among the artisans employed was a lad of seventeen years apprenticed as a joiner, Erastus D. Palmer, who already had begun to attract attention as a wood-carver, and afterward became famous as a sculptor. While the alterations were in progress Cooper had as his guest in Cooperstown Samuel F. B. Morse, who assisted him in carrying out his ideas for the reconstruction of the Hall, and drew the designs which gave it more the style of an English country house.[102] The local gossips said that Morse aspired to the hand of his friend's eldest daughter, Susan Augusta Fenimore, then twenty-one years of age, but that Cooper had no mind to yield so fair a prize to an impecunious painter, a widower, and already forty-three years old. Morse was at this time experimenting with the telegraph instrument which was afterward to bring him wealth and such fame as an inventor as to overshadow his reputation as an artist.

The Cooper Grounds, now kept as a public park by the Clark Estate, include the property that belonged to Fenimore Cooper. Otsego Hall, which was destroyed by fire in 1852, after the novelist's death, must be imagined at the centre of the grounds, where its outward appearance, as well as the arrangement of its interior, may be reconstructed by the fancy from the wooden model made from a design by G. Pomeroy Keese, and now to be seen in the village museum. Cooper's favorite garden-seat exists in facsimile in its original situation at the southeast corner of the grounds.

When in 1834 the old mansion of the founder of Cooperstown began once more to be occupied it was a matter of great interest to the people of the village. Many of them well remembered Fenimore Cooper and his bride when, twenty years before, they had lived at Fenimore. They recalled the former resident as James Cooper, for it was not until 1826 that he adopted the middle name, in compliance with a request which his mother had made that he should use her family name.[103] Twenty years had made many changes in Cooperstown, and there was a large proportion of residents who knew Fenimore Cooper only from his writings and by reputation. Therefore when he came back to dwell in the home of his youth he was regarded by many almost as a newcomer in the neighborhood, and to his family as well as to himself a rather cautious welcome was given. It had to be admitted at the outset that the changes which Fenimore Cooper made in Otsego Hall were disapproved by some of the villagers. They did not like the foreign air which the old house now began to give itself with its battlements and gothic elaborations. Here was the first muttering of the storm that clouded the later years of Fenimore Cooper.

Cooper's personal appearance was in accord with the strong individuality of his character. He was of massive, compact form, six feet in height, over two hundred pounds in weight and rather portly in later years, of firm and aristocratic bearing, a commanding figure: "a very castle of a man" was the phrase which Washington Irving applied to him. The bust[104] made by David d'Angers in Paris in 1828 gives to Cooper a classic splendor of head and countenance which is in agreement with the impression produced upon those who well remembered him. He had a full, expansive forehead, strong features, florid complexion, a mouth firm without harshness, and clear gray eyes. His head, which was set firmly and proudly upon giant shoulders, had a peculiar and incessant oscillating motion. His expressive eyes also were singularly volatile in their movement--seldom at perfect rest. He was always clean shaven, so that nothing was lost of the changes of expression which animated his mobile face in conversation. He had a hearty way of meeting men, a little bustling, and an emphatic frankness of manner which Bryant says startled him at first, but which he came at last to like and to admire. Cooper was a great talker. His voice was agreeably sonorous. He talked well, and with infinite resource. He could dash into animated conversation on almost any subject, and was not slow to express decided opinions, in which at times he almost demanded acquiescence. His earnestness was often mistaken for brusqueness and violence; "for," says Lounsbury,[105] "he was, in some measure, of that class of men who appear to be excited when they are only interested." He created a strong impression of vigor, intelligence, impulsiveness, vivacity, and manliness.

When walking Cooper usually carried a stick, but never for support. In his last years he carried a small, slender walking stick of polished wood, having a curved handle, and too short for any purpose but to flourish in the hands. As he walked briskly along the village street, erect, and with expanded chest, this slender stick was often held horizontally across his back with his arms skewered behind it, while at his heels a pet dog trotted, a little black mongrel called "Frisk." In returning from the walk which proved to be his last he stopped at Edgewater, then the home of his niece, and, on leaving, forgot to take his stick. There it has remained, through the years that have passed since his death, just as he left it, hanging by its curved handle from a shelf of one of the bookcases in the library.

During this residence in Cooperstown Fenimore Cooper wrote some twenty of his novels, his _Naval History_, the _Chronicles of Cooperstown_, besides many sketches of travel and articles contributed to magazines. This prodigious amount of writing, together with many other activities, made his life a full one. He rose early, and a considerable portion of his writing was accomplished before breakfast. In summer hardly a day passed without a visit to the Chalet farm, on the east side of the lake, where he sought relaxation from his mental labors. Accordingly, at about eleven o'clock he might be seen issuing from the gate of his residence in a wagon, driving a tall sorrel horse named Pumpkin. This animal was ill suited to the dignity of his driver. He had a singularity of gait which consisted in occasionally going on three legs, and at times elevating both hind legs in a manner rather amusing than alarming; often he persisted in backing when urged to go forward, and always his emotions were expressed by the switching of his very light wisp of a tail. Mrs. Cooper was most frequently Mr. Cooper's companion on these daily excursions, although often the eldest daughter took the place in the vehicle by her father's side.

In the late afternoon Cooper usually devoted some time to the composition of his novels, without touching pen to paper. It was his custom to work out the scenes of his stories while promenading the large hall of his home. Here he paced to and fro in the twilight of the afternoon, his hands crossed behind his back, his brow carrying the impression of deep thought. He nodded vigorously from time to time, and muttered to himself, inventing and carrying on the conversation of his various imaginary characters. After the evening meal he put work aside, and passed the time with the family, sometimes reading, often in a game of chess with Mrs. Cooper, whom, ever since their wedding day, when they played chess between the ceremony and supper, he had fondly called his "check-mate." He never smoked, and seldom drank beyond a glass of wine which he took with his dinner.

In the early morning, when Cooper shut himself in the library, he set down on paper in its final form the portion of narrative that he had worked out while pacing the hall the previous afternoon. The library opened from the main hall, and occupied the southwestern corner of the house. It was lighted by tall, deeply-recessed windows, against which the branches of the evergreens outside flung their waving shadows. The wainscoting was of dark oak, and the sombre bookcases that lined the walls were of the same material. A large fireplace occupied the space between the two western windows. Across the room stood a folding screen[106] upon which had been pasted a collection of engravings representing scenes known to the family during their tour and residence in Europe, together with a number of notes and autographs from persons of distinction. Attached to the top of one of the bookcases was a huge pair of antlers[107] holding in their embrace a calabash from the southern seas.

The table at which the novelist sat once belonged to his maternal grandfather, Richard Fenimore, and had been brought by Judge Cooper from Burlington at the settlement of Cooperstown. It was a plain one of English walnut, and the chair in which he sat was of the same material. Cooper wrote rapidly, in a fine, small, clear hand, upon large sheets of foolscap, and seldom made an erasure. No company was permitted in the room while he was writing except an Angora cat who was allowed to bound upon the desk without rebuke, or even to perch upon the author's shoulders. Here the cat settled down contentedly, and with half-shut eyes watched the steady driving of the quill across the paper.

Among the many books written in this library _The Deerslayer_ brought the greatest fame to Cooperstown, for it peopled the shores of Otsego Lake with the creatures of Cooper's fancy, and added to the natural beauty of its scenery the glamour of romance. The idea of writing this story came to Fenimore Cooper on a summer afternoon as he drove from the Chalet homeward in his farm wagon, with his favorite daughter by his side, along the shaded road on the east shore of the lake. He was singing cheerily, for, although no musician, often he sang snatches of familiar songs that had struck his fancy, and above the rumbling of the wagon his booming voice frequently was heard along the road in a sudden burst of "Scots, wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled!" or Moore's "Love's Young Dream"--always especial favorites with him. On this occasion, however, it was a political song that he was singing, a ditty then popular during the campaign of 1840 in the party opposed to his own. Suddenly he paused, as an opening in the woods revealed a charming view of the lake. His spirited gray eye rested a moment on the water, with an expression of abstracted poetical thought, familiar to those who lived with him; then, turning to the companion at his side, he exclaimed: "I must write one more book, dearie, about our little lake!" Again his eye rested on the water and wooded shores with the far-seeing look of one who already had a vision of living figures and dusky forms moving amid the quiet scene. A moment of silence followed. Then Fenimore Cooper cracked his whip, resumed his song, with some careless chat on incidents of the day, and drove homeward. Not long afterward he shut himself in his library, and the first pages of _The Deerslayer_ were written.[108]

There were perhaps many in the village who felt honored in being neighbor to a novelist of international fame. But the general sentiment toward Fenimore Cooper in his home town was not altogether created by his success as a writer. It may be that the aged Miss Nancy Williams, who lived in the house which still stands on Main Street next east of the Second National Bank, was not alone in her estimate of this kind of success. Her favorite seat was at a front window where she was daily occupied in knitting, and watching all passers-by. Whenever Fenimore Cooper passed, whom she had known as a boy, Miss Williams called out to him: "James, why don't you stop wasting your time writing those silly novels, and try to make something of yourself!"

Whatever may have been the village estimate of his fame as a novelist, there were certain personal traits in Cooper that went farther than anything he ever wrote to fix the esteem of his fellow citizens. Among acquaintances whom he admitted as his social equals he was universally beloved; to these he showed all the charm and fascination of a gracious personality and brilliant mind. The more intimately Cooper was approached the more unreservedly he was admired, and within his own family he was almost adored. In the humbler walks of life those who habitually recognized Cooper as a superior had nothing to complain of. But there were many in Cooperstown who had no warmth of feeling toward Fenimore Cooper. They were quick to detect in him an attitude of contemptuous superiority toward the villagers. Some of the neighbors felt that he willingly remained a stranger to them. When he passed along the street without seeing people who expected a greeting from him, his friends averred that it was because his mind, abstracted from present scenes and passers-by, was engaged in the dramatic development of some tale of sea or forest. But those who felt snubbed by his indifference were less charitable in their interpretation of his bearing toward them. Cooper had been for seven years a lion in Europe, splendidly entertained by the Princess Galitzin in Paris, where he was overwhelmed with invitations from counts and countesses; dining at Holland House in London with Lord and Lady Holland; a guest of honor at a ball given by a prince in Rome; presented at the brilliant Tuscan court at Florence, for which occasion he was decked in lace frills and ruff, with dress hat and sword;--such incidents of his foreign life began to be mentioned to account for Cooper's disinclination to encourage familiar acquaintance with the villagers of Cooperstown.

Cooper himself was entirely unconscious of any arrogance in his attitude, and when, in connection with the later controversies, it came to his knowledge that some villagers accused him of posing as an aristocrat in Cooperstown, he resented the imputation with some bitterness. "In this part of the world," he said, "it is thought aristocratic not to frequent taverns, and lounge at corners, squirting tobacco juice."[109] Cooper was strongly democratic in his convictions, and was so far from having been a toady during his residence in Europe that he had made enemies in aristocratic circles abroad by his fearless championship of republican institutions. At the same time he was fastidiously undemocratic in many of his tastes. It is a keen observation of Lounsbury's that Cooper "was an aristocrat in feeling, and a democrat by conviction." His recognition of the worth of true manhood, entirely apart from rank and social refinement, is shown in the noble character of Leather-Stocking. Yet the manners and customs of uncultivated people in real life were most offensive to his squeamish taste, and much of his concern for the welfare of his countrymen had to do with their neglect of the decencies and amenities of social behaviour.

More than half a century after his death there were some living in Cooperstown who frequently related their childhood memories of Fenimore Cooper. His tendency to lecture the neighbors on their manners was burned into the memory of a child who, as she sat on her doorstep, was engaged with the novelist in pleasant conversation, until he spied a ring that she was wearing upon the third finger of her left hand. This he made the text of a solemn declaration upon the impropriety of wearing falsely the symbol of a sacred relationship. The lesson intended was probably sensible and wholesome, but the effect produced upon the child was a terror of Fenimore Cooper which lasted as long as life. On the other hand, one who was a slip of a girl at the time used afterward to boast that Fenimore Cooper had opened a gate for her when she was riding horseback, and stood hat in hand while she passed through.

Allowance must be made for a somewhat distorted perspective in the impression produced by Cooper upon the memories of not a few children, for, judging from their reminiscences, the Garden of Eden was not more inviting than his, nor its fruits more to be desired, nor was the angel with the flaming sword more terribly vigilant than Fenimore Cooper in guarding the trees from unholy hands. The glimpses of the novelist most vividly remembered by these youngsters relate to attempted invasions of the orchard near his house, and their furious repulse by the irascible owner, who charged upon the trespassers with loud objurgations and a flourishing stick. One who picked a rose without permission long remembered the "awful lecture" that Cooper gave her, and how he said, "It is just as bad to take my flowers as to steal my money."[110]

Among the children of his own friends there was quite a different opinion of Cooper. Elihu Phinney, who was a playmate of the novelist's son Paul, and a frequent guest at Otsego Hall, had an intense admiration for the author of the _Leather-Stocking Tales_, although he long remembered a lesson in table manners, by which, on one of these visits, his host had startled him. At dinner young Elihu passed his plate with knife and fork upon it for a second supply, when from the head of the table came this reprimand: "My boy, never leave your implements on the plate. You might drop knife or fork in a lady's lap. Take them both firmly in your left hand, and hold them until your plate is returned." Half a century afterward Elihu Phinney declared that whatever the ruling of etiquette might be in this matter, he had never since failed to heed this bit of advice from Fenimore Cooper. Mrs. Stephen H. Synnott, wife of a one-time rector of Christ Church in Cooperstown, remembered Cooper as a genuine lover of children. She was Alice Trumbull Worthington, and during the novelist's latter years she lived as a child in the White House on Main Street, nearest neighbor to Otsego Hall. "To meet Fenimore Cooper on the street in the village was always a pleasure," says Mrs. Synnott. "His eye twinkled, his face beamed, and his cane pointed at you with a smile and a greeting of some forthcoming humor. When I happened to be passing the gates of the old Hall, and he and Mrs. Cooper were driving home from his farm, I often ran to open the gate for him, which trifling act he acknowledged with old-time courtesy. His fine garden joined my father's, and once, being in the vicinity of the fence, he tossed me several muskmelons to catch, which at that time were quite rare in the village gardens."

To this same little girl, when she had sent him an appreciation of one of his novels, Fenimore Cooper wrote a letter that certainly shows a benignant attitude toward children. "I am so much accustomed to newspapers," he wrote, "that their censure and their praise pass but for little, but the attentions of a young lady of your tender years to an old man who is old enough to be her grandfather are not so easily overlooked.... I hope that you and I and John will have an opportunity of visiting the blackberry bushes, next summer, in company. I now invite you to select your party, to be composed of as many little girls, and little boys, too, if you can find those you like, to go to my farm next summer, and spend an hour or two in finding berries. It shall be your party, and the invitations must go out in your name, and you must speak to me about it, in order that I may not forget it, and you can have your school if you like or any one else. I shall ask only one guest myself, and that will be John,[111] who knows the road, having been there once already."

Another child who found Fenimore Cooper a most genial friend was Caroline A. Foote, who afterward became Mrs. G. Pomeroy Keese. She was a frequent visitor at Otsego Hall, where the novelist made much of her, and when she was thirteen years old he wrote some original verses in her autograph album, at her request, concluding with these lines:

In after life, when thou shalt grow To womanhood, and learn to feel The tenderness the aged know To guide their children's weal, Then wilt thou bless with bended knee Some smiling child as I bless thee.

Encouraged by this success, Caroline Foote afterward asked Cooper to write some verses for her schoolmate, Julia Bryant, daughter of William Cullen Bryant, who was a warm friend of the novelist. With his young petitioner by his side Cooper sat at the old desk in the library of Otsego Hall and laughingly dashed off these lines:

Charming young lady, Miss Julia by name, Your friend, little Cally, your wishes proclaim; Read this, and you'll soon learn to know it, I'm not your papa the great lyric poet.

In order to understand the local controversy which divided village sentiment concerning Fenimore Cooper, and gave rise to the long series of libel suits, it is necessary to consider certain influences of more remote origin.

In 1826, when Cooper began his seven years' residence in Europe, before making his home in Cooperstown, he had become the most widely read of American authors. No other American writer, in fact, during the nineteenth century, enjoyed so wide a contemporary popularity. His works appeared simultaneously in America, England, and France. They were speedily translated into German and Italian, and in most instances soon found their way into the other cultivated tongues of Europe.[112] Cooper's friend Morse said that his novels were published, as soon as he produced them, in thirty-four different places in Europe, and that they had been seen by American travelers in the languages of Turkey and Persia, in Constantinople, in Egypt, at Jerusalem, at Ispahan. At a dinner given in New York in Cooper's honor, just before his departure for Europe, Chancellor Kent, who presided, voiced the general feeling by toasting him as the "genius which has rendered our native soil classic ground, and given to our early history the enchantment of fiction."

Patriotism in Cooper was almost a passion, and it burned in him with new ardor because of the misunderstanding and disparagement of America which he encountered almost everywhere in Europe. The praise which came to him from Europeans irritated him with its air of surprise that anything good could be expected from America or an American. Nor did he much ingratiate himself in British society, where, when the conversation turned upon matters discreditable to the United States, it became his custom to bring up other matters discreditable to Great Britain. On the Continent he pursued much the same course, and published his first "novels with a purpose," _The Bravo_, _The Heidenmauer_, and _The Headsman_, the object of which was to demonstrate the superiority of democratic institutions over the medieval inheritances of Europe. In his introduction to _The Heidenmauer_ he wrote a sentence that stirred the wrath of the newspaper press of his own country: "Each hour, as life advances," he asserted, "am I made to see how capricious and vulgar is the immortality conferred by a newspaper." This provoked at home the retort "The press has built him up; the press shall pull him down!" He began to be bitterly attacked in some American newspapers, which accused him of "flouting his Americanism throughout Europe."

When Cooper returned to America in 1833 it was with a sore heart. He had tried to set Europe right about America, and the result had been only to arouse resentment abroad and antagonism at home. It is not surprising that he found America much changed in seven years, and not for the better. It had been a period of rapid growth. New men were beginning to push the "old families" to the wall, and social rank was beginning to wait on wealth, in utter indifference to the classifications of the elder aristocracy. To Cooper it seemed that while America had grown in his absence there had been a vast expansion of mediocrity. Manners were dying out; architecture had become debased; towns were larger but more tawdry. In these observations, although they were furiously resented at the time, Cooper was probably correct. There was a period of about fifty years in the nineteenth century, when, in the development of material resources, there was a large indifference to manners in America, and a decline in the love for beautiful things and in the power to create them. This period of neglect toward the refinements of life set in at just about the time of Cooper's residence abroad.

But America, in this awkward age of its youthful growth, was in no mood either to profit by criticisms or to be indifferent to them. Cooper began to regard the attitude of Americans as pusillanimous. They toadied to foreign opinion, and dared not stand up for America abroad; while at home nothing American was ever to be criticised. When he expressed the opinion that the bay of Naples was more beautiful than the bay of New York, or complained that the streets of New York were ill-paved and poorly lighted as compared with those of foreign cities, he was informed by the hushed voices of friends that it would never do. His criticisms of America were received with deeper umbrage, as coming from an American, than the sarcasms of Dickens which, ten years later, aroused a tempest of indignation.

It was in these circumstances that he returned to the village of his youth, and took up his residence at Otsego Hall, in Cooperstown. Here he wrote the _Letter to His Countrymen_ in which he set out to answer certain criticisms of his writings that had appeared in New York newspapers, and, in apparent disgust, publicly announced that he had made up his mind to abandon authorship. Into this letter he imported some remarks upon a political controversy which was then agitating the nation, and touched the political situation in such a way, at a time when feeling ran high, that he succeeded in enraging the adherents of both political parties.

A storm of newspaper abuse then fell upon Cooper. He was not the man to realize that, in controversy, silence is sometimes the most effective weapon. He replied to every attack. Nor did he remain on the defensive. He began new hostilities. He abandoned his resolution to abandon authorship. _The Monikins_, a satirical novel in which men are burlesqued by monkeys, was published in 1835. In the ten volumes of travel published from 1836 to 1838 he dealt out occasional criticisms of both England and America with so impartial a hand that he drew down upon himself the savage vituperation of the press on both sides of the Atlantic. Then came the period during which, from being the most popular American author, he became the most unpopular man of letters to whom the nation has ever given birth. "For years," says Lounsbury, "a storm of abuse fell upon him, which for violence, for virulence, and even for malignity, surpassed anything in the history of American literature, if not in the history of literature itself."

On the western shore of Otsego Lake there is a low, wooded tongue of land which projects for a short distance into the water, and is called, in reference to its distance from Cooperstown, Three-Mile Point. This has been a favorite resort for picnics and other outings of villagers since 1822. When Fenimore Cooper took up his residence in the village in 1834, after his return from Europe, he found that the free use of Three-Mile Point by the public had given rise to the notion that it was owned by the community. This impression he took pains to correct, saying that while he had no desire to prevent the public from resorting to the Point, he wished it clearly understood that it was owned by the descendants of Judge William Cooper, of whose will he was executor. A defiant attitude toward his claim, and the destruction of a tree at Three-Mile Point afterward led Cooper to publish in the _Freeman's Journal_ the following warning:

The public is warned against trespassing on the Three-Mile Point, it being the intention of the subscriber rigidly to enforce the title of the estate, of which he is the representative, to the same. The public has not, nor has it ever had any right to the same beyond what has been conceded by the liberality of the owners. J. FENIMORE COOPER.

Immediately upon the publication of this notice, a handbill was put into circulation, which, in sarcastic terms, called for a public meeting of protest. "The citizens of the Village of Cooperstown," it ran, "are requested to meet at the Inn of Isaac Lewis, in said Village, this evening, at 7 o'clock, to take means to meet, and defend against the arrogant pretensions of one James Fenimore Cooper, claiming title to the 'Three-Mile Point,' and denying to the citizens the right of using the same, as they have been accustomed to from time immemorial, without being indebted to the LIBERALITY of any one man, whether native or foreigner."

The meeting was held, and stirring speeches were made. A series of resolutions was passed, following a preamble setting forth the facts as understood by the meeting of citizens:

Resolved, By the aforesaid citizens that we will wholly disregard the notice given by James F. Cooper, forbidding the public to frequent the Three-Mile Point.

Resolved, That inasmuch as it is well known that the late William Cooper intended the use of the Point in question for the citizens of this village and its vicinity, we deem it no more than a proper respect for the memory and intentions of the father, that the son should recognize the claim of the citizens to the use of the premises, even had he the power to deny it.

Resolved, That we will hold his threat to enforce title to the premises, as we do his whole conduct in relation to the matter, in perfect contempt.

Resolved, That the language and conduct of Cooper, in his attempts to procure acknowledgments of "liberality," and his attempt to force the citizens into asking his permission to use the premises, has been such as to render himself odious to a greater portion of the citizens of this community.

Resolved, That we do recommend and request the trustees of the Franklin Library, in this village, to remove all books, of which Cooper is the author, from said library.

Resolved also, That we will and do denounce any man as sycophant, who has, or shall, ask permission of James F. Cooper to visit the Point in question.

It was said that the meeting resolved to take Cooper's books from the Library and burn them at a public bonfire, but if so, this proposal did not appear in the resolutions as finally drafted.

The actual point at issue in this controversy was soon settled. In a letter to the _Freeman's Journal_ Cooper showed that his father's will, drawn up in 1808, made a particular devise of Three-Mile Point. The words of the document were explicit: "I give and bequeath my place, called Myrtle Grove [Three-Mile Point], on the west side of the Lake Otsego, to all my descendants in common until the year 1850; then to be inherited by the youngest thereof bearing my name."

But the results of the controversy were far-reaching. The quarrel gave rise to Cooper's unfortunate book _Home as Found_, to new controversies, and to the long series of libel suits.

_Home as Found_ was intended to set forth in the course of a story the principles involved in the dispute about Three-Mile Point. It gave the author an opportunity also to enlarge upon his criticisms of America, and particularly of New York City. For this purpose the story brought upon the scene an American family long resident in Europe whom the writer called the Effinghams. Against the vulgar background of American life the members of this family were intended to personify all the accomplishments of culture and social refinement.

Cooper's own attitude was astonishing in his failure to realize that in the Effinghams he would be supposed to be representing himself and his own family. The intimation was sufficiently obvious. The family returned from residence abroad; the removal to the village of "Templeton," with direct reference to _The Pioneers_; the story of the Three-Mile Point controversy--the inference seemed to follow from the parallel that the Effinghams were the Coopers. But Cooper's general unwillingness to acknowledge that any of his characters were drawn from life was here carried to the last extreme. It was evident that he was honestly unconscious of any such inference; his purpose was to deal with principles, not persons. When the name of Effingham was derisively applied to him, he resented the imputation.

The controversy between Cooper and his critics had now reached a degree of violence that was grotesque. To stand alone, as Cooper stood, against furious assaults that represented the sentiments of nearly the whole public was not conducive to playful moods of the spirit; yet the controversy had its humorous side, and if the novelist had had a keen sense of humor he would have been spared much trouble. Certain aspects of the ludicrous appealed to Cooper, and there was a range of absurdity within which his merriment was easily excited, as when he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks because his man-of-all-work thought that boiled oil should be called "biled ile"; but his attempts to create and sustain humorous characters, such as the singing-master in _The Last of the Mohicans_, justify Balzac's comments on Cooper's "profound and radical impotence for the comic." Nothing could be more comic than his rôle of lecturer to the American people upon refinements of social usage and manners. The many who were guilty of the vulgarities which he wished to correct were precisely those who could not be made to see the impropriety of them, and most fiercely resented any attempt to improve their deportment. If Cooper had possessed an acute sense of humor he would never have written _Home as Found_, nor would he have dignified with a reply the attack of every scribbler who assailed him. But he took all criticisms seriously, and felt it a solemn duty, in justice to himself and to the principles for which he stood, to defend himself against all and sundry. There is no doubt that in standing alone against the whole world he believed himself to be performing a public service, and displayed a degree of courage which is too rare not to command extraordinary admiration. At the same time those of his friends who described him as borne down by the weight of his sorrow at the misunderstanding and ingratitude which he encountered had not taken the full measure of his character. So splendid a fighter as Fenimore Cooper usually finds some pleasure in fighting, especially if, as in his case, he is habitually victorious. He leaped into the fray of each controversy with such alacrity that it is difficult to avoid the belief that Cooper was animated not only by a sense of justice, but by a joy of battle.

The occasion of the libel suits was the publication in August, 1837, in the _Otsego Republican_, a Cooperstown newspaper, of an article copied from the _Norwich Telegraph_, in which Cooper was roundly abused in reference to the Three-Mile Point controversy, and to which the _Republican_ added comments of its own, repeating the disproved statement that the father of the novelist had reserved the Point for the use of the inhabitants of the village. Cooper promptly notified the editor of the _Republican_, Andrew M. Barber, that unless the statements were retracted he would enter suit for libel. Barber refused to retract; the suit was begun; and in May, 1839, at the final trial, the jury returned a verdict of four hundred dollars for the plaintiff. The editor sought to avoid the payment of the whole award, and a great outcry was raised against Cooper because the sheriff levied upon some money which Barber had laid away and locked up in a trunk. Cooper sued also the _Norwich Telegraph_, and when other newspapers took the side of their associates he entered suit promptly against any that published libelous statements. In this way one suit led to another, until Cooper was bringing action against the _Oneida Whig_, published at Utica; the _Courier and Enquirer_ of New York, edited by James Watson Webb; the _Evening Signal_ of New York, edited by Park Benjamin; the _Commercial Advertiser_ of New York, edited by Col. William L. Stone; the _Tribune_, edited by Horace Greeley; and the _Albany Evening Journal_, edited by Thurlow Weed. This list includes the leading Whig journals of the time in the State of New York, which were among the most influential in the whole country. Col. Stone, Thurlow Weed, and Watson Webb were former residents of Cooperstown, the two first named having each served an apprenticeship as printer in the office of the _Freeman's Journal_. Weed was recognized as the leader of the Whig party in the nation, and his newspaper was correspondingly important. He was Cooper's most persistent opponent, and in 1841 the novelist had commenced five suits against him for various articles published in the _Evening Journal_. It is a curious fact that Weed was noted as a bigoted admirer of his adversary's novels. Weed himself afterward related that when about to leave Albany by stage-coach to attend one of these trials, and inquiring at the booksellers for some late publication to read on the journey, he was informed that the only new book was _The Two Admirals_, which had just been issued. "I took the book," said Weed, "and soon became so absorbed that I had hardly any time or thought for the trial, through which the author who charmed me was trying to push me to the wall."

The libel suits extended over the period from 1838 to 1844. Cooper acted almost wholly as his own lawyer, and argued his own cases in court. He was pitted against leaders of the bar in the greatest State in the Union. He had become personally unpopular, and was engaged in an unpopular cause. He won his verdicts from reluctant juries, but, in nearly every case, he won. The libel law of the State of New York was made, to a great extent, by the Fenimore Cooper cases.

To complete the story, the final disposition of Three-Mile Point, the innocuous cause of all this controversy, must here be anticipated. In 1899 Simon Uhlman, a wealthy hop merchant, purchased a summer home on the lakeside nearest to Three-Mile Point, and, desiring to acquire this tongue of land for his own use, made inquiries of Samuel M. Shaw, the veteran editor of the _Freeman's Journal_, to ascertain from whom the purchase might be made. Shaw learned from G. Pomeroy Keese that under the terms of Judge Cooper's will, the Point was then owned by William Cooper of Baltimore, and hastily arranged for the purchase at a moderate price, not for Uhlman, but for the village of Cooperstown. Thus Uhlman lost a desirable water front, and William Cooper a big price for his land, but the citizens of Cooperstown gained a playground, the denial of which to their forebears had nearly caused a riot. Uhlman afterward sold his place, Uncas Lodge, to Adolphus Busch of St. Louis.

Cooper's reputation as an author suffered from his success as a litigant in an unpopular cause, and his prosecution of the libel suits injured the sale of his books, not only then, but for some years after his death. In 1844, just after Cooper had reduced the newspapers of the State to silence, Edward Everett Hale visited Cooperstown, and says that when he tried to buy a copy of _The Pioneers_ at a local bookseller's the dealer coolly declared that he had never heard of the book.[113]

While public attention was engaged by the libel suits, Cooper was occupied with much else. It was during this period that he published his important _Naval History_, besides ten of his novels. Nor was there any loss of interest in his various avocations, among which, in 1840, he found time to plan and supervise extensive alterations in Christ Church, of which he had become a vestryman in 1835. With his mind full of the Gothic splendor of churches that he had seen in England, he set out to beautify the village church at home. The broad windows with rounded tops he caused to be somewhat narrowed, and pointed, in the fashion usually described as Gothic. Traces of this change still appear in the exterior brickwork of the church, for the outline of the original windows has never been obliterated. To this alteration Cooper added the buttresses all about the church, not for structural necessity, but as an architectural embellishment. The interior he caused to be entirely remodeled, and finished in native oak. Cooper especially prided himself upon an oaken screen which, as his gift to the church, he erected behind the altar. The alterations in the church are referred to in a letter dated "Hall, Cooperstown, April 22nd, 1840" and addressed to Harmanus Bleecker of Albany:

"I have just been revolutionizing Christ Church, Cooperstown, not turning out a vestry, but converting its pine interior into oak--_bona fide_ oak, and erecting a screen that I trust, though it may have no influence on my soul, will carry my name down to posterity. It is really a pretty thing--pure Gothic, and is the wonder of the country round."

This screen remained in the church, with some alteration, until 1891, when, at the time the chancel was built, it was unfortunately thrown out and not replaced. In 1910 the remnants of the old screen were reconstructed to fit the two archways that open into the church on either side of the chancel, and the panels of the original work were cut out, allowing a vista through the tracery. The screen that stands at the left hand as one faces the chancel is almost entirely of the original design and material.

Amid his manifold interests, Fenimore Cooper at one time amused himself in the study of the so-called occult sciences. Having advocated with apparent enthusiasm a belief in animal magnetism and clairvoyance, he caused public meetings to be held in the old Court House in Cooperstown, where, evening after evening, the mysteries of hypnotism were discussed. On one of these occasions a negro, who had proved at several meetings to be an excellent subject, was hypnotized in the presence of the audience, and pronounced to be both clairvoyant and insensible to pain. While Cooper was descanting eloquently upon this strange phenomenon, the darkey, suddenly rolling up his eyeballs, and displaying all his ivory, sprung spasmodically into the air, and then tumbled back in his seat. This startling interruption of the lecture remained unexplained for many years, until Elihu Phinney, the young friend and neighbor of Fenimore Cooper, confessed to being responsible for it. It seems that, during the course of the lectures, Phinney had had an argument with Harvey Perkins concerning the possibility of a truly hypnotic state, which Perkins affirmed and Phinney denied. Perkins finally said:

"So, you won't admit that the negro is rendered insensible to pain?"

"Never, no, not for a moment," was the reply.

"Well," said Perkins, "here is a darning needle four inches long. Take this with you to the lecture to-night, and at the first opportunity thrust it slyly for a full inch into his thigh. If he flinches, I will give up; if not, you will believe."

"Most assuredly," said Phinney, and it was this test which caused the interruption of Fenimore Cooper's lecture on hypnotism.[114]

In the summer of 1843, at about eleven o'clock every morning, Fenimore Cooper was seen coming forth from the gates of Otsego Hall escorting a strange-looking companion. The figures of the two men offered a singular contrast. Cooper, tall and portly, with the ruddy glow of health upon his countenance, was swinging a light whip of a cane more ornamental than useful, and stepped forward with a firm and elastic tread. The man by his side was a shriveled and weather-beaten hulk, hobbling, and with halting step pressing heavily upon a crooked stick that served for his support. Sometimes they walked the village streets together. At other times they came down upon the border of the lake for a sail upon its waters in a skiff which Cooper had rigged with a lug-sail in recollection of early Mediterranean days. Here the stranger was more at home, for the man was Ned Myers, an old sailor who had been Cooper's messmate on board the _Sterling_ nearly forty years before. The old salt, who had passed a lifetime on many seas, developed a great respect for Otsego Lake, which he found to be "a slippery place to navigate." "I thought I had seen all sorts of winds before I saw the Otsego," he afterward declared, "but on this lake it sometimes blew two or three different ways at the same time."

It was a strange chance which renewed the acquaintance between Fenimore Cooper and Ned Myers. Their ways were long separated. Myers had continued to follow the sea, and became at last a derelict at the "Sailor's Snug Harbor" at the port of New York. Here it was that having read some of Cooper's sea tales it occurred to the old sailor that the author might be the young James Cooper whom he had known aboard the _Sterling_. Accordingly he wrote to the novelist at Cooperstown, seeking the desired information, and received in reply a cordial letter beginning with the words, "I am your old shipmate, Ned."

On his next visit in New York, Cooper got into touch with Myers, and invited the old tar to spend several weeks of the summer as his guest at Otsego Hall in Cooperstown. The novelist had much in common with Ned Myers, for his own experience at sea was sufficient to qualify him as a sailor. "I have been myself," said Cooper, "one of eleven hands, officers included, to navigate a ship of three hundred tons across the Atlantic Ocean; and, what is more, we often reefed topsails with the watch." While in Cooperstown as the guest of the novelist the old sailor who had shipped on seventy-two different craft, and had passed a quarter of a century out of sight of land, spun the yarn of his experience which Cooper wove into the story of _Ned Myers_.

It is remarkable that one whose writings evince so strong an orthodoxy of Christian faith, with a championship of churchly doctrines too rigid for many of his readers, did not himself become a communicant of the Church until the last year of his life. On Sunday, July 27, 1851, Bishop de Lancey visited Christ Church, Cooperstown, and among those to whom he administered the sacrament of Confirmation, in the presence of a large congregation, was his brother-in-law, James Fenimore Cooper. The novelist's family pew was one which stood sidelong at the right of the chancel. He had by this time become quite infirm, and the bishop, after receiving the other candidates at the sanctuary rail, left the chancel, and administered Confirmation to Fenimore Cooper kneeling in his own pew.

Fenimore Cooper died less than two months later, on Sunday, September 14, 1851, aged sixty-two years lacking one day. The body lay in state at Otsego Hall, and on Wednesday the funeral services were held in Christ Church, the interment being made in the Cooper plot in Christ churchyard. This grave, covered by the prostrate slab of marble marked by a cross, and bearing an inscription that sets forth nothing beyond the novelist's name, with dates of birth and death, has become a shrine of literary pilgrimage. The hurried tourist is disappointed in not being greeted by some conspicuous monument to beckon him at once to the famous tomb; but a more genuine tribute to the novelist's memory appears when the visitor's eye lights upon the path leading from the gate of the enclosure, and deeply worn in the sod by the feet of wayfarers in many a long journey, through the years, to Cooper's grave.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 102: _James Fenimore Cooper_, by Mary E. Phillips, p. 262.]

[Footnote 103: In 1826 he applied to the legislature to change his name to James Cooper Fenimore, since there were no men of his mother's family to continue the name. The request was not granted, but the change was made to James Fenimore-Cooper. He soon dropped the hyphen.]

[Footnote 104: Now in the hall at Fynmere, the home built in Cooperstown by the novelist's grandson, James Fenimore Cooper of Albany.]

[Footnote 105: _James Fenimore Cooper_, by Thomas R. Lounsbury, American Men of Letters series, p. 80.]

[Footnote 106: Now at Fynmere.]

[Footnote 107: Now at Edgewater.]

[Footnote 108: _Pages and Pictures_, Susan Fenimore Cooper, p. 322.]

[Footnote 109: _James Fenimore Cooper_, W. B. Shubrick Clymer, p. 90.]

[Footnote 110: Livermore, p. 204.]

[Footnote 111: John Worthington, afterward United States Consul in Malta.]

[Footnote 112: Lounsbury.]

[Footnote 113: Cooperstown Centennial Book, p. 133.]

[Footnote 114: _Reminiscences_, Elihu Phinney, 1890.]