The Story of Cooperstown | Page 7

those of war and
the chase. The Iroquois were agriculturists, and they, or rather their
women, cultivated not only fruit trees, but corn, melons, squash,
pumpkins, beans, and tobacco.[12] They had other human interests also,
not unlike our own. As the young people grew up amid sylvan charms
that are wont to stir romantic feelings in the heart of youth to-day, one
is tempted to imagine the trysts in the wood, the flirtations, the
courtships, among Indian braves and dusky maidens, that touched life
with tender sentiment in the days of the red man's glory. During many
summers before the white man came the breath of nature sighing
through the pines of Otsego, the winding river murmuring lovelorn
secrets to the flowers that nodded on its margin, the moon rising over
Mount Vision and shedding its splendor upon the lake, were subtle
influences in secret meetings between men and maidens, in whispered
vows beneath the trees, in courtships on the border of the Glimmerglass,
in lovemaking along the shores of the Susquehanna.
The greater part of the Iroquois were allies of the British in the
Revolutionary War, although some Mohawks remained neutral, and
most of the Oneidas and Tuscaroras became engaged on the side of the
Americans. It is not strange that, in a war whose causes they could not
understand, the Iroquois should have been loyal to the King of England,
with whom their alliances had been made for nearly two centuries. The
Indians had nothing to gain in this war, and everything to lose. They
lost everything, and after the war were thrown upon the mercies of the

victorious Americans. The Iroquois confederacy came to an end, and
few of the Mohawks ever returned to the scene of their council fires, or
to the graves of their ancestors.[13]
Many friendly relationships were established between the white men
and the Indians, both before and after the Revolutionary War. In 1764
there was a missionary school of Mohawk Indian boys at the foot of
Otsego Lake under the instruction of a young Mohawk named Moses,
who had been educated at a missionary institution for Indians at
Lebanon. A report of one of the missionaries, the Rev. J. C. Smith,
written at this time, gives a glimpse of the Indians as they came under
civilizing influence on the very spot where Cooperstown was afterward
to flourish:
"I am every day diverted and pleased with a view of Moses and his
school, as I can sit in my study and see him and all his scholars at any
time, the schoolhouse being nothing but an open barrack. And I am
much pleased to see eight or ten and sometimes more scholars sitting
under their bark table, some reading, some writing and others studying,
and all engaged to appearances with as much seriousness and attention
as you will see in almost any worshipping assembly and Moses at the
head of them with the gravity of fifty or three score."[14]
Miss Susan Fenimore Cooper, daughter of the novelist, says that for
some years after the village was commenced, Mill Island was a favorite
resort of the Indians, who came frequently in parties to the new
settlement, remaining here for months together. Mill Island lies in the
Susquehanna a short distance below Fernleigh, near the dam, where the
river reaches out two arms to enclose it, and with so little effort that it
is difficult to distinguish the island from the mainland. In the early days
of the village the island was covered with woods, and the Indians chose
it for their camp, in preference to other situations. Miss Cooper thinks it
may have been a place of resort to their fishing and hunting parties
when the country was a wilderness. In Rural Hours, writing in 1851,
she gives a curious description of a visit made at Otsego Hall by some
Indians who had encamped at Mill Island. There were three of them,--a
father, son, and grandson,--who made their appearance, claiming a

hereditary acquaintance with the master of the house, Fenimore
Cooper.
[Illustration: C. F. Zabriskie
AT MILL ISLAND]
"The leader and patriarch of the party," says Miss Cooper, "was a
Methodist minister--the Rev. Mr. Kunkerpott. He was notwithstanding
a full-blooded Indian, with the regular copper-colored complexion, and
high cheek bones; the outline of his face was decidedly Roman, and his
long, gray hair had a wave which is rare among his people; his mouth,
where the savage expression is usually most strongly marked, was
small, with a kindly expression about it. Altogether he was a strange
mixture of the Methodist preacher and the Indian patriarch. His son was
much more savage than himself in appearance--a silent, cold-looking
man; and the grandson, a boy of ten or twelve, was one of the most
uncouth, impish-looking creatures we