James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper

The Project Gutenberg EBook of James Fenimore Cooper, by Mary E.
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Title: James Fenimore Cooper
Author: Mary E. Phillips
Release Date: August 10, 2004 [EBook #13155]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.]
JAMES
FENIMORE COOPER

by
MARY E. PHILLIPS
[Illustration: LEATHERSTOCKING.]
New York: John Lane Company London: John Lane: The Bodley Head
Toronto: Bell and Cockburn MCMXIII
Copyright, 1912
By Mary E. Phillips
The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A.
Dedicated To The Young Of All Ages From The Years Of Ten To Ten
Times Ten

PREFACE
The intention of this simply told personal life of James Fenimore
Cooper, the creator of American romance, is to have all material
authentic. The pictures of men, women, places and things are, as nearly
as possible, of Cooper's association with them to reproduce a
background of his time and to make the _man_--not the author--its
central foreground figure. From every available source since the
earliest mention of the author's name, both in print and out, material for
these pages has been collected. In this wide gleaning in the field of
letters--a rich harvest from able and brilliant pens--the gleaner hereby
expresses grateful appreciation of these transplanted values. Much,
precious in worth and attractive in interest, comes into these pages from
the generous and good among the relatives, friends, and admirers of
Fenimore Cooper. And more than all others, the author's grand-nephew,
the late Mr. George Pomeroy Keese, of Cooperstown, New York, has
paid rich and rare tribute to the memory of his uncle, with whom when
a boy he came in living touch. Appeals to Cooper's grandson, James
Fenimore Cooper, Esq., of Albany, New York, and also to his

publishers have been met in a spirit so gracious and their giving has
been so generous as to command the grateful service of the writer.
For rare values, in service and material, special credits are due to Mr.
George Pomeroy Keese, Cooperstown, N.Y.; James Fenimore Cooper,
Esq., Albany, N.Y.; Mr. Francis Whiting Halsey, New York City; Mr.
Edwin Tenney Stiger, Watertown, Mass.; General James Grant Wilson,
New York City; Mr. Horace G. Wadlin, Librarian, Messrs. Otto
Fleischner, Assistant Librarian, O.A. Bierstadt, F.C. Blaisdell, and
others, of the Boston Public Library; Miss Alice Bailey Keese,
Cooperstown, N.Y.; Mrs. T. Henry Dewey, Paris, France; Mrs. Edward
Emerson Waters, New York City; and Miss Mary C. Sheridan, Boston,
Mass.
Mary E. Phillips.

INTRODUCTION
A life of Cooper, written with some particular reference to the
picturesque village among the Otsego hills, where he so long lived and
in whose soil he, for some sixty years or more, has slept, has long been
needed. That such a book should have become a labor of love in the
hands of Miss Phillips is not more interesting than it is fortunate that
the task should have been accomplished so conspicuously well. Miss
Phillips has borne testimony to the resourcefulness and rare devotion
with which the late Mr. Keese assisted her in researches extending over
many years. None knew so well as he the personal side of Cooper's
whole life story; none so assiduously and so lovingly, during a long life
spent in Cooperstown, gathered and tried to preserve in their integrity
every significant and interesting detail of it.
The turning point in Cooper's life was reached when he went to
Cooperstown, although he was little more than a child in arms. Most
curious is it that his going should have resulted from the foreclosure of
a mortgage. This mortgage had been given in the late Colonial period
by George Croghan, and covered a vast tract of native forest lands in

Otsego. In these lands, through the foreclosure, Cooper's father, soon
after the Revolution, acquired a large interest, which led him to
abandon his home of ease and refinement in Burlington, New Jersey,
and found a new, and, as it proved to be, a permanent one in the
unpeopled wilderness at the foot of Otsego Lake. Except for this
accident of fortune, Leatherstocking and his companions of the forest
never could have been created by the pen of Cooper.
[Illustration: signature 'Francis W. Italsey']

ILLUSTRATIONS
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. From Appleton portrait. By
permission of owner, James Fenimore Cooper, Esq., of Albany, N.Y.
Frontispiece THE ENGLISH FYNAMORE COUNTRY AND
FAMILY ARMS.
COOPER'S BIRTHPLACE. Burlington, N.J. From a photograph by
George W. Tichnor
THE FENIMORE BOX. (Of light