[Illustration: THE ANGELUS.]
In the “Life of Samuel F.B. Morse” by Samuel Irenaeus Prime appears Cooper’s letter from “Spa, July 31, 1832,” to
My Dear Morse: I have had a great compliment paid me, Master Samuel,–You must know there is a great painter in Bruxelles of the name of Verboeckhoven, (which means a _bull and a book baked in an oven!_) who is another Paul Potter. He out does all other men in drawing cattle,–Well, sir, this artist did me the favor to call at Bruxelles with the request that I would let him sketch my face. He came after the horses were ordered, and knowing the difficulty of the task, I thanked him, but was compelled to refuse. On our arrival at Liege, we were told that a messenger from the governor had been to inquire for us, and I began to bethink me of my sins,–however,–it proved Mr. Bull-and-book-baked had come [by dilligence] to Liege (sixty-three miles) and got the governor to give him notice, by means of my passport, when we came. Of course I sat,–the likeness–like all other pictures you have seen of my chameleon face–has a vastly live-like look,–the compliment is none the less, and, provided the artist does not mean to serve me up as a specimen of American wild beasts, I shall thank him for it. To be followed twelve posts by a first-rate artist, who is in favor with the King, is so unusual, that I probed him a little. I found him well skilled in his art,–his gusto for natural subjects, strong,–and his favorite among all my books is “The Prairie,” which you know is filled with wild beasts. Here the secret is out.–He sent me a beautiful pencil sketch of a Belgian hind as a memorial of our achievement.
[Illustration: EUGENE-JOSEPH VERBOECKHOVEN.]
Cooper and his family spent some days drinking the waters at Spa, with best effects for Mrs. Cooper–not over-strong since the Paris days. They left its grass of “ghostly green” when the “dog-star raged with all its fury,” and “came on old Aix-la-Chapelle, well-cloaked and carriage windows closed.” In compliment to the republic of letters the postman called on Cooper here, and like tribute was also paid two posts farther on, where he was asked if he “was the man who wrote books!” That day was well spent when they reached the terrace above the Rhine and got their first view of the towers of Cologne. In “fine, lofty rooms” overlooking a garden, they here enjoyed a night’s rest, a breakfast, and then a pilgrimage to “the unfinished cathedral, that wonder of Gothic architecture.” A visit was paid to the house in which Rubens was born, it is said, and the very room which sheltered the last moments of Mary of Medicis, wife of Henry IV and mother of Louis XIII of France. Cooper thought it “a better sort of burgher home,” and saw it as “a public house.”
[Illustration: RUBENS’ COLOGNE HOME.]
Again on the wing, they passed the student-town of Bonn, Rhine ruins of charming legend on the near and far banks of the river, until on an island in the Rhine they found rest and refreshment at a convent-inn. The host, wife, child, cook, and soldiers three, quartered there, gave them welcome and good cheer. Their parlor was that of the lady abbess, and her bedchamber fell to Mrs. Cooper. “The girls were put into cells, where girls ought never to be put,” wrote their father. _He_ “sallied forth alone, in quest of sensation,” and got it in the muttering of thunder, and the flashing of lightning over the “pitchy darkness of the seven mountains.” And he and the fiercely howling winds from the trees had a chase through the gloomy cloisters, whence he saw, in the vast, cavern-like kitchen, the honest islanders eating with relish his surplus supper.
[Illustration: CONVENT OF NUNNENWORTH.]
As the storm grew in strength Cooper went to the corridor above, leading past their rooms To-and-fro he paced until a bright flash revealed the far, end door to which he went, opened, and entered into utter darkness. Taking a few steps he paused–“for the whole seemed filled by a clatter, as of ten thousand bat-wings against glass.” His hand rested on something–he knew not what–when by another vivid flash he saw that he was in an open gallery of the convent chapel. The bat-wings were small, broken panes of the high arched windows, rattling in the gale. Yet by the chasing flashes of angry light he saw beneath him grim figures in the shadowy motions of troubled spirits. They wore upon his nerves, until he caught himself shouting: “‘Ship ahoy; ship ahoy! What cheer, what cheer?’ in a voice as loud as the winds.” He was about to speak when his gallery door opened and the withered face of an old crone appeared by a flash; then came thunder, and the face vanished. After a pause the door opened again, and on the same uncomely face, when, without thought, our author gave a loud, deep groan. The door slammed on the time-stricken form, and he was again alone with the storm-demons who now soon grew drowsy and went to sleep, and he himself went to bed,–and, wrote he, “slept like a postillion in a cock-loft, or a midshipman in the middle-watch.” But regret came in the morning when Mrs. Cooper told her husband how a poor old soul, frightened by the storm, had stolen into the chapel to pray, where, on hearing strange groans, she dropped her candle and fled in fear to Madam’s maid, who gave her bed-shelter for the night. An after-breakfast look at the storm-ridden chapel disclosed other good reasons than the groans for the poor creature’s flight. A peace offering made sweet her next night’s sleep, when the travelers had gone on their way, diving here and there into lore and legend of the mighty Rhine-stream.
[Illustration: WATCH TOWER ON THE RHINE.]
Near the Prussian frontier was “a castle that stood beetling on a crag above the road,” where smoke actually arose from a beacon-grate that thrust itself out “from a far-front tower.” Such attractions were not to be passed, and up the winding way over two hundred feet they went, and over the small drawbridge, guarded by one groom and the Dutch growl of a ferocious mastiff. In walls, towers, queer gap terraces,–giving lovely glimpses of the Rhine,–court, outside stairways of iron, fine old Knights’ Hall–its huge fire-place, and its center droplights of lamps fitted into buckhorns–and curious armor, Cooper found additional material for his prolific pen.
During the year 1832 Cooper gave “The Heidenmauer, a Rhine Legend,” to the world. While the book itself is full of mediaeval, Rhine-country charm, of brilliant charge and countercharge, of church and state power, unfortunately for its author in its “Introduction” was this sentence: “Each hour, as life advances, am I made to see how capricious and vulgar is the immortality conferred by a newspaper.” This brought upon its writer a whirlwind of caustic criticism in the American papers, and soon became a challenge of battle by one who was to prove himself brave, able, fearless, and _right_ through coming years of hot and bitter strife. By one of the leading editors the glove was taken up in these words: “The press has built him up; the press shall pull him down.” Posterity has forgotten the stirring conflict, but Cooper’s books will never fail to fire the heart and brain of every mother’s son for all time.
In a skiff, spreading a sprit sail, they crossed the Rhine at Bingen by that postmaster’s assurance of “Certainly, as good a ferry as there is in Germany.–_Ja_–_Ja_–we do it often.” Through the Duchy of Nassau they tested its wines from Johannesberg to Wiesbaden. Then up the Main to Frankfort, on to Darmstadt, and thence to Heidelberg. It was quite dark when they “crossed the bridge of the Neckar,” but “Notwithstanding the obscurity” wrote Cooper, “we got a glimpse of the proud old ruin overhanging the place, looking grand and sombre in the gloom of night.” He thought the ruins by daylight “vast, rather than fine” though parts had “the charm of quaintness.” The “picturesque tower” was noted, adding “but the finest thing certainly is the view from the garden-terrace above.” Below it, unrolls miles of the beautiful Neckar valley country, through which they drove to Ludwigsburg and on to Stuttgart. Beyond, appeared a distant view of “a noble ruin” crowning a conical eminence. This was the Castle of Hohenzollern, “the cradle of the House of Brandenburg” to which a thunderstorm prevented their intended visit.
[Illustration: HEIDELBERG AND CASTLE.]
Returning to a vale of Wurtemberg they saw “a little rivulet” which began the mighty Danube stream on its way to the Black Sea, and drove up to the inn at Tuttlingen, of which point Cooper wrote: “This is the Black Forest,–The wood was chiefly of larches, whence I presume its name.” Warned by their host-postmaster of a long climb of mountain separating the Rhine and Danube rivers, in a coach and six they left him for Schaffhausen and the Rhine Falls. The mountain crest gave them a sweeping view of Lake Constance when its waters looked “dark and wild” wrote Cooper, adding, “we suddenly plunged down to the banks of the Rhine and found ourselves once more before an inn-door, in Switzerland.” So in the late summer of this year their second visit was made to the land of Lake Leman, whose waters are overshadowed by noble mountains; and its surface broad, tranquil, and blue. Enchanting distance made a fairy air-castle of a tiny chateau on a little grassy knoll washed by the lake, but a near view decided the family “to take refuge in a furnished house, _Mon Repose_,” in a retired corner quite near the shore at Vevay.
[Illustration: VEVAY SHORES OF LAKE LEMAN.]
A boat, with honest John Descloux and his two crooked oars, was soon secured, and many an hour was spent listening to his lore of Leman, as they floated their several hours a day over its waters, under fair skies and foul.
[Illustration: FETE DES VIGNERONS, 1833.]
During this Switzerland vacation Cooper’s fancy was strongly attracted by Vevay’s celebration of an old-time festival, _abbaye des Vignerons_, or great holiday of the vine-dressers. It was “a gay and motley scene, blending the harvest-home with a dash of the carnival spirit.” Shepherds and shepherdesses in holiday attire and garlands, tripping the measures of rustic song and dance. Aproned gardeners with rake and spade, their sweethearts with bread-baskets of fruit and flowers, uniting in the dance _a la ronde_, as they came to a certain point in the procession; and so went the reapers, mowers, gleaners, herdsmen, and dairy-maids in Alpine costume, timing their steps to horn and cow-bell, and singing the heart-stirring chorus _Ranz des Vachs_, or the “Cowherds of the Alps,” the wild notes coming back in many an Alpine echo. The festival concluded with a rustic wedding, the bride being dowered down to the broom and spindle by the lady of the manor.
[Illustration: NOAH’S ARK, VEVAY, 1833.]
Such a holiday on the shores of Lake Leman, and the Pass of St. Bernard, Cooper placed as a background for his plot based on the hard old feudal-times law–that (in the canton of Berne) the odious office of executioner or headsman was made a family inheritance. The efforts of the unhappy father and mother to save their son from such a fate make up the pathetic interest of “The Headsman,” issued in 1833. The Hospice of St. Bernard so well described in this book was visited by the author the previous year.
[Illustration: HOSPICE ST. BERNARD.]
When the power to write first dawned on Cooper’s mind there came also and grew with it the desire to serve his native land in the field of letters. Love of country and countrymen guided his ardent, generous pen in “The Spy,” “The Pioneers,” “The Last of the Mohicans,” and “The Prairie,” written before he went to Europe. European society he entered, and was courted as literary men of reputation are courted there, but always with the honest pride of being an American. Under these pleasant conditions “The Red Rover,” “The Traveling Bachelor,” “The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish,” and “The Water Witch” were written. But “The Bravo” was followed by such “a series of abuse in the public press” at home that when Cooper returned, November 5, 1833, these onsets greatly surprised him. His nature was roused by attack; but “never was he known to quail,” wrote a famous English critic of him, and added: “Cooper writes like a hero!” He believed the public press to be a power for life or death to a nation, and held _personal_ rights as sacred; and challenged on these lines he became a lion at bay. Excepting from his fine old personal friends, staunch and true, he had a chilling reception. For saying, at an evening party a few days after landing, that he had been sadly jolted by the bad pavement and was surprised that the town was so poorly lighted, he was seriously warned by these warm friends: “By the shade of Washington! and the memory of Jay! to be more prudent; not a syllable of pavements or a word of lamps could be uttered.” Because he thought the bay of Naples of more classic interest than the bay of New York, he was voted “devoid of taste and patriotism.” So hurt was he by public distrust that he thought seriously of writing no more; its injustice led him to criticise harshly many changes which had occurred during his absence. The Indian trail had made way for canal-boats, connecting the ocean with the inland seas; the railroads had come, with other active commercial interests, to stay.
[Illustration: THE BAY OF NAPLES.]
[Illustration: NEW YORK HARBOR.]
After their return from Europe Cooper and his family passed some winters in New York City–those of 1833-34 and 1835-36 in Bleecker Street near Thompson. There he “first erected his household gods, French gods these, for the house throughout was equipped with furniture from France, and ministered solely by French servitors,” writes Doctor Wolfe. But love for the old Hall on the shores of Otsego grew strong beyond resistance. It was vacant and of forlorn appearance when the author returned to it in 1834. From a simple, roomy, comfortable house it was made over into a picturesque country-seat, from designs, English in style, drawn by Professor Morse, who was at Cooperstown during alterations. Some of these, without thought of the cold Otsego winters–ice and snow on the battlemented roof–made leaks frequent and disturbing.
[Illustration: OTSEGO HALL AFTER THE RECONSTRUCTION OF 1834.]
In 1835 Cooper wrote of this home: “The Hall is composite enough, Heaven knows, being a mongrel of the Grecian and Gothic orders; my hall, however, is the admiration of all the mountaineers–nearly fifty feet long, twenty-four wide, and fifteen feet high. I have raised the ceiling three feet, and regret it had not been ten. I have aversion to a room under jurymasts.”
[Illustration: COOPER’S LIBRARY AT OTSEGO HALL.]
The library was a well-shaped room of twenty by twenty-four feet, the ceiling twelve feet above. Its deep, dark oak windows opened on the thick shade-trees of the quiet southwest; the walls, well-lined with books of value, could show no complete set of his own. In one corner of this room was a large folding screen on which were pasted print-pictures of places they had visited during their seven years’ tour of Europe; a like screen was in the hall. In this library was the author’s plain, shining, English walnut writing-table and chair, whose first owner was Richard Fenimore, Cooper’s maternal grandfather, of Rancocus, New Jersey; many of Cooper’s works were written upon it. On the opposite side of the hall was the author’s bedchamber. It is interesting to learn from Mr. Keese that the large north bed-rooms, so cold in winter, were known as “Siberia” and “Greenland,” while those on the south, and warm in summer, were called “Florida” and “Italy.” We are told the grounds were changed by winding walks and the setting out of trees–not a few with Cooper’s own hands. And under these fine trees, in their southwest favored corner, shadows and sunlight play hide and seek about a copy of Mr. and Mrs. Cooper’s favorite garden seat. Great gates were made for the garden entrance, as heavy and hard to move as those of “The Hutted Knoll” in the author’s story of “Wyandotte.” It was indeed an attractive home, made more so by its attractive inmates. Concerning these Mr. Keese writes: “Noting Cooper’s fondness for animals, the family brought from Paris a magnificent ‘tiger’ cat weighing fifteen pounds–‘Coquelicot’ by name. He lived at the Hall until the day of his death, and occupied the most comfortable chair in the parlor and was rarely disturbed.” Finally the old Hall became their only home, and here, in his stronghold at the foot of the Glimmerglass, Cooper kept open house for his friends.
[Illustration: COPY OF COOPER’S GARDEN SEAT.]
During the summer months he took a lively interest in his garden. From his daughter we learn: “It was his delight to watch the growth of different plants day by day. His hot-beds were of the earliest, and he was the first to grow egg-plant, Brussels sprouts, and other unusual vegetables and fruits.” The first and choicest of fruit or vegetable was gathered by himself as a little offering to Mrs. Cooper, and placed by him at her plate at table. And he took great pleasure in carrying with his own hands baskets of choice fruit and vegetables to different friends and neighbors. Many were these that the author and his old shipmate Ned Myers carried about the village to different homes.
[Illustration: JUDGE NELSON.]
Many also were the talks that Cooper and his friend and constant companion, Judge Nelson, of the Supreme Court, had on garden affairs, as well as on legal and political questions of the day; many were their visits to the hot-beds and melon hills. “Ah, those muskmelons! Carefully were they watched.” This penman was frankly proud of his melons, their early growth and flavor. But for all his care this melon-pride met its Waterloo one spring in a special box of superior seed, started in a favored place for light and warmth, and to be early transplanted. Soon the tiny green blades appeared, duly became leaflets, to the joy of the Judge and the planter. “Those two venerable heads bending together in close scrutiny over the young plants was a pleasant sight, in the author’s eager interest and genial sympathy of the Judge.” But alas! neither jurist nor novelist was a botanist, and the triumphantly expected melon vines basely proved after a few more days of tender nursing to be the leaves of “that vagabond weed, the wild-cucumber vine.” Here too he gathered material for future books, and did much writing. Evening twilight often found him pacing the large hall, his hands behind him, his head doing active duty in decisive nods of _yea_ and _nay_, and words spoken aloud for putting on paper in his library next morning. Some of this writing was to his profit and pleasure, and some, alas! to his sad disturbance–as was “A Letter to his Countrymen,” published in 1834.
A picture of this Otsego-Hall home life would prove a sorry failure with “Pumpkin” left out. Therefore appears Pumpkin, the family horse, who earned his name by drawing a load of pumpkins for Seraphina, the cow, to eat. It is of note that his horseship carried “a very light whisp of a tail, and had a gait all his own in going at times on three legs and, at times, kicking up both hind ones in a way more amusing than alarming, by leaving an interesting doubt as to fore or aft movement, in the mind of his driver.”
Of Cooper’s daily active life Mr. Keese notes: “He rose early, did much writing before breakfasting at nine, and afterwards until eleven o’clock. Then Pumpkin, hitched to his yellow buggy, was brought to the door”; and when her health would allow, Mrs. Cooper often went with her husband to their _chalet_ farm. Sometimes it was his author-daughter who went with her father; and again, some friend was hailed from the street for the trip. These several active hours would give him a fine appetite for their three o’clock dinner, on his return. “The late afternoon and evening were given to friends at home, or to visiting, and often to his favorite game of chess with Mrs. Cooper.”
Some two years after Cooper’s return from abroad, a friend about to sail for Europe met him walking leisurely along Broadway with his coat open and a great string of onions in his hand. Seeing several persons turn to look at him, then speak to each other, the friend too turned–“and behold, it was Cooper!” After greetings he raised his bunch of onions and said: “I have turned farmer, but am obliged to come to town now and then, as you see.” Kind remembrances were sent to Greenough; and of Italy he added: “There is no place where mere living is such a luxury.”
Fenimore Cooper had a keen sense of the ridiculous. His table-talk by his own fireside was full of cheery life, fun, and glowing merriment. “Severe and stern his fine face could be when touching on serious subjects,” but his relish of the ludicrous and comical was very strongly marked, and when such came his way in reading, it was carried at once to the family circle and read by him with zest, and a laugh so hearty it brought the tears rolling down his cheeks. While in Europe he outlined a satirical tale in which the men’s parts should be seriously assumed by monkeys. An English baronet, Sir John Goldencalf, and a Yankee skipper, Captain Noah Poke, were made to travel together through the different parts of Monkeyland, called Leaphigh, Leaplow, and Leapthrough, representing England, America, and France. This tale was hastily written in his New York home on Bleecker Street near Thompson. Of these countries, their people, and that time, the story was a strong, clever, and ludicrous picture, which in this day would be accepted as such, and be equally helpful and amusing to writers and readers. It was called “The Monikins,” and was published in 1835.
Delight in the scenery of Switzerland led Cooper to put in book form his notes on his visits to that small country of many interests and magnificent views. Under the name of “Sketches in Switzerland,” it was published in 1836. The France and England part of his “Gleanings in Europe” went to print the next year. Concerning his book on old England, Cooper, in the autumn of 1837, writes: “They tell me it has made a stir in London, where I get abused and read _a la Trollope_. It ought to do them good, but whether it does or not depends upon Divine grace.” This effort has been called keen, clever, but untimely, tending rather to set people by their ears than to save them from their sins.
In the summer of 1837 Cooper found himself facing the disputed ownership of “Three-Mile Point” of Lake Otsego. On his return from Europe he found that his townspeople regarded this point–Myrtle Grove–as belonging to them. But Judge Cooper’s will left it to all his heirs until 1850, when it was to go to the youngest bearing his name. While willing to allow the villagers picnic privileges, Cooper insisted on his clear title to this pretty shore point; but Cooperstown Solons hotly fought what they called “the arrogant claims of one J. Fenimore Cooper,” who, however, finally proved his title by winning the case at law. But he lost much of the good-will of his townsmen, whom he thought “progressive in killing the red-man and chopping down trees.”
[Illustration: WILD-ROSE POINT OR THREE-MILE POINT.]
The beauty of this Wild-Rose Point claimed Cooper’s earliest love. He made it the scene where Deerslayer and Chingachgook rescued Wah-ta-Wah. Its flatiron-shaped pebble-beach jutted out from the lake’s west shore and was covered with fine old forest trees garlanded with vines; and from their graveled rootage there gurgled a limpid spring of sweet waters. Then a wild brook came brawling down the hills to find its gentle outlet on the beach. Azalias and wild roses made its shrubbery, while pitcher-plant, moccasin-flower, gentians blue and white, with brilliant lobelias, were among the native blossoms that charmed the author’s childhood and made this Three-Mile Point especially dear to him.
[Illustration: COOPER’S NEW YORK CITY HOME, ST. MARK’S PLACE.]
The Italian part of Cooper’s “Gleanings in Europe” was brought to print in 1838, and later in this year appeared “The American Democrat.” Then “Homeward Bound,” its sequel, “Home as Found,” and the “Chronicles of Cooperstown”–all came in hot haste from the author’s modest three-story brick home in St. Mark’s Place near Third Avenue in New York City. In these books Cooper told his side of foreign and town troubles, and it was said that not ten places or persons could complain in truth that they had been overlooked. Thereby New York society and the American press became greatly excited. Cooper was ever a frank friend or an open enemy. A critic wrote of him and this time: “He had the courage to defy the majority and confound the press, from a heavy sense of duty, with ungrateful truths. With his manly, strong sense of right and wrong he had a high regard for courage in men and purity in women, but, with his keen sense of justice, he was not always judicious. Abroad he defended his country with vigor, and was fearless in warning and advising her, when needful, at home. While he never mistook ‘her geese for swans,’ he was a patriot to the very core of his heart.” However, this over-critical writing soon became newspaper gossip, and began for Cooper six long years of tedious lawsuits, finally settled in his favor in 1843. With such able men as Horace Greeley, Park Benjamin, and Thurlow Weed among others in battle-array against him, Cooper closed this strife himself by making a clear, brilliant, and convincing six-hour address before the court during a profound silence. Well may it be said: “It was a good fight he fought and an honorable victory he won” when he silenced the press as to publishing private or personal affairs. His speech was received with bursts of applause, and of his closing argument an eminent lawyer said: “I have heard nothing like it since the days of Emmet.” “It was clear, skilful, persuasive, and splendidly eloquent,” is another’s record. At the Globe Hotel the author wrote his wife the outcome, and added: “I tell you this, my love, because I know it will give you pleasure.” In “American Bookmen,” by M.A. De Wolfe Howe, it appears that when going to one of his Cooper trials Mr. Weed picked up a new book to shorten the journey. It proved to be “The Two Admirals,” and says Weed: “I commenced reading it in the cars, and became so charmed that I took it into the court-room and occupied every interval that my attention could be withdrawn from the trial with its perusal.” Mr. Howe adds: “Plaintiff and defendant have rarely faced each other under stranger conditions.”
[Illustration: HORACE GREELEY.]
[Illustration: PARK BENJAMIN.]
[Illustration: THURLOW WEED.]
While in the St. Mark’s-Place home the family found Frisk, described by Mr. Keese as “a little black mongrel of no breed whatever, rescued from under a butcher’s cart in St. Mark’s Place, with a fractured leg, and tenderly cared for until recovery. He was taken to Cooperstown, where he died of old age after the author himself. Mr. Cooper was rarely seen on the street without Frisk.”
The shores of Otsego, “the Susquehanna’s utmost spring,” Cooper made the scenic part of “Home as Found,” but high authority asserts the characters to be creatures of the author’s fancy, all save one,–“a venerable figure, tall and upright, to be seen for some three-score years moving to and fro over its waters; still ready to give, still ready to serve; still gladly noting all of good; but it was with the feeling that no longer looked for sympathy.” It was of “Home as Found” that Morse wrote to Cooper: “I will use the frankness to say I wish you had not written it. But whenever am I to see you?”
The effect of this conflict with the press so cut the sale of Cooper’s books that in 1843 he wrote: “I know many of the New York booksellers are afraid to touch my works on account of the press of that righteous and enlightened city.” Of these disturbing conditions Balzac’s opinion was: “Undoubtedly Cooper’s renown is not due to his countrymen nor to the English: he owes it mainly to the ardent appreciation of France.”
Cooper’s income, from England, suffered on account of an act of Parliament change, in 18381 of the copy-right law. But his London publisher, Bentley, was credited with usually giving the author about $1500 each for his later stories. Report gave him about $5000 each for his prior works.
May 10, 1839, Cooper published his “History of the United States Navy.” It was first favored and then, severely criticised at home and abroad; but the author was fourteen years in gathering his material, and his close contact with navy officers and familiarity with sea life made him well qualified for the work. He had not yet convinced the press that an author’s and editor’s right to criticise was mutual; that each might handle the other’s public work as roughly as he pleased, but neither might touch on the other’s private affairs. However, the “Naval History” sold well and has borne the test of time, and still remains an authority on subjects treated. There are many officers who well remember their delight on first reading those accounts of the battles of long-ago, of which Admiral Du Pont said that any lieutenant “should be ashamed not to know by heart.” One well qualified to judge called Cooper’s “Naval History” “one of the noblest tributes ever paid to a noble profession.”
When “The Pathfinder” came later from the author’s pen critics were startled from the press-estimate of his character by “the novel beauty of that glorious work–I must so call it,” said Bryant. Natty’s goodness a dangerous gift might prove for popular success, but its appeal to Washington Irving won this record: “They may say what they will of Cooper; the man who wrote this book is not only a great man, but a good man.” Balzac held it to be “_un beau livre_” and thought Cooper owed his high place in modern literature to painting of the sea and seamen, and idealizing the magnificent landscapes of America. It was of Cooper and his works that Balzac wrote: “With what amazing power has he painted nature! How all his pages glow with creative fire!”
[Illustration: J.W. TRUMBULL.]
Concerning Cooper’s innate love for his home-country scenery, Dr. Francis gives this incident: “It was a gratifying spectacle to see Cooper with old Colonel Trumbull, the historical painter, discanting on Cole’s pencil in delineating American forest-scenery–a theme richest in the world for Cooper. The venerable Colonel with his patrician dignity, and Cooper with his aristocratic bearing, yet democratic sentiment. Trumbull was one of the many old men I knew who delighted in Cooper’s writings, and in conversation dwelt upon his captivating genius.”
[Illustration: JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.]
Personally, Mr. Cooper was a noble type of our race. He was of massive, compact form, a face of strong intelligence and glowing with masculine beauty, in his prime. His portraits, though imposing, by no means do justice to the impressive and vivacious presence of the man. This pen picture is by one who knew the author well.
[Illustration: CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.]
[Illustration: COLUMBUS’ FLEET.]
On July 8, of this year, Cooper was made a member of the Georgia Historical Society, and the following autumn “Mercedes of Castile” came from his pen. It relates the first voyage of Columbus, and “with special knowledge of a seaman, the accuracy of an historian, and with something of the fervor of a poet.”
Gleaning Miss Cooper’s “Pages and Pictures,” one reads, as to “The Deerslayer”: “One pleasant summer evening the author of ‘The Pathfinder,’ driving along the shady lake shore, was, as usual, singing; not, however, a burst of Burns’s ‘Scots wha ha’ wi’ Wallace bled!’ or Moore’s ‘Love’s Young Dream,’–his favorites,–but this time a political song of the party opposing his own. Suddenly he paused as a woods’ opening revealed to his spirited gray eye an inspiring view of Otsego’s poetical waters.” When the spell was broken he turned to his beloved daughter and exclaimed: “I must write one more book, dearie, about our little lake!” Another far-seeing look was taken, to people this beautiful scene with the creatures of his fancy, followed by a moment of silence, then cracking his whip, he resumed his song with some careless chat, and drove home. A few days later the first pages of the new book were written. When the touch of Time was frosting his own head, he leads Natty, as a youth, over the first warpath of his hero. And so the “Glimmerglass” and its “Mt. Vision” country grew into the story of “The Deerslayer”; it is “the very soul of the little lake overflowing with youthful freshness and vivid with stirring adventure.”
[Illustration: THE GLIMMERGLASS.]
On the bosom of its waters is anchored “Muskrat Castle,” and over it, to and fro, move the “Ark of Floating Tom” and the Indian canoes, which gave a strange, wild interest to the story. Afloat and ashore come those unlike sisters,–proud Judith, handsome but designing, and simple-hearted Hetty, gentle, innocent, and artless; both so real and feminine, and yet so far removed from their supposed father, the buccaneer. Then comes this Uncas of the eagle air, swooping with lithe movement to his rocky trysting-place. And Uncas is in strong contrast with “The Pathfinder’s” “Arrowhead,” who was a wonder-sketch of the red-man’s treachery and vengeance, while his sweet girl-wife, “Dew-of-June,” shows, true to life, an Indian woman’s unfaltering devotion to her savage lord. Over all its pages broods the commanding spirit of “The Deerslayer,”–the forest’s young Bayard who has yet to learn what the taking of human life is like. So, in “The Deerslayer,” printed in 1841, the “Little Lake” (Otsego), with its picturesque shores, capes, and forest-crowned heights, was made classic soil. Just back of “The Five-Mile Point.”–where Deerslayer gave himself up to merciless Indian justice at the Huron Camp, and later was rescued by British regulars–is the rocky gorge, Mohican Glen, through which a purling brook ripples by its stone-rift banks thatched with great clumps of rose and fern. From the gravel-strewn shore of Hutter’s Point beyond, the eyes of Leatherstocking first fell upon the Glimmerglass, and impressed by its wonder and beauty he exclaimed: “This is grand! ‘t is solemn! ‘t is an edication of itself.” Leaning on his rifle and gazing in every direction, he added: “Not a tree disturbed, but everything left to the ordering of the Lord, to live and die, to His designs and laws! This is a sight to warm the heart.”
[Illustration: OTSEGO LAKE.]
The tribes, hunters, and trappers had their “own way of calling things,” and “seeing the whole basin, often fringed with pines, would throw back the hills that hung over it,” they “got to calling the place the ‘Glimmerglass.'” At Gravelly Point opposite, Deerslayer killed his first Indian, and above are the tree-tops where rose the star that timed Hist’s meeting with her lover. Some distance to the north is the spot–now known as the “Sunken Islands”–which marks the site of Muskrat Castle, and is near the last resting-place of Hetty Hutter and her mother. And far to the southwest lies a long, low, curving beach jutting sickle-shape into the lake. As a favored haunt of muskrats, it was once called Muskrat Cove, and now Blackbird Bay. Just beyond lies Fenimore, the home of Cooper’s early married life.
In the author’s pages on England, published in 1837, was expressed a wish to write a story on “the teeming and glorious naval history of that land.” Our own country at that time had no fleet, but Cooper’s interest in his youthful profession made quite fitting to himself the words of his old shipmate, Ned Myers: “I can say conscientiously that if my life were to be passed over again it would he passed in the navy–God bless the flag!” Out of England’s long naval records Cooper made “The Two Admirals,” an old-time, attractive story of the evolution of fleets, and the warm friendship between two strong-hearted men in a navy full of such, and at a time before the days of steam. “Cooper’s ships live,” so says Captain Mahan; and continues: “They are handled as ships then were, and act as ships still would act under the circumstances.” This naval historian thought “the water a noble field for the story-teller.” “The Two Admirals” first appeared in _Graham’s Magazine,_ for which Cooper was regularly engaged to write in 1842. On June 16 of this year a decision was rendered in the “Naval History” dispute. One of the questions was whether Cooper’s account of the battle of Lake Erie was accurate and fair and did justice to the officers in command, and whether he was right in asserting that Elliott, second in command, whom Perry at first warmly commended and later preferred charges against, did his duty in that action. Cooper maintained that while Perry’s victory in 1813 had won for himself, “as all the world knows, deathless glory,” injustice had been done to Elliott. Three arbitrators chosen by the parties to the dispute decided that Cooper had fulfilled his duty as an historian; that “the narrative of his battle of Lake Erie was true; that it was impartial”; and that his critics’ “review was untrue, not impartial”; and that they “should publish this decision in New York, Washington, and Albany papers.” Later Commodore Elliott presented Cooper with a bronze medal for this able and disinterested “defense of his brother-sailor.”
[Illustration: JESSE D. ELLIOTT’S LAKE ERIE MEDAL.]
[Illustration: MEDAL GIVEN TO JAMES FENIMORE COOPER BY JESSE D. ELLIOTT.]
Professor Lounsbury’s summary of Cooper’s “Naval History” is: “It is safe to say, that for the period which it covers it is little likely to be superseded as the standard history of the American navy. Later investigation may show some of the author’s assertions to be erroneous. Some of his conclusions may turn out as mistaken as have his prophecies about the use of steam in war vessels. But such defects, assuming that they exist, are more than counterbalanced by advantages which make it a final authority on points that can never again be so fully considered. Many sources of information which were then accessible no longer exist. The men who shared in the scenes described, and who communicated information directly to Cooper, have all passed away. These are losses that can never be replaced, even were it reasonable to expect that the same practical knowledge, the same judicial spirit and the same power of graphic description could be found united again in the same person.” Most amusing was Cooper’s own story of a disputing man who being told: “Why, that is as plain as two and two make four,” replied: “But I dispute that too, for two and two make twenty-two.”
Cooper called the Mediterranean, its shores and countries, “a sort of a world apart, that is replete with charms which not only fascinate the beholder, but linger in the memories of the absent like visions of a glorious past.” And so his cruise in 1830, in the _Bella Genovese_, entered into the pages of “Wing-and-Wing.” The idea was to bring together sailors of all nations–English, French, Italian, and Yankee–on the Mediterranean and aboard a French water-craft of peculiar Italian rig–the lateen sail. These sails spread like the great white wings of birds, and the craft glides among the islands and hovers about every gulf and bay and rocky coast of that beautiful sea. Under her dashing young French captain, Raoul Yvard, _Le Fen Follet_ (Jack-o’-Lantern or fire-fly, as you will) glides like a water-sprite here, there, and everywhere, guided by Cooper’s sea phrases,–for which he had an unfailing instinct,–that meant something “even to the land-lubber who does not know the lingo.” It is said many down-east fishermen never tire of Cooper, but despise many of his followers because of their misuse of sea terms. But more of “Wing-and-Wing”: there was lovely Ghita, so sweet and brave, and anxious for her daring young lover Raoul, and stricken by the tragedies that befell her in the wake of Lord Nelson’s fleet. The brown mountains of Porta Farrajo, “a small, crowded town with little forts and a wall,” Cooper had seen.
[Illustration: ISLAND OF ELBA.]
He had tested its best inn, _The Four Nations_, by a good dinner in its dining-room of seven mirrors and a broken tile floor, and had some talk with its host as to their late ruler,–he said Napoleon came that evening, sent at once for Elba’s oldest flag, which was run up on the forts as a sign of independence.
[Illustration: ELBA HOME OF NAPOLEON.]
Cooper saw Napoleon’s Elba home,–“a low, small house and two wings, with ten windows in its ninety feet of front.” He also saw the more comfortable one-story home of Napoleon’s mother. Other isles and shores seen then–during his cruise in the _Bella Genovese_–found place in “Wing-and-Wing,” published in 1842. The knowledge thus obtained of localities and the Italians led Cooper to say: “Sooner or later Italy will, inevitably, become a single state; this is a result that I hold to be certain, though the means by which it is to be effected are still hidden.”
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE.]
[Illustration: COOPER’S DIAGRAM OF THE BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE.]
During 1843 appeared in _Graham’s Magazine_ Cooper’s “Life-Sketch of Perry,” “The Battle of Lake Erie,” and “The Autobiography of a Pocket-handkerchief,” or “Social Life in New York.” This volume of _Graham’s Magazine_ also included the life of “John Paul Jones,” wherein appeared Cooper’s masterful description of the celebrated battle of the _Bon Homme Richard_–one of the most remarkable in the brief annals of that time of American naval warfare.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF BON HOMME RICHARD AND THE SERAPIS.]
[Illustration: COOPER’S DIAGRAM OF THE BATTLE OF “BON HOMME RICHARD” AND THE “SERAPIS.”]
Of John Paul Jones himself Cooper wrote:
“In battle, Paul Jones was brave; in enterprise, hardy and original; in victory, mild and generous; in motives, much disposed to disinterestedness, though ambitious of renown and covetous of distinction; in pecuniary relations, liberal; in his affections, natural and sincere; and in his temper, except in those cases which assailed his reputation, just and forgiving.”
Fenimore Cooper was a veritable pioneer in spirit. He delighted in the details of American “clearing,”–from the first opening of the forest to sunlight, by the felling of trees and stump-extractor, to the neat drain and finished stonewall. On the mountain slope of Otsego’s shore, and less than two miles from Cooperstown, lay his small farm belted with woodland, from which he had filched it in true pioneer fashion. Concerning Cooper’s “costly contest with the soil,” Mr. Keese tells us: “The inspiring beauty of its commanding views caught Cooper’s fancy for buying it far more than any meager money returns its two hundred acres could promise.”
[Illustration: STUMP EXTRACTOR.]
After ten years of devoted care the author is on record as saying with some humor: “for this year the farm would actually pay expenses.” But full returns came in charming views over field, wood, and lake, where his fancy built “Muskrat Castle” and the “Ark of Floating Tom.” Besides, its pork and butter were the sweetest, its eggs the whitest and freshest; its new peas and green corn “fit for the pot” were the first in the country. When the morning writing hours were over at the Hall, it was to the Chalet, as he called this farm, that he drove, to look after his horses, cows, pigs, and chickens.
[Illustration: THE CHALET FARM.]
The dumb creatures soon learned to know and love him. They would gather about him and frequently follow him “in a mixed procession often not a little comical. He had a most kindly feeling for all domestic animals,” and “was partial to cats as well as dogs; the pet half-breed Angora often perched on his shoulders while he sat writing in the library.” Then there were the workmen to direct, for whom he always had a kindly word. One of these said: “We never had to call on him a second time for a bill; he brought us the check. When I knocked at his library door it was surprising how quickly I heard the energetic ‘Come in.’ When I met him in the street in winter he often said: ‘Well, Thomas, what are you driving at?’ If work was dull he would try to think of something to set me about.” Of Cooper’s activity was added: “When the masons were repairing his home, in 1839, he, at fifty, and then quite stout, went up their steep, narrow ladder to the topmost scaffold on the gable end and walked the ridge of the house when the chimney was on fire.” The Chalet brought to the author’s mind “Wyandotte,” or “The Hutted Knoll,” a tale of border-life during the colonial period. A family of that time forces from the wilderness an affluent frontier home and settlement for its successors. In “Sassy Dick” the idle and fallen Indian is pathetically portrayed: Dick’s return to the dignity of Wyandotte, the Indian chief, by reason of the red-man’s fierce instincts, is a pen-picture strong in contrasts, illustrating how “he never forgot a favor nor forgave an injury.” This story and that of Ned Myers were published in 1843.
[Illustration: THE ESCAPE–FROM “WYANDOTTE”]
Of these years there are records of Cooper’s kindly love for little folk. Miss Caroline A. Foot, a schoolgirl of thirteen and a frequent visitor at Otsego Hall, had always a warm welcome from Mr. Cooper and his family. When she was about to leave her Cooperstown home for another elsewhere, “she made bold to enter his sanctum, carrying her album in her hand and asking him to write a verse or two in the same.” Those verses have been treasured many years by that little girl, who became Mrs. George Pomeroy Keese. Two of her treasured verses are:
TO CAROLINE A. FOOT
But now, dear Cally, comes the hour When triumph crowns thy will,
Submissive to thy winning power
I seize the recreant quill:
Indite these lines to bless thy days And sing my peans in thy praise.
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.
J. FENIMORE COOPER.
Otsego Hall, August, 1843.
[Illustration: Miss CAROLINE ADRIANCE FOOT, AGE 13.]
The delight of the winsome little lady was great, not only for the loving sentiment but also for the autograph, which is now both rare and valuable. Not long after the capture of her verses a copy of them was sent to her friend Julia Bryant, daughter of Mr. Cooper’s friend, the poet. Miss Julia wrote at once in reply that she never would be happy until she too had some lines over the same autograph. An immediate request was made of Mr. Cooper at his desk in the old Hall library, and with “dear Cally” by his side, he wrote:
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.
J. FENIMORE COOPER.
On page 155 of “The Cooperstown Centennial” there appears “A new glimpse of Cooper”–caught and kept by yet another little girl who firmly believed the author to be “a genuine lover of children.” She writes that to meet him on the street “was always a pleasure. 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 always 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 1844 Mr. Cooper sent this youthful miss a picture-book, “The Young American’s Library.” “The Primer” came with a note “written on large paper, with a large seal.” It was a reprint from an English copy, and kept for sixty years, it is still thought “delightful reading.” In part the accompanying note reads: “Hall, Cooperstown, April 22, 1844. Mr. Fenimore Cooper begs Miss Alice Worthington will do him the favor to accept the accompanying book (which was written expressly for Princess Alice of Great Britain).
“Mr. Cooper felt quite distressed for Miss Worthington’s muff during the late hot weather, and begs to offer her the use of his new ice-house should the muff complain.” Miss Alice and her cousin were out walking a very warm April day, with their “precious muffs, which gave him the merry thought about the ice-house.”
[Illustration: Miss ALICE TRUMBULL WORTHINGTON.]
Four years later Miss Worthington received another letter from Mr. Cooper, in acknowledgment of her sending to him a newspaper clipping about one of his books. Of this letter is noted: “His handwriting was fine, beautifully clear, and very distinguished.” The note reads:
OTSEGO HALL, COOPERSTOWN, Feb. 12, 1848.
MY DEAR MISS ALICE WORTHINGTON,–I have received your letter with the most profound sentiments of gratitude. The compliments from the newspapers did not make half the impression that was made by your letter; 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. Nor must you mistake the value I attach to the passage cut from the paper, for, even that coming through your little hands is far sweeter than would have been two candy-horns filled with sugar-plums.
I hope that you and I and John will have an opportunity of visiting the blackberry bushes next summer. I now invite you to select your party–of as many little girls, and boys, too, if you can find those you like, to go to my farm. It shall be your party, and the invitations must go out in your name. You can have your school if you like. I shall ask only one guest myself, and that will be John, who knows the road.
With highest consideration,
Your most obliged and humble servant,
J. FENIMORE COOPER.
During 1844 Cooper brought to print “Afloat and Ashore” and “Miles Wallingford”–“which two are one,” he wrote, “with a good deal of love in part second for the delight of the ladies.” Adventure is plenty, however, and the water-craft very much alive. In England “Miles Wallingford” appeared under the name of its heroine, Lucy Harding; and, says one: “It is a hard task not to fancy he was drawing, in slight particulars at least, the picture of his own wife, and telling the story of his early love.” The tale is of the good old times in New York, and land scenes of her river counties.
Those interested in Cooper’s review of the naval court-martial of Lieutenant Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, for the execution of Spencer, will find the whole subject and its lesson of fearful retribution in _Graham’s Magazine_ of 1843-44. Alleged “mutiny on the high seas” was charged to young Spencer. He was the son of Secretary of State John C. Spencer who, as superintendent of public instruction, rejected with harsh, short comment Cooper’s “Naval History” offered (unknown to the author) for school use and directed the purchase of Mackenzie’s “Life of Perry.” Just as Cooper was putting through the press his severe criticism of Mackenzie’s version of the Battle of Lake Erie, the _Somers_ returned from her unfortunate cruise. Cooper instantly stopped his paper at the expense of a round sum to the printer, saying: “The poor fellow will have enough to do to escape the consequences of his own weakness. It is no time to be hard on him now.”
[Illustration: LIEUT. ALEXANDER SLIDELL MACKENZIE.]
The year 1845 brought from Cooper’s pen “Satanstoe”–quaint, old-fashioned, and the first of his three anti-rent books. Its hero, a member of the Littlepage family, writes his own life-story. From his home on one of the necks of Long-Island Sound, in Westchester County, he visits New York City, catches a glimpse of the pleasant Dutch life in Albany, and with comrades plunges into the wilderness to examine, work, and settle his new, large grant of land at Mooseridge. Professor Lounsbury’s able life of Cooper affirms of “Satanstoe”: “It is a picture of colonial life and manners in New York during the eighteenth century, such as can be found drawn nowhere else so truthfully and vividly.” The title “Satanstoe” was given in a moment of Cooper’s “intense disgust” at the “canting” attempt then made to change the name of the dangerous passage of Hell Gate, East River, to Hurl Gate.
[Illustration: HELL GATE.]
“The Chainbearer,” second of the anti-rent series, was published early in 1846, and continues the story of “Satanstoe” in the person of the hero’s son, who finds in the squatters on his wilderness inheritance the first working of the disorderly spirit of anti-rent–the burning question of New York at that time. Honest Andries Coejemans and his pretty niece Ursula, the wily Newcome and rude Thousandacres of this story are each strong types of character.
The key to Cooper’s own character is expressed in his words: “The most expedient thing in existence is to do right.” In the hour of danger to aid in protecting the rights of the people from abuse of these rights by the evil minded among themselves, he held to be the high duty of every honest, generous, and wise citizen. With such sentiments in mind, he wrote “The Redskins”–the third and last of the anti-rent series. Distinguished jurists of our country have declared “remarkable,” the legal knowledge and skill in this series of books.
Eighteen hundred and forty-six saw also in book form Cooper’s “Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers,” which had already appeared in _Graham’s Magazine_. Many of these eminent men had been the author’s friends and messmates in early life. In 1847 “The Crater, or Vulcan’s Peak–A Tale of the Pacific,” came from Cooper’s pen. The Introduction states that the book was written from the journal of a distinguished member of the Woolston family of Pennsylvania, who “struggled hard to live more in favor with God than in favor with man,” and quotes that warning text of Scripture: “Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall!” and adds, “we have endeavored to imitate the simplicity of Captain Woolston in writing this book.” The story of “a ship-wrecked mariner, cast away on a reef not laid down on any chart.” This barren spot the castaway makes to bloom as a rose, then brings immigrants to his Pacific Eden, which finally vanishes like a dream. The work is said to be an excellent study of the author’s own character.
Full of spirit and vigor at fifty-eight, Mr. Cooper in June, 1847, made a pleasant few weeks’ visit to the middle west, going as far as Detroit. The country beyond Seneca Lake–the prairies and fine open groves of Michigan–was new to him. Affluent towns with well-tilled lands between, full of mid-summer promise, where forty years before he had crossed a wilderness, gave added interest to the entire way. He was far more deeply impressed with sublime Niagara than in his earlier years and before he had seen all the falls of Europe. The idea of weaving its majesty into an Indian story came to him, but, alas! was never written.
[Illustration: NIAGARA FALLS.]
He was pleased with the growth and promise of Buffalo and Detroit, was charmed with “the beautiful flowery prairies and natural groves of Michigan,” and wrote of them: “To get an idea of Prairie Round,–imagine an oval plain of some thirty-thousand acres, of surprising fertility, without an eminence; a few small cavities, however, are springs of water the cattle will drink.” In the prairie’s center was a forest island of some six hundred acres “of the noblest native trees,” and in the heart of this wood was a small round lake a quarter of a mile across. Into this scene Cooper called some creatures of his fancy; among them a bee-hunter, suggested by the following incident.
One morning not long after his return from Europe he was passing, as usual, his leisure hours at the mountain farm. While overlooking his workmen he espied a small skiff leaving an opposite shore-point of the lake and making directly for his own landing. Mr. Cooper thought the boatman was on an errand to himself. Presently the stranger, tin pail in hand, made his appearance and inquired of Cooper and his men whether a large swarm of bees had been seen “somewhere there-abouts.” He had lost a fine swarm early in the morning several days before, and had since looked in vain for them; but “a near-by farmer’s wife had seen them cross the lake that way.” No bees had been seen by the men of Chalet. One of them said, however, “bees had been very plenty about the blossoms for a day or two.” The farmer began to look about closely, and from the unusual number of bees coming and going among the flowers on the hill, he felt sure his honeybees were lodged somewhere near. So, with Mr. Cooper, much interested, the search for the lost swarm began. A young grove skirted the cliffs; above were scattered some full, tall, forest trees,–here and there one charred and lifeless. The farmer seemed very knowing as to bees, and boasted of having one of the largest bee-sheds in the county. Rustic jokes at his expense were made by the workmen. They asked him which of the great tall trees his bees had chosen; they wished to know, for they would like to see him climb it, as Mr. Cooper had said that no axe should fell his forest favorites. The farmer nodded his head and replied that there was no climbing nor chopping for him that day–the weather was too warm; that he intended to call his bees down–that was his fashion. Taking up his pail he began moving among the flowers, and soon found a honey-bee sipping from the cup of a rose-raspberry. He said he knew at once the face of his own bee, “to say nothin’ of the critter’s talk”–meaning its buzzing of wings. A glass with honey from the tin pail soon captured the bee: uneasy at first, it was soon sipping the sweets. When quite satisfied it was set free, and its flight closely followed by the farmer’s eye. Another bee was found on a head of golden-rod; it was served the same way but set free at an opposite point from the first’s release; this second flight was also closely noted. Some twelve of the tiny creatures from the clover and daisies were likewise treated, until the general direction of the flight of all was sure. This “hiving the bees” by the air-line they naturally took to their new home proved the farmer to be right, for an old, half-charred oak-stub, some forty feet high and “one limb aloft was their lighting-place, and there they were buzzing about the old blighted bough.” The farmer then went to his boat and brought back a new hive and placed it not far from the old oak; he put honey about its tiny doorway and strewed many flowers around it. With the sunset his bees had taken possession of their new home, and by moonlight they were rowed across the lake and placed beside the mother-swarm in the farmer’s garden.
[Illustration: JUDGE BAZIL HARRISON OF KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN.]
The author placed this incident in the “Prairie Round” of “The Oak Openings.” Its Indian Peter shows how Christian influences in time triumph over revenge–the deadliest passion of the red-man’s heart. On New Year’s Day, 1848, “The Oak Openings” was begun, and the following spring saw it finished. This note appears in the author’s diary: “Saturday, January 1, 1848. Read St. John. No church. Weather very mild, though snow fell in the night. Walking very bad, and I paid no visits outside of the family. Had —- at dinner. A merry evening with the young people. Played chess with my wife. Wrote a little in ‘Oak Openings’ to begin the year with.”
Cooper was a born story-teller, and with a born sailor’s love of salt water could not for long keep from spinning tales of the sea. All of which accounts for spirited and original “Jack Tier,” which came from his pen in 1848. The story was called at first “Rose Budd”–the name of the young creature who is one of its important characters. But plain, homely, hard-working “Jack,” under a sailor’s garb, following her commonplace, grasping husband the world over, and finding herself in woman’s gear and grief by his side when he made his last voyage of all without her–it is she who had _earned_ the real heroine’s right to the name “Jack Tier.” It is a story of the treacherous reefs off Florida and the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
All those quiet years in Cooperstown the author kept pace in mind and interest with the times, and often gave expression to his opinion on current events. Of General Scott in Mexico he wrote, February 1, 1848: “Has not Scott achieved marvels! The gun-thunders in the valley of the Aztecs were heard in echoes across the Atlantic.” Years before this the last chapter of “The Spy” paid tribute to the “bravery of Scott’s gallant brigade” in 1814, at Lundy’s Lane, not far from Niagara. That Cooper strongly condemned Scott’s “General Order” is another record of later years.
Reform–along all lines of service–was Cooper’s watchword; his home-cry, first and last, was to “build up our navy!” And, with his knowledge of naval affairs and accurate estimate of seamen of all grades, what an admirable secretary of our navy these qualifications would have made him! His political instincts seemed clear and unerring. April 13, 1850, he thought “Congress a prodigious humbug; Calhoun’s attitude another,” as was also Webster’s answer, which, however, had “capital faults.” From almost a seer and a prophet came in 1850 these words: “We are on the eve of great events. Every week knocks a link out of the chain of the Union.” This was written to a dear and valued friend of South Carolina, to whom a few months later he further wrote: “The Southerns talk of fighting Uncle Sam,–that long-armed, well-knuckled, hard-fisted old scamp, Uncle Sam.” And among the dearest of his life-long friends stood this “Southern” Commodore, William Branford Shubrick. Yet in close quarters, “he would rather have died than lied to him.” His standards of honesty were as rock-hewn; and his words on his friend Lawrence perhaps apply as aptly to himself: “There was no more dodge in him than there was in the mainmast.”
[Illustration: HON. GERRIT SMITH.]
During some years prior to 1850, political party issues on “Anti-slavery,” grew from mild to violent. And famous in the annals of Cooperstown was the spirited debate, between Mr. Cooper, for colonization, and his friend, the Hon. Gerrit Smith, for immediate abolition. This vital question of national interest was given able and exhaustive treatment by both debaters who spoke several hours while “The audience listened with riveted attention.” At its close the two gentlemen walked arm in arm to the “Hall,” Cooper’s home, where they dined together.
From Mr. Keese comes an anecdote of Commodore Shubrick’s visit to his old shipmate at Cooperstown: “Mr. Cooper had a raw Irishman in his employ, as a man of all work. Sending him to the post-office one day for the mail, he told him to ask if there were any letters for Commodore Shubrick. Pat came to the window and with great confidence called out, ‘Is there any letter for Commodore Brickbat?’ ‘Who?’ said the astonished postmaster. The name was repeated. A villager coming in at that time, the postmaster asked him if he knew who was visiting Mr. Cooper. ‘Commodore Shubrick,’ was the reply. ‘All, that’s the name!’ said Pat; ‘and sure, didn’t I come near it, though!'”
[Illustration: WILLIAM BRANDFORD SHUBRICK.]
Possibly the sailing of Sir John Franklin in 1845 for the frozen country of the North Star led Fenimore Cooper to write “The Sea Lions,” in the winter of 1849. When the Highlands were white, and its tree-life hoary with frost, the author could pen best his picture of a voyage to the ice-bergs, rifts, and snow-drifts, for which his two schooners, both called _The Sea Lion,_ were launched.
In the early years of his married life Cooper made many visits to the island home of a relative, by marriage, who, off the eastern shore of Long Island, led a half-sea life that was full of attraction for the young sailor. This gentleman only, his family and dependents, lived on Shelter Island, between which and the mainland all coming and going was by boat. Here they had shooting, fishing, and cruising a-plenty. The author’s thorough knowledge of these waters was the probable reason for starting his two sealers from this port in search of valuable sealing-grounds in the polar seas. The schooners and their captains were American. One of the sealers was owned by an old, hard-fisted miser of Puritanic pattern, whose sweet niece Mary, pretty and simply good, makes the very lovable heroine of this book. Beneath the low porch and within the thrifty garden and great orchard of her island home, Mary’s heart had been captured by Roswell Gardner, the daring young captain of her uncle’s schooner _The Sea Lion_. In the faith of the Star and the Cross the young girl worshipped with strong and childlike piety, while her lover “stood coldly by and erect with covered head,”–a doubter, but honestly striving to find his balance. Mary prays and hopes while the young man sails to the far-away ice land, where, shipwrecked and alone with his Maker, he finds the light of Truth shining for him on the far-away shores of his frozen hold. Of this sea tale Professor Lounsbury writes: “‘The Sea Lions’ is certainly one of the most remarkable conceptions that it ever entered into the mind of a novelist to create.” And he adds: “It is a powerful story.”
“Ways of the Hour” came from Cooper’s pen in 1850. The purpose of this story was to attack trial by jury.
From the time of Cooper’s friendship with Charles Mathews in the early 1820’s, he had been in touch with the stage, and in June, 1850, he mentions writing a three-act play in “ridicule of new notions.” The title was “Upside Down; or, Philosophy in Petticoats”–a comedy. Of this play Cooper’s friend Hackett, the American Falstaff of that day, wrote him: “I was at Burton’s its first night and saw the whole of the play. The first act told well; the second, pretty well, but grew heavy; the third dragged until the conclusion surprised the attention into _warm applause_.”
[Illustration: JAMES H. HACKETT.]
This clever but not over-successful farce closed the literary career of James Fenimore Cooper.
[Illustration: CHARLES MATHEWS.]
Of Charles Mathews, the peerless comedy artist of England, and Fenimore Cooper, his old-time friend, Dr. John Wakefield Francis, wrote:
“During a memorable excursion made to Albany with [the actor] Dunlap, Mathews, and Mr. Cooper in the spring of 1823, I found him abounding in dramatic anecdotes as well as associations the striking scenery of the Hudson brought to mind. ‘The Spy’ was, however, the leading subject of Mathews’ conversation. Cooper unfolded his intention of writing a series of works illustrative of his country, revolutionary occurrences, and the red man of the western world. Mathews expressed in strong terms the patriotic benefits of such an undertaking, and complimented Cooper on the specimen already furnished in Harvey Birch. The approbation of Mathews could never be slightly appreciated. There was little of flattery in him at any time. He was a sort of ‘My Lord Lofty,’ who valued himself in pride of opinion. Such an individual could not but enlist the feelings of Mr. Cooper. I hardly know whether I have ever seen Mr. Cooper manifest as much enthusiasm with any other person when occasion was felicitous, the subject of interest, and the comedian in his happy vein. Dunlap, were he speaking, might tell you of his [Cooper’s] gratuities to the unfortunate playwright and the dramatic performer.” In 1832 William Dunlap’s “History of the American Theatre” was “Dedicated to James Fenimore Cooper Esq., by his Friend, the Author.”
It was in this year of 1850 that the author’s daughter, Susan Augusta, had her “Rural Hours” about ready to print. And of this book her father wrote: “It will be out in July. There is elegance, purity, knowledge, and grace about it. It will make her _the_ Cooper at once. Quite puts her papa’s nose out of joint.” More, concerning this book and New York City of that day, appears in her father’s letter to her mother, written in that city at the Broadway Hotel, September 19, 1850.
BROADWAY HOTEL, September 19, 1850.
MY BELOVED S,–The post office is sadly out of joint. I wrote you the day I arrived…. Right and left I hear of “Rural Hours.” I am stopped in the street a dozen times a day to congratulate me. The price of the fine edition is $7.00. It will be the presentation volume of the season. I can see that Putnam expects to sell some eight hundred or a thousand of them…. The improvements here are wonderful. They build chiefly of brown freestone and noble edifices of five and six stories with a good deal of architectural pretension…. I sat three times for lithographs yesterday and with vastly better success than before. The pictures are all very like and very pleasing. I am to have one which will fall to your lot as a matter of course. Your letter of Tuesday reached me this morning. You ought to have had three letters from me by Tuesday evening. F.’s [the author’s daughter Frances] shawl went by “A.” I suppose it is a courting shawl. It is almost the only one of the kind Stewart had–a little too grave perhaps but scarcely so for the country. Stewart is making a palace of a store. He takes the whole front of the block on Broadway with fifteen windows in front–and all of marble. With the tenderest regards to all, I remain yours Most affectionately, J.F.C.
[Illustration: STEWART’S MARBLE PALACE.]
[Illustration: MISS SUSAN AUGUSTA COOPER ABOUT 1850.]
Miss Cooper makes alive each season’s charms, as they pass over the Glimmerglass and wane beyond Hannah’s Hill. From gentry to humble-folk, real Cooperstown types appear and disappear among these pages; and even the “half-a-dozen stores” have place, where “at the same counter you may buy kid gloves and a spade; a lace veil and a jug of molasses; a satin dress and a broom,” among other things of even greater variety. She tells how St. Valentine’s Day was celebrated in a very original way as _Vrouwen-Daghe_, or women’s day of the old Dutch colonists.
[Illustration: OTSEGO LAKE PARTY IN 1840.]
She also records that first lake party to Point Judith, given by her grandfather, Judge Cooper, in August, 1799, but leaves the description of her father’s lake parties to Mr. Keese: “He was fond of picnic excursions on the lake, generally to the _Three Mile Point_, and often with a party of gentlemen to Gravelly, where the main treat was a chowder, which their host made up with great gusto. He could also brew a bowl of punch for festive occasions, though he himself rarely indulged beyond a glass of wine for dinner.” Concerning these festivities Mr. Keese adds: “Lake excursions until 1840 were made by a few private boats or the heavy, flat-bottomed skiff which worthy Dick Case kept moored at the foot of Fair Street. But Dick’s joints were too stiff to row more than an easy reach from the village; to the Fairy Spring was the usual measure of his strength. The Three Mile Point was the goal of the best oarsmen. Dick’s successor in the thirties was an ugly horse-boat that in 1840 gave place to the famous scow of Joe Tom and his men, which for twenty years took picnic parties to the Point. A president of our country, several governors of the State, and Supreme Court judges were among these distinguished passengers. Doing such duty the scow is seen in the 1840 pictures of Cooperstown. No picnic of his day was complete without famous ‘Joe Tom,’ who had men to row the scow, clean the fish, stew potatoes, make coffee, and announce the meal. Rowing back in the gloaming of a summer’s night, he would awake the echoes of Natty Bumppo’s Cave for the pleasure of the company.” At times a second echo would return from Hannah’s Hill, and a third from Mt. Vision.
[Illustration: JOE TOM.]
[Illustration: NATTY’S CAVE.]
Between the lines can be read the hearty and cheery author’s pleasure in all this merriment, yet, none the less, life’s shadows exacted full attention, as the following shows: “Cooper took a generous and active part in sending relief to the starving people of Ireland; for, March 8, 1847, James Fenimore Cooper heads his town committee, and, ‘in the name of charity and in obedience to the commands of God,’ he urges an appeal ‘from house to house, for _Food_ is wanting that we possess in abundance.'”
“Cooper would admit of no denial of principle but could be lenient to offenders. One day he caught a man stealing fruit from his garden. Instead of flying into a passion, he told him how wrong it was to make the neighbors think there was no way of getting his fruit but by stealing it, and bid him the next time to come in at the gate and ask for it like a true man. Cooper then helped him to fill his basket and let him go.” The author’s fine fruit trees must have been tempting!
One day while walking in the garden with some ladies, Mr. Cooper led the way to a tree well laden with fine apples. Unable to reach them, he called to a boy in the street, and presenting him to his friends as one of the best boys in the village,–one who never disturbed his fruit,–he lifted the little fellow up to the branches to pick apples for the guests, and then filled his pockets as a reward for his honesty, and promised him more when he came again. The delighted boy waited for a few days and then repeated his visit to the tree, but forgetting to ask permission. Not knowing him from frequent intruders, Mr. Cooper’s high voice from a distance, added to the savage barking of his watch-dog, frightened the well-meaning forager into a resolve that he would not forget the easier way next time of first asking before picking.
[Illustration: OTSEGO HALL–BACK VIEW.]
The author’s genuine interest in his hometown folk never waned. Among the many and sincere expressions of his good-will were the free lectures he gave to the villagers. His descriptions of naval actions were full of vigor. On the blackboard he presented fleets, changing their positions, moving ship after ship as the contest went on, at the same time stating the facts in history and using his cane as a pointer.
[Illustration: JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.]
It is of note that Mr. Cooper’s personal appearance in 1850 was remarkable. He seemed in perfect health and highest energy and activity of faculties, but the autumn of this year found him in New York City under mild ailments. His friend, Mr. George Washington Green, regretted not noting better his last talk with the author about this time, of which he says: “He excused himself that morning at Putnam’s for not rising to shake hands. ‘My feet,’ said he, ‘are so tender that I do not like to stand longer than I can help.’ Yet when we walked together into Broadway, I could not help turning now and then to admire his commanding figure and firm bearing. Sixty years seemed to sit lightly on him. After a short stroll we went to his room at the _Globe_ and sat down to talk. I never found him so free upon his own works and literary habits. He confessed his partiality for Leather stocking. Said he: ‘I meant to have added one more scene and introduced him in the Revolution, but I thought the public had had enough of him, and never ventured it.'”
[Illustration: THE SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE (JENNY LIND).]
Cooper’s enjoyment of the marvelous voice of “The Swedish Nightingale,” as Jenny Lind was called, the publication of his daughter’s “Rural Hours,” and the active progress of his own book sales are noted in his letter to his beloved wife.
BROADWAY HOTEL, Friday, Nov. 15, 1850.
MY DEAREST W.,–Julia and Miss Thomas came down with me to hear Jenny Lind. “Have you heard Jenny Lind?” “How do you like Jenny Lind?” are the questions which supplant “Fine weather to-day” and other similar comprehensive remarks. I am patiently waiting for the “Lake Gun” [a magazine article]. I am well and shall commence in earnest next week. Tell Sue [his daughter] I have seen Putnam, who will be delighted to publish her new book. “Naval History” is a little slack for the moment. There are less than a hundred copies of second edition on hand and the third must be shortly prepared. The fine edition will be published to-morrow. About two hundred copies have been sent to the trade and with that issue he will start. He has had five and twenty copies done up in papier machia at $9.00. N—- is well. D.Z. is still here. Old Peter is not yet married, but the affair is postponed until Spring, when the bride and groom will return to America. They wish to prolong the delightful delusion of courtship. I hope they may be as happy as we have been and love each other as much forty–days after their union as we do forty years…. Yours J.F.C.
[Illustration: JENNY LIND AT CASTLE GARDEN, NEW YORK CITY, 1850.]
At No. 1 Bond Street stood the old-time mansion of Dr. John W. Francis, where were welcomed many eminent in arts and letters at home and abroad, and where their host wrote his “Reminiscences of Sixty Years.” Here it was that Cooper, on his last visit to New York, came seeking aid for his failing health. But with December the author returned to Cooperstown, whence he wrote a friend: “I have gone into dock with my old hulk, to be overhauled. Francis says I have congestion, and I must live low, deplete, and take pills. While I am frozen, my wife tells me my hands, feet, and body are absolutely warm. The treatment is doing good. You cannot imagine the old lady’s delight at getting me under, in the way of food. I get no meat, or next to none, and no great matter in substitutes. This morning being Christmas, I had a blow-out of oysters, and at dinner it will go hard if I do not get a cut into the turkey. I have lost pounds, yet I feel strong and clearheaded. I have had a narrow escape, if I have escaped.”
[Illustration: DR JOHN WAKEFIELD FRANCIS.]
[Illustration: DR. FRANCIS’S HOME IN NEW YORK CITY.]
The following spring Cooper again went to New York City, whence he dates a letter to his wife:
Saturday, March 29, 1851
COLLEGE HOTEL, NEW YORK
Your letter of Thursday has just reached me. I am decidedly better.–Last night I was actually dissipated. L.—- came for me in a carriage and carried me off almost by force to Doctor Bellows, where I met the Sketch Club, some forty people, many of whom I knew. I stayed until past ten, ate a water ice, talked a great deal, returned, went to bed fatigued and slept it off.–My friends are very attentive to me, they all seem glad to see me and think I am improving, as I certainly am…. I shall come home shortly–I want to be in my garden and I wish to be in your dear hands, love, for though you know nothing you do a great deal that is right. Last evening I passed with Charlotte M.–who wanted to take me home to nurse me. There is no chance of seeing S.—-.
Adieu, my love…. My blessing on the girls–all four of them.
J.F.C.
In April, 1851, the poet Bryant wrote of him “Cooper is in town, in ill health. When I saw him last he was in high health and excellent spirits.” These spirits were not dashed by the progressing malady that took him home to Cooperstown. Not realizing what illness meant, he bravely accepted what it brought,–the need to dictate the later parts of his “History of the United States Navy,” and the “Towns of Manhattan,” when he himself could no longer write. The latter was planned, partly written, and in press at the time of his death. That which was printed was burnt, the manuscript in part rescued, and finished by the pen of one of the family.
It was Fenimore Cooper’s happiness to be blessed with a family whose greatest pleasure was to supply his every needed comfort; and one of his daughters was ever a companion in his pursuits, the wise and willing writer of his letters and dictations, and the most loving, never-tiring nurse of his latter days. Of these last months there is a pretty child-record by a friend who, “entering without notice,” one day saw Mr. Cooper “lying at full length on the parlor floor, with a basket of cherries by his side. Upon his chest, vainly trying to bestride the portly form, sat his little grandson, to whom he passed cherries, and who, in turn, with childish glee, was dropping them, one by one, into his grandfather’s mouth. The smiles that played over the features of child and man during this sweet and gentle dalliance were something not easily forgotten. A few months after this both child and man had passed beyond ‘the smiling’; aye, and ‘the weeping,’ too.”
Letters from Cooperstown led Dr. Francis to go there August 27, 1851, to see his esteemed friend in his own home. And of Cooper the Doctor wrote: “I explained to him the nature of his malady–frankly assured him that within the limits of a week a change was indispensable to lessen our forebodings of its ungovernable nature. He listened with fixed attention.–Not a murmur escaped his lips. Never was information of so grave a cast received by any individual in a calmer spirit.”
So passed the summer days of 1851 with the author, near his little lake, the Glimmerglass, and its Mt. Vision, when one mid-September Sunday afternoon, with his soul’s high standard of right and truth undimmed, James Fenimore Cooper crossed the bar.
While from youth Cooper was a reverent follower of the Christian faith, his religious nature deepened with added years. Eternal truth grew in his heart and mind as he, in time, learned to look above and beyond this world’s sorrows and failures. In July, 1851, he was confirmed in Christ’s Church,–the little parish church just over the way from the old-Hall home, whose interests he had faithfully and generously served as sometime warden and as vestryman since 1834.
[Illustration: CHRIST’S CHURCH, COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.]
Of one such service Mr. Keese writes that in 1840 the original Christ’s Church of Cooperstown underwent important alterations. Its entire interior was removed and replaced by native oak. As vestryman Mr. Cooper was prime mover and chairman of the committee of change, and hearing of the chancel screen in the old Johnstown church, first built by Sir William Johnson, he took a carpenter and went there to have drawings made of this white-painted pine screen, which at his own expense he had reproduced with fine, ornamental effect in oak, and made it a gift to Christ’s Church. It was removed from Christ’s Church about 1891, badly broken and abandoned. This so disturbed Cooper’s daughters that his grandson, James Fenimore Cooper of Albany, New York, had the pieces collected, and stored them for using in his Cooperstown home; but he–by request of the Reverend Mr. Birdsall–had them made into two screens for the aisles of the church, where they were erected as a memorial to his father, Paul Fenimore, and his great-grandfather, Judge William Cooper.
[Illustration: FENIMORE COOPER’S SCREEN GIFT.]
Mr. Keese’s words, dating January, 1910, are: “And now comes in a rather singular discovery made by the writer a few days ago: In looking over a book in my library, published about ninety years ago, there is an article on Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, England, with a steel engraving of the front of the Abbey, which is almost identical with the design of the original screen in Christ Church. Who was responsible for transplanting the same to this country appears to be unknown, but the fact is interesting in that Newstead Abbey was the home of the Byron family and that of Lord Byron.”
In a letter of April 22, 1840, to H. Bleeker, Esq., Cooper wrote of this screen: “I have just been revolutionizing Christ’s 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.”
Of Cooper himself was said: “Thus step by step his feet were guided into the ways of peace.” It was of the Protestant Episcopal church that his wife’s brother, William Heathcote de Lancey–a genius of goodness–was bishop.
[Illustration: BISHOP WILLIAM HEATHCOTE DE LANCEY.]
A beautiful, tender, and touching tribute to the love of his life was Fenimore Cooper’s will. In part it reads: “I, James Fenimore Cooper, give and bequeath to my wife, Susan Augusta, all my property, whether personal or mixed, to be enjoyed by her and her heirs forever. I make my said wife the executrix of my will.”
In a little over four months his wife followed him to the far country. Of his children, Elizabeth, the first-born, died in infancy; Susan Augusta, the author, was the second; the third, Caroline Martha, became Mrs. Henry Frederick Phinney; next came Anne Charlotte, then Maria Frances, who married Richard Cooper; Fenimore, the first son, they lost in babyhood, and Paul Fenimore, the youngest, became a member of the bar in Albany, New York.
[Illustration: THE DE LANCEY ARMS.]
Cooper left his family a competency, but the Hall home soon passed into other hands; later it was burnt. From rescued brick an attractive house was built on the west bank of the Susquehanna for his daughters Susan Augusta and Anne Charlotte, both now resting near father and mother in Christ’s Church yard. Their niece, Miss Susan Augusta Cooper, daughter of their sister, Maria Frances, Mrs. Richard Cooper, now lives in this picturesque house, and there she reverently treasures many personal belongings of her famous grandfather, and also those of her author-aunt, Susan Augusta Cooper, whose best memorial, however, is the noble orphanage on the river-bank some ways below. The oaken doors saved from the flames of the burning Hall served for this new home, which overlooked the grounds of their old home. The site of the latter is marked by Ward’s “Indian Hunter.” Aptly placed, peering through mists of green toward the author’s church-yard grave, he is a most fitting guardian of the one-time garden of Fenimore Cooper.
[Illustration: THE NEW HOME AND THE OLD HOME.]
[Illustration: INDIAN HUNTER.]
By the generosity of the late Mrs. Henry Codman Potter, this hunter’s domain has been transformed into beautiful “Cooper Grounds”; and here the red-man of bronze keeps ward and watch over memories that enshrine the genius of a noble soul whose records of this vanishing race are for all time.
[Illustration: COOPER GROUNDS.]
A gentleman just from continental Europe in 1851 said of people there: “They are all reading Cooper.” A traveler, returned from Italy about that time, wrote: “I found all they knew of America–and that was not a little–they had learned from Cooper’s novels.” When an eminent physician who was called to attend some German immigrants asked how they knew so much of their new-home country, they replied: “We learned it all from Cooper. We have four translations of his works in German, and we all read them.” February 22, 1852, Charles G. Leland of Philadelphia wrote of Cooper’s works: “There were several translations issued at Frankfort, Germany, in 1824, in two hundred and fifty parts, a second large edition in 1834, and a third in 1851. All his works, more than Scott and Shakespeare, are household words to the German people.” Library records of to-day show no waning of this early popularity of the “Leatherstocking Tales” and “Sea Stories” of Fenimore Cooper. In 1883 Victor Hugo told General Wilson that excepting the authors of France, “Cooper was the greatest novelist of the century.” It was Balzac who said: “If Cooper had succeeded in the painting of character to the same extent that he did in the painting the phenomena of nature, he would have uttered the last word of our art.”
From Hanau-on-Main, Germany, January, 1912, Herr Rudolf Drescher writes: “Within two years two new translations of Cooper’s complete works have been issued. One at Berlin, the other at Leipsic. 180 pictures by the artist Max Slevogt held one edition at $192, the other with less pictures was $60, and both were sold. Cheaper editions without pictures also met with large sales. I possess an 1826, German copy of ‘The Pioneers.'” Another record is, Cooper’s works have been seen “in thirty different countries, in the languages of Finland, Turkey and Persia, in Constantinople, in Egypt, at Jerusalem, at Ispahan.”
The author’s literary cruise, dating back three years before the launching of “The Pilot” in 1823, was a long one. And no admiral of mortal fame ever led so sturdy and motley a fleet–from the proud man-of-war to the light felucca, gondola, and bark-canoe–over ocean and inland waters. With visions of forests, its moving spirit and skilful pilot still stands at the helm, the full light of the ages upon “eye, arm, sail, spar, and flag.” Thus is Fenimore Cooper firmly anchored in the mind and heart of posterity as the creator of American romance.
August, 1907, “Historic Cooperstown” held her Memorial Celebration. Her founder, Judge William Cooper, his hardy pioneers, and the “memory of one whose genius had given her Glimmerglass country world-wide fame,” were honored with world-wide tributes. Among these were addresses, heartfelt, and able, from the late Bishop Henry Codman Potter, on “The Religious Future”; Francis Whiting Halsey, on “The Headwaters of the Susquehanna”; George Pomeroy Keese, on “Early Days of Cooperstown,” and James Fenimore Cooper of Albany, New York, on his great-grandfather “William Cooper.”
From “The Cooperstown Centennial” one learns that at five o’clock on Wednesday afternoon of August 7 many people were reverently taking part in solemn services around the grave of James Fenimore Cooper and beneath the glinting tree-shadows of Christ’s Church yard. The service began with a procession of young girls in white surrounding the author’s last resting-place, where verses on Cooper were recited by Miss Wilkinson; then the little folk sang the lyric tribute of Mr. Saxton:
0, great magician, may the life
We lead be such a one as thine– A simple life, transcending art,
A spirit close to Nature’s heart, A soul as strong and clear, and fine.
[Illustration: THE CHILDREN’S TRIBUTE.]
After singing, the children, gathering around, covered the marble slab with their tributes–the flowers of the season. Some poetic pictures in blank verse were given of Cooper’s works, by the Reverend Dr. W.W. Battershall of St. Peter’s Church in Albany, New York, the present rector, and successor of Doctor Ellison, Cooper’s boyhood instructor. Then the Rev. Ralph Birdsall, rector of the author’s “little parish church,” spoke of Fenimore Cooper’s church-yard home: “A marble slab that bears no praise for fame or virtue; only a simple cross, symbol of the faith in which he lived and died, and upon which he based his hopes of immortality.” The soldier lying near, brought from the field of honor; the author’s old neighbors, who exchanged with him in life the friendly nod; hands that were calloused with the axe and shovel, and Judge Temple’s aged slave in narrow home–all sleeping beneath the same sward and glancing shadows are not less honored now than is the plain, unpolished slab of stone, bearing two dates,–of birth and entrance into the life eternal of James Fenimore Cooper.
On his airy height of the “Cooper Memorial,” gleaming white through the lakewood slope of Mt. Vision, wondrous Leatherstocking stands, a rare tribute to simple, uplifting goodness. Clad in his hunting-shirt, deerskin cap, and leggings, his powder-horn and bullet-pouch swung over his shoulder, his dog Hector at his feet, looking up with speaking expression into the fine, wise, honest face of his master, stands Natty, gazing over all the lake he loved so well.
[Illustration: LAKE OTSEGO.]
—- o’er no sweeter lake
Shall morning break or noon-cloud sail; No fairer face than thine shall take
The sunset’s golden veil.
J.G. WHITTIER.
“Cooper had no predecessor and no successor in his own field of fiction; he stood alone,–he was a creator, and his ‘Natty’ will stand forever as the most original of pioneer characters,” wrote Henry M. Alden.
[Illustration: LEATHERSTOCKING.]
With Rev. Mr. Birdsall, many think the time has come when the fame of Fenimore Cooper demands a world-given memorial in Cooperstown. A lifelike statue from an _artist’s_ chisel should show the “‘prose poet of the silent woods and stormy seas’ seated, pen in hand, gazing dreamily for inspiration over the Glimmerglass, where the phantom creatures of his genius brood.” Let it stand, a new-world literary shrine, in the square fronting the Old-Hall home site, which northward commands a sweeping view of his “little lake” and a side glimpse of lofty Leatherstocking of the tree-tops–not far away.
[Illustration: LEATHERSTOCKING MONUMENT.]
And strewn the flowers of memory here. For one whose fingers, years ago,
Their work well finished, dropped the pen; Whose master mind from land to sea
Drew forms heroic, long to be
The living types of vanished men. A.B. SAXTON.
[Illustration: GEORGE POMEROY KEESE.]
IN MEMORIAM
GEORGE POMEROY KEESE
On April 22, 1910, and at the home of his son, Theodore Keese, in New York City, came the Spirit-Land call to the late George Pomeroy Keese. It was also in New York City that he was born, on January 14, 1828. His parents were Theodore Keese and Georgiann Pomeroy, niece of James Fenimore Cooper. This grand-nephew of the author enjoyed four score and more of full, active years, mostly spent in Cooperstown, N.Y., and he gave of them generously in serving the welfare and interests of that village. There Edgewater, Mr. Keese’s attractive home, overlooks, from the south, the entire length and beauty of Lake Otsego, whose waters and banks are haunted by Cooper’s creations.
From Mr. Keese is quoted:
“George Pomeroy of Northampton, Mass., came to Cooperstown among the early settlers in 1801. He married the only living sister of Fenimore Cooper in 1803.
“His ancestry dates back to the coming of William the Conqueror from Normandy in 1066. At this time Ralph de Pomeroy accompanied the Norman duke to England and rendered him such valuable assistance that he received from him no fewer than fifty-eight lordships in Devonshire as a reward for his services. Selecting a favorable site, not far from the banks of the river Dart, Ralph de Pomeroy erected thereon the celebrated stronghold that now bears the family name of Berry-Pomeroy Castle, the stately ruins of which are still visited as one of the most picturesque objects of interest in the county of Devon.
“The descendants of the founder of Berry-Pomeroy retained the lands belonging to their ancestral home until the time of Edward VI, when at the period of the rebellion of that date they were seized by the crown and bestowed upon the haughty Lord Protector Somerset in whose family they still remain.”
October 10, 1849, Mr. Keese married Caroline Adriance Foote, daughter of Surgeon Lyman Foote, U.S.A., who, with seven of their children, survives her husband. From childhood Mrs. Keese well knew Fenimore Cooper.
From his tender years to the age of twenty-four Mr. Keese lived in close touch with the author until his death in 1851. Afterwards such near association, affection and ability made Mr. Keese a veritable stronghold of authentic values concerning this grand-uncle. After his five years of patient, careful direction given to the preparation of this _personal_ life of James Fenimore Cooper, the spirit of George Pomeroy Keese passed to the Land of Everlasting Light.
As a traveled, scholarly, wise, and gentle man, Mr. Keese kept in live pace with current events, and he possessed that strong, rare quality of character which “says little and does much,” and compels esteem and devotion from all human kind.
Amongst Mr. Keese’s various writings is “The Historic Records of Christ’s Church, Cooperstown, N.Y.” The rector, Reverend Ralph Birdsall, has written of its author: “At the altar of Christ’s Church abides the secret that made Mr. Keese a man so widely honored and beloved.”
MARY E. PHILLIPS.
[Illustration: RUINS OF BERRY-POMEROY CASTLE, 1825.]
INDEX
“Afloat and Ashore,” 305
Albany, N.Y., 4, 8, 27-31, 38, 62, 104, 120, 123, 345
Alden, Henry M, 355
Allen, James, 34-35
“American Democrat, The,” 272
d’Angers, Pierre Jean David, 144-146
“Autobiography of a Pocket Handkerchief, The,” 293
Baillie, Joanna, 183
Balzac, 60, 276, 278, 350
Bancker, Richard, Mrs. (Sarah Duyckinck), 88-89
Bancroft, George, 117
Barnstable, 43
Battershall, W.W., 353
Belgium, 184, 244-247
Bella Genovese, the, 290-293
Benedict, Mrs. Clare, 22-23
Benjamin, Park, 273, 275
Beranger, 151
de Berri, Duchesse, 153
Birdsall, Rev. Ralph, 86, 342, 353-355
Bleeker, H., 343
Bonaparte, Princess Charlotte, 205
Bonaparte, Madame Letizia, 205, 293
Bonaparte, Napoleon I, 44, 137, 192, 244, 292
Bonaparte, Napoleon Louis, Count St Leu, 204-205, 207
Booth, Junius Brutus, 90
Box, Newport, 159
“Bravo, The,” 225-229, 259
Bread and Cheese Club, 95-9, 185
Bryant, Julia, 301-302
Bryant, W.C., 84, 105, 110-113, 128, 238, 278, 338
Buffalo, N.Y., 52-56
Burlington, N.J., xii, 1, 2, 8, 60
Canning, George, 139
Case, Dick, 327-328
Cave, Harvey Birch’s, 81
“Chainbearer, The,” 307-308
Champlain, Lake, 60
Charles X of France, 153, 234
Chauncey, Capt. Isaac, 138
Chauntry, Sir Francis, 174-176
Clay Henry, 131
Clinton, De Witt, 75
Clinton, Gen. James, 104
Cole, Thomas, 278
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 183
Columbus, 281-282
Cooper, Ann, Cooper’s sister _See Mrs. Geo. Pomeroy._
Cooper, Anne Charlotte, daughter, 16, 344-345
Cooper, Caroline Martha, 344
Cooper, Elizabeth, daughter, 71-72, 344
Cooper, Elizabeth Fenimore, mother, 2, 3, 64, 71-73
Cooper, Fenimore, son, 88, 100, 345
Cooper, Hannah, sister, 13-19
Cooper, Isaac, brother, 20, 72
Cooper, James, great-great-grandfather, 2.
Cooper, James Fenimore.
Accuracy, 106, 109, 115-118, 123, 127, 277, 282, 288-290; ancestry, 2-4;
birth, 1;
boyhood, 12, 13, 19, 23-35, 39;
courage, 259, 273, 308;
death, 340;
honors, public, 99, 111-112, 114, 131, 192, 281; prices of works, 276-277, 350;
industry, 43, 114;
generosity, 57, 105-106, 219, 329, 332; screen gift, 340-343;
love of art, 198, 203, 239-240;
marriage, 68;
name, change of, 2, 119-120;
naval officer, 53-70;
patriotism, 64, 79, 185, 232, 243, 258-260, 273; personality, 12, 49, 111-112, 149-152, 259, 267, 269, 280-281. Portraits:
bust by d’Angers, 145;
bust by Greenough, 198-200;
daguerreotype by Brady, 279, 333; in oil by Jarvis, 91, 146;
in oil by Madame de Mirbel, 143;
Paris drawing (1827), 148;
Yale silhouette, 39;
sailor, the, 42-48;
translations of works, 350.
Cooper, James Fenimore, grandson, x, 3-5, 342, 351.
Cooper, Maria Frances, daughter, 324, 342-345.
Cooper, Paul Fenimore, son, 100, 214, 216-217, 243, 342, 345.
Cooper, Richard Fenimore, brother, 20, 26, 62, 72.
Cooper, Richard Fenimore, nephew, 344, 345.
Cooper, Susan Augusta, wife, 63-65, 68, 71-72, 77, 98, 124-125, 132, 146-147, 154, 165-166, 247, 250, 264, 268, 314, 323-324, 334-338, 343-344.
Cooper, Susan Augusta, daughter, 13, 54, 71, 139, 142, 220, 243, 265, 268, 282, 314, 323-327, 334-335, 344-345, 347.
Cooper, Susan Augusta, granddaughter, 345, 347.
Cooper, William, father, 2, 4-11, 16, 34, 36, 42, 53, 62, 101, 103, 112, 342, 351.
Cooper, William, nephew, 142, 193.
Cooperstown, N.Y., xi, 15, 33, 69, 71, 274, 296-299, 315, 317, 328, 336, 338-348, 351-354.
Chalet Farm, 296-299, 311-314, 327. “Chronicles of,” 34, 102.
Fenimore Farm home, 71-72.
Manor, The, 8, 9, 103.
Otsego Hall, 8, 9, 16, 100, 261-265, 300, 317, 340, 345-347. Otsego Lake, 4, 5, 6, 18-21, 27-28, 71, 104, 261, 265, 276, 282-286, 296, 324-328, 340, 356.
Three-Mile Point, 270-272, 327-328.
Cory, Master Oliver, 23-25.
“Crater, The,” 308-309.
Croghan, Geo., xii.
Crosby, Enoch, 80, 86.
Dana, Richard Henry, 96, 111, 201.
“Deerslayer, The,” 5, 282-286.
DeKay, James E., 93, 95.
Drake, Joseph Rodman, 92-93.
Drescher, Rudolf, 350.
Dunlap, William, 322-323.
Dwight, Timothy, 36, 37.
_Edinburgh Review, The_, 110.
Elba, 291-293.
Elliott, Jesse D., 287-289.
Ellison, Dr. Thomas, 28-33, 35, 353.
England, 2, 44, 111, 115-118, 169-172, 277, 305.
Erie, Lake, Battle of, 293-294, 306.
“Excursions in Italy,” 210.
Fenimore, Elizabeth. _See Mrs. Wm. Cooper_.
Fenimore, Richard, 2, 262.
Fenimore box, 3.
Florence, Palazzo Ricasoli, 197-198.
Florence, Villa St. Illario, 206-208.
Floyd, Elizabeth, 67.
Floyd, Col. Richard, 67.
France, 135, 157, 168-169, 228, 237, 243.
Francis, Dr. J.W., 186, 278, 322, 336-337, 339-340.
Frey, Heindrick, 11, 12.
Galitzin, Princess, 139-140, 164-166.
Gelsomina, 226-228.
George, Lake, 120, 125-126.
Germany, 228, 247, 251, 253-255, 349-350.
Gibraltar, 46.
“Gleanings in Europe,” 236, 270.
Glens Fall, 122-124.
Goodrich, A.T., 78.
_Graham’s Magazine_, 287, 293, 305, 308.
Greeley, Horace, 273, 275.
Green, Geo. Washington, 149-152, 332.
Greenough, Horatio, 198-203, 268.
Grey, Charles, Earl, 181.
Hackett, James H., 321.
Hall, J.E., 84.
Hall, Mrs. Sarah, 84.
Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 90, 92-93, 95.
Halsey, Francis Whiting, 351.
Harrison, Judge Bazil, 313.
Harrison, William Henry, 14-16.
“Headsman, The,” 257.
Heathcote, Hon. Caleb, 66.
Heidelberg and Castle, 253-254.
“Heidenmauer, The,” 252.