The Pioneers | Page 5

mistake, it may be well to say that the incidents of
this tale are purely a fiction. The literal facts are chiefly connected with
the natural and artificial objects and the customs of the inhabitants.
Thus the academy, and court-house, and jail, and inn, and most similar
things, are tolerably exact. They have all, long since, given place to
other buildings of a more pretending character. There is also some
liberty taken with the truth in the description of the principal dwelling;
the real building had no “firstly” and “lastly.” It was of bricks, and not
of stone; and its roof exhibited none of the peculiar beauties of the
“composite order.” It was erected in an age too primitive for that
ambitious school of architecture. But the author indulged his
recollections freely when he had fairly entered the door. Here all is
literal, even to the severed arm of Wolfe, and the urn which held the
ashes of Queen Dido.*

* Though forests still crown the mountains of Otsego, the bear, the
wolf, and the panther are nearly strangers to them. Even the innocent
deer is rarely seen bounding beneath their arches; for the rifle and the
activity of the settlers hare driven them to other haunts. To this change
(which in some particulars is melancholy to one who knew the country
in its infancy), it may be added that the Otsego is beginning to be a
niggard of its treasures.
The author has elsewhere said that the character of Leather-Stocking is
a creation, rendered probable by such auxiliaries as were necessary to
produce that effect. Had he drawn still more upon fancy, the lovers of
fiction would not have so much cause for their objections to his work.
Still, the picture would not have been in the least true without some
substitutes for most of the other personages. The great proprietor
resident on his lands, and giving his name to instead of receiving it
from his estates as in Europe, is common over the whole of New York.
The physician with his theory, rather obtained from than corrected by
experiments on the human constitution; the pious, self- denying,
laborious, and ill-paid missionary; the half-educated, litigious, envious,
and disreputable lawyer, with his counterpoise, a brother of the
profession, of better origin and of better character; the shiftless,
bargaining, discontented seller of his “betterments;” the plausible
carpenter, and most of the others, are more familiar to all who have
ever dwelt in a new country.
It may be well to say here, a little more explicitly, that there was no real
intention to describe with particular accuracy any real characters in this
book. It has been often said, and in published statements, that the
heroine of this book was drawn after the sister of the writer, who was
killed by a fall from a horse now near half a century since. So ingenious
is conjecture that a personal resemblance has been discovered between
the fictitious character and the deceased relative! It is scarcely possible
to describe two females of the same class in life who would be less
alike, personally, than Elizabeth Temple and the sister of the author
who met with the deplorable fate mentioned. In a word, they were as
unlike in this respect as in history, character, and fortunes.

Circumstances rendered this sister singularly dear to the author. After a
lapse of half a century, he is writing this paragraph with a pain that
would induce him to cancel it, were it not still more painful to have it
believed that one whom he regarded with a reverence that surpassed the
love of a brother was converted by him into the heroine of a work of
fiction.
From circumstances which, after this Introduction, will be obvious to
all, the author has had more pleasure in writing “The Pioneers” than the
book will probably ever give any of its readers. He is quite aware of its
numerous faults, some of which he has endeavored to repair in this
edition; but as he has—in intention, at least—done his full share in
amusing the world, he trusts to its good-nature for overlooking this
attempt to please himself.

CHAPTER I.

“See, Winter comes, to rule the varied years, Sullen and sad, with all
his rising train; Vapors, and clouds, and storms.”—Thomson.
Near the centre of the State of New York lies an extensive district of
country whose surface is a succession of hills and dales, or, to speak
with greater deference to geographical definitions, of mountains and
valleys. It is among these hills that the Delaware takes its rise; and
flowing from the limpid lakes and thousand springs of this region the
numerous sources of the Susquehanna meander through the valleys
until, uniting their streams, they form one of the proudest rivers