midshipman a well-known writer, with the purpose that his next book
should tell of this unforgettable region of the great lakes. He wished
to-bring into it the sailors and Indians as, by coming in close contact
with them, "he knew their personalities and characteristics." Then,
forest scenes without "Natty Bumppo" could scarce come from his pen
after the drawings of old "Leatherstocking" of "The Pioneers," "Hawkeye"
of "The Mohicans," and the "aged trapper" of "The Prairie." So it came
about that "Natty, the lover," stepped into these pages--Natty, "so
simple, so tender, so noble and true--what shall be said of him? We must
all needs love him; it is not with words but with tears that we wring
his hand and part from him on the lake shore" as "The Pathfinder."
Glowing and brave proved his Mabel, as "the bubble of a boat floated on
the very crest of a foaming breaker,"--yet not for him. But the ripple
of the lake's waves and rustling of forest leaves are as unforgettable
as the low, sweet tones of "Dew-of-June." Of "The Pathfinder" and Cooper
Balzac wrote: "Its interest is tremendous. He surely owed us this
masterpiece after the last two or three raphsodies he has given us."
[Illustration: THE PATHFINDER.]
[Illustration: A BUBBLE OF A BOAT.]
In the year 1809 Cooper was attached to a gun-boat serving on Lake
Champlain, and on November 13 following, he was ordered to the _Wasp_,
under Capt. James Lawrence, of Burlington--a personal friend, and also
the heroic commander of the _Chesapeake_ in her action with the
_Shannon_, in which his last words were, "Don't give up the ship!" It
was aboard the _Wasp_ that Cooper's lifelong friendship with Commodore
Shubrick of South Carolina began, who, like himself, and a year younger,
was a midshipman. To this friend the author dedicated "The Pilot," "Red
Rover," and other stories.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN LAWRENCE.]
[Illustration: THE "WASP."]
Political feeling ran high in those early days of 1809, and prominent
persons did not escape from their opponents with hitter feeling only. So
it came about that in December of that year, Judge Cooper, on leaving a
hot convention, met his death,--the result of a blow on the head, as he
was coming down the steps of the State capitol at Albany, New York. No
one of his day who was engaged in the work of large buying and selling
of land made so deep an impression as did Judge Cooper on his times, and
on his author son, whose land books disclose to posterity with historic
exactness the hardships and values of the pioneers of our country.
After Judge Cooper's death Richard Fenimore, his eldest son, became the
head of the family, and it was to him that James wrote from
New York, May 18th, 1810
I wrote you yesterday, a letter in a great hurry, as its contents
are of some importance. I employ the leisure time offered today, to
inform you more fully of my views.
When you were in the City, I hinted to you, my intention of
resigning at the end of this session of Congress, should nothing be
done for the Navy--my only reason at that time was the blasted
prospects of the service. I accordingly wrote my resignation and as
usual offer'd it to Capt. Lawrence, for his inspection--he very
warmly recommended to me to give the service the trial of another
year or two--at the same time offering to procure me a furlough
which would leave me perfect master of my actions in the
interval--I thought it wisest to accept this proposition--at the
end of this year I have it in my power to resign, should the
situation of the Country warrant it.
Like all the rest of the sons of Adam, I have bowed to the
influence of the claims of a fair damsel of eighteen. I loved her
like a man and told her of it like a sailor. The peculiarity of my
situation occasion'd me to act with something like precipitancy. I
am perfectly confident, however, I shall never have cause to repent
of it--. As you are _cooly_ to decide, I will as _cooly_ give you
the qualities of my mistress. Susan De Lancey is the daughter of a
man of very respectable connections and a handsome
fortune--amiable, sweet-tempered and happy in her disposition.--She
has been educated in the country, occasionally trying the
temperature of the City--to rub off the rust--but hold a moment, it
is enough she pleases _me_ in the qualities of her _person_ and
_mind_--. Like a true quixotic lover, I made proposals to her
father--he has answered them in the most gentlemanly manner--. You
have my consent to address my daughter if you will gain the
approbation of your mother--He also informs me that his daughter
has an estate in the County of Westchester in reversion, secured to
her by a deed in trust to him--. I write all this for _you_--you
know _I_ am indifferent to anything of this nature. Now I have to
request--you will take your hat and go to mother, the boys, girls,
and say to them have you any objection that James Cooper shall
marry at a future day, Susan De Lancey. If any of them forbid the
bans may the Lord have forgiven them--for I never will--. Then take
your pen and write to Mr. De Lancey stating the _happiness_ and
_pleasure_ it will give all the family to have this connection
completed--all this I wish you to do immediately, as I am deprived
of the pleasure of visiting my flame until this is done, by that
confounded _bore_, delicacy--be so good as to inclose the letter in
one to me, at the same time don't forget to inclose a handsome sum
to square the yards here and bring me to Cooperstown.
I wish not to interrupt you in your attempt to clear the estate--my
expenditure shall be as small as possible.
_Your brother,_ James Cooper.
The de Lanceys were Huguenots and their loyalty to England during the
Revolution made several of them British officers. Although Cooper was
ever a staunch American, this incident, with several others in his
later life, seemed unfavorable to some few who were only too willing to
question his loyalty.
[Illustration: FRAUNCES TAVERN.]
[Illustration: GOV. JAMES DE LANCEY'S SEAL.]
[Illustration: HEATHCOTE ARMS.]
Miss de Lancey's great grandfather, Stephen, was the first of this
aristocratic Westchester-County family on American soil. He fled
from Normandy on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and in
1686 came to New York. Here his son James became chief-justice and
lieutenant-governor, and married Ann, eldest daughter of the Hon. Caleb
Heathcote, lord of the manor of Scarsdale, Westchester, and whose manor
house was Heathcote Hill, which their fourth son, John Peter de Lancey,
Cooper's father-in-law, inherited from his mother. One of a number of
services the old-world Derbyshire Heathcote-Hill family rendered to its
country was giving to the Bank of England its first president. The de
Lancey name still clings to the new-world history in Fraunces Tavern,
built by Stephen de Lancey in 1700, for his home. Sixty-two years later
it became the tavern of Samuel Fraunces. In 1776 and 1783 it was the
headquarters of General Washington, and in its famous _Long Room_ "The
Father of his Country" made his farewell address, and bid adieu to his
generals. Number 130 Broadway was the de Lancey home of 1730, and here
was given the first inauguration ball of our nation. On this site was
built "Burn's Coffee House," which teemed with interesting events. The
City Hotel took its place in 1806. John Peter de Lancey married
Elizabeth, daughter of Col. Richard Floyd, and in 1789 came to
Heathcote Hill, Westchester County, which he rebuilt on the site of the
old manor house, burned down. In this home he lived out his days. Here
his son, William Heathcote, Bishop of Western New York, was born; and
also his lovely daughter, Susan Augusta; here she was wooed and won by
the handsome young naval officer, and on New Year's day, 1811, became
Mrs. James Cooper. In 1899 Dr. Theodore F. Wolfe writes of Cooper and
Heathcote Hill--that some of the great trees which waved their green
leafage above him lingering here with sweetheart or bride yet shade the
grounds, but the household that welcomed him and gave him a beloved
daughter lie in a little grass-grown cemetery near to this old home.
Mrs. Cooper had a sweet, gracious way of guiding by affection her
husband, and he gave her his heart's devotion through the forty years
of their happily mated life. Cooper and his young bride began life by
playing a game of chess between the ceremony and supper. Then, he
driving two horses tandem, they made their wedding journey to
Cooperstown in a gig. His furlough ended a few months later, and to
please his wife, he resigned in May from the navy. Long afterwards he
wrote, "She confesses she would never have done for Lady Collingwood."
For a year or more Cooper and his wife lived with her father at
Heathcote Hill, Mamaroneck, New York, and afterwards in a near-by
cottage on the "Neck," which Cooper named "Closet Hall" because it was
so small, and he described it as the home of the Littlepage family in
"Satanstoe." Only two old willows remain of the group that almost
concealed Cooper's wee house, now entirely rebuilt, and they named the
place as the home of Alice B. Havens, who wrote here some of her poems
and stories--so Dr. Wolfe writes of Closet Hall. After some brief
housekeeping in this "wee home," the young people again made a part of
the family at Heathcote Hill, where they lived until 1814. Then, with
the two little girls born to them, they went for a short time to
Cooperstown, and thence to their Fenimore farm of some one hundred and
fifty acres along Otsego's southwestern shores. "On a rising knoll
overlooking lake and village a handsome stone house was begun for their
life home." The near-by hill, called Mount Ovis, pastured the Merino
sheep which he brought into the country. He loved his gardening, and
was active for the public good, serving as secretary of the county
Agricultural Society, and also of the Otsego County Bible Society. In
the full flush of youth and its pleasures there were the pleasant
diversions of driving, riding, and rowing. So lived flute-playing
Cooper, brave and handsome, at twenty-five.
[Illustration: HON. CALEB HEATHCOTE.]
[Illustration: FRAUNCES TAVERN.]
[Illustration: BURN'S COFFEE HOUSE.]
[Illustration: HEATHCOTE HILL.]
[Illustration: TANDEM.]
[Illustration: COOPER'S FENIMORE FARM HOUSE.]
Cooper's mother was then living with her older sons at Otsego Hall, and
it is recorded that "she took great delight in flowers, and the end of
the long hall was like a green-house, in her time"; that "she was a
great reader of romances; a marvelous housekeeper, and beautifully nice
and neat in her arrangements: her flower-garden at the south of the
house was considered something wonderful in variety of flowers." Between
her Old-Hall home and the families of her children,--Richard's on "Apple
Hill," Isaac's at "Edgewater," Nancy's at the "Old Stone House," and
James's at "Fenimore,"--these years were full of charm and interest for
them all, which later became sweet and enduring memories. Sadness crept
in, through the loss of James's daughter Elizabeth; but two more came to
lift this shadow in the Fenimore home.
In 1817 Cooper and his young family started for a few month's visit to
Heathcote Hill, and later in this year he lost his mother. As the stone
house, then building at Fenimore, burned down in 1823, the land was sold
later, and the few months' expected absence grew into seventeen years.
Perhaps it was this thread of loss added to his wife's wishes that led
Cooper to build a country home on the Scarsdale farm,--a portion of the
de Lancey estate, which came to Mrs. Cooper after her marriage. Here he
built the picturesque home in which his literary career began. "Nothing
that Cooper knew remains excepting the superb land and water view,"
which drew him to place this home of his there, and he has pictured
mile upon mile of the shimmering, sail-dotted Sound in scenes of his
"Water Witch." It is of record that the windows of the room in which he
wrote "Precaution," "The Spy," and "The Pioneers" overlooked this
enchanting vista which then and later claimed place in his books. It was
four miles from Mamaroneck and some twenty-five from New York City. The
height on which the new house stood was called Angevine, from a former
Huguenot tenant. It gave a glorious view over miles of fine wooded
country, with a broad reach of Long Island Sound beyond, over which were
moving white, glittering sails "a sailor's eye loves to follow." Of
active habits and vigorous health, Cooper threw himself with almost
boyish eagerness into the improvement and beautifying of this
homestead,--planning the barn, building the then new zigzag, ha-ha
fence, watching the growth of shrubs and trees that he had transplanted,
and with cheering talk lightening the labors of his workmen.
[Illustration: ELIZABETH FENIMORE COOPER IN THE OLD HALL HOME.]
[Illustration: COOPER'S ANGEVINE FARM HOME.]
[Illustration: MAMARONECK CREEK SLOOPS.]
"In 1818 Cooper was made paymaster, and in the next year quartermaster
in the Fourth Division of Infantry, New York State Militia. As Governor
Clinton's aid, in blue and buff uniform, cocked hat, and sword, and
title of colonel, he would go to reviews on his favorite horse,
'Bull-head.'"
At that time each village on the Sound had its sloop which carried the
farmer's produce thrice a week through the perils of Hell Gate to Fulton
market, and brought back tea, sugar, cloth, calicoes, and silks, and,
perchance, some volume fresh from the London press,--a bit of Byron's
brilliance, a romance from the unknown author of "Waverley," one of Miss
Edgeworth's charming tales, or the more serious religious work of
Wilberforce--which had "arrived by packet-ship from England"--the next
day's papers would announce. Lucky was thought the household that could
first cut the pages of the new print.
Reading, which always enters so naturally into country life, made
pleasant their evening hours and rainy days at Angevine. Mr. Cooper was
a fine reader. His voice was deep, clear, and expressive, and during
those quiet country evenings he often read aloud to one "who listened
with affectionate interest through a long life," and he read to her with
special pleasure. For Shakespeare he was always ready. Pope, Thompson,
and Gray were also in favor, but not more than a page or two at a time
of Milton. He thought that Shakespeare should have written "Paradise
Lost." "He took the greatest delight in the 'Waverley' novels, and never
doubted they were written by Walter Scott, the poet. On one occasion a
new novel chanced to lie on the table and he was asked to read it. The
title and look of the book were not to his taste; he opened it, however,
and began. Suddenly, after reading through a few pages, it was thrown
aside in disgust: 'I can write a better book than that myself!' was his
exclamation." Mrs. Cooper laughed at the absurd idea that he, who
disliked writing even a letter, should write a book, and playfully
challenged him to make good his word; and when urged to begin, he at
once outlined a tale of English high-life. As the story grew, the writer
became interested, and before long the first pages of Cooper's first
book, "Precaution, or Prevention is Better than Cure," were written.
When finished, much to his amazement, Mrs. Cooper further urged him to
publish it; so, with the manuscript, they set out in their gig to seek
counsel of the Jays at Bedford, and other friends, who approved. "One
lady, not in the secret, felt sure she had read it before." It was
published, without the author's name, August 25, 1820, and was credited
to an English woman. A.T. Goodrich, the publisher, surprised the public
by declaring it the work of an American gentleman of New York. It was
soon republished in England, and claimed the attention usually accorded
that style of book in its day. Whatever of its worth, the work had
awakened Cooper's powers; and its modest success in a field new to him
led his friends to urge him to write on subjects that were in near touch
with his daily life. None knew better than he the frontier and
sea-faring life of his own and earlier times. So, then, for
home-country subjects, and thinking it would be his last attempt, he
exclaimed, "I will write another book!" and soon decided on patriotism
as its _motif_. At this period many were the visits to Judge Jay's
Westchester home at Bedford. The house, part of wood and part of stone,
had a spacious, comfortable piazza along its front. The interior had
more of cheerfulness than of elegance, but a great air of abundance, and
was a peaceful shelter for the waning days of that eminent statesman and
patriot. Of this household Cooper wrote later: "I scarcely remember to
have mingled with any family where there was a more happy union of quiet
decorum and high courtesy than I met with beneath the roof of Mr. Jay."
To no place more fitting than his wistaria-covered library could Cooper
have gone for patriotic inspiration. The venerable Judge, as he smoked
his long clay pipe, used to delight in telling anecdotes of the
Revolution, "the truth of which," he said, "never had been and never
would be written."
[Illustration: JUDGE JOHN JAY.]
[Illustration: BEDFORD HOUSE.]
[Illustration: BEDFORD HOUSE LIBRARY.]
One summer afternoon, while sitting on his broad piazza under the
lindens, Cooper, with others, listened to the Judge's recital of the
story of a spy's great struggles and unselfish loyalty while serving his
country in the American Revolution, and the story gave Cooper an idea
for his "Harvey Birch." The fact that strolling peddlers, staff in hand
and pack on back, were common visitors then at country houses, became
another aid. "It was after such a visit of a Yankee peddler of the old
sort, to the cottage at Angevine, that Harvey's lot in life was
decided--he was to be a spy and a peddler." It was something to the
author's after regret that he drew the dignity of George Washington into
the "Harper" of this story.
[Illustration: HARVEY BIRCH'S CAVE.]
"The entire country between the Americans on the skirts of the Highlands
and the British on Manhattan--or 'the Neutral Ground'--suffered more in
harried skirmishes, pillage, violence, fire, and the taking of life
itself, than any of its extent during this strife." Scarsdale and
Mamaroneck were in this region, with White Plains close by. Fort
Washington was on a near height, and Dobb's Ferry a few miles off. "The
Coopers' daily drive from Angevine discovered a pretty thicket, some
swampy land, and a cave in which to hide the loyal, to be fed by
friendly hands at night until escape was possible. There were also at
hand the gloomy horrors of a haunted wood where gliding ghosts fought
midnight battles"--all of this the farmers _knew_ and could tell of,
too. One of them, "Uncle John," lived just below the home hill in a wee
cot of four walls, each of a different color--red, yellow, brown, and
white. He frequently came up the Angevine-home hill to tell, between his
apples, nuts, and glasses of cider, tales of what he, too, _knew_, to a
good listener,--the master of the house. Then there was "Major Brom B.,
a hero of the great war, with his twenty-seven martial spirits, all
uniformed in silver gray, his negro Bonny and his gun, 'the Bucanneer,'
had not its fellow on the continent." These were all aids, and sources
of unfailing interest about the many Westchester chimney firesides of
that day. In his "Literary Haunts and Homes," Dr. Theodore F. Wolfe
tells of a fine, old-time home, beyond the valley below Cooper's
Angevine farm, where he placed many an exciting scene of this coming
tale. In 1899 Dr. Wolfe notes the house as changed, only by a piazza
across its front, from the days when Cooper knew it well, and that it
was pleasantly shaded by many of the fine, tall trees that gave it the
name of "The Locusts," which it kept in his story as the home of the
Whartons. The descendants of the family he used to visit still live
there, and one of them showed Dr. Wolfe all that was left of "The Four
Corners," Betty Flanigan's hotel, whence Harvey Birch, Cooper's hero,
escaped in Betty's petticoats. Cooper made these familiar scenes of
southern New York the background of his second book, "The Spy, a Tale of
the Neutral Ground," which also was published, without the author's
name, December 22, 1821. Its success called for a new edition the
following March, and its translation into many foreign tongues. Of
Cooper's "Betty Flanigan" Miss Edgeworth declared, "An Irish pen could
not have drawn her better." Except Irving's "Sketch Book," his
"Knickerbocker's History of New York," and Bryant's thin volume of eight
poems, there were few books by native writers when "The Spy" appeared;
and "then it was that the new world awakened to the surprising discovery
of her first _American_ novelist. The glory that Cooper justly won was
reflected on his country, of whose literary independence he was the
pioneer. 'The Spy' had the charm of reality; it tasted of the soil."
While the American press was slow to admit the merit of "The Spy," a
cordial welcome was given the book in "The Port Folio." It was written
by Mrs. Sarah Hall, mother of the editor, and author of "Conversations
on the Bible." This act of timely kindness Cooper never forgot. June 30,
1822, Washington Irving, from London, wrote Mr. John E. Hall, the
editor: "'The Spy' is extremely well spoken of by the best circles,--not
a bit better than it deserves, for it does the author great credit."
[Illustration: THE LOCUSTS OF COOPER'S TIME.]
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF "THE SPY."]
[Illustration: ENOCH CROSBY.]
In 1826, when "The Spy" was before the footlights in Lafayette Theatre,
on Broadway, near Canal Street, Enoch Crosby, the supposed original spy,
appeared in a box with friends, and "was given thunders of applause."
From "Portraits of Cooper's Heroines," by the Rev. Ralph Birdsall of
Cooperstown, is gleaned: On the walls of the Newport home of the Rev.
John Cornell hang two old portraits that have close connection with the
inner history of "The Spy." To their present owner they came from the
New York home of his mother, the late Mrs. Isaac Cornell, and to her
they came from the Somerville, New Jersey, home of her father, Mr.
Richard Bancker Duyckinck, who in his turn received them from his aunt,
Mrs. Peter Jay,--the subject of one of these portraits and at one time
mistress of the Jay mansion at Rye. Over one hundred years ago it was
that, from the walls of this rare old home at Rye, Westchester County,
the grace of these ladies on canvas caught James Cooper's thought to use
them, by description, in his coming book, "The Spy." Chapter XIII
describes closely the personal appearance and style of dress of these
portraits. "Jeanette Peyton," the maiden aunt of Cooper's story, owes
her mature charm to the portrait of Mary Duyckinck, wife of Peter Jay.
From the "cap of exquisite lawn and lace," her gown of rich silk, short
sleeves and "large ruffles" of lace which with "the experience of forty
years," also veiled her shoulders, to the triple row of large pearls
about her throat,--all these details are found in Cooper's text-picture
of Jeanette Peyton. His "Sarah Wharton" no less closely follows the
portrait of Mrs. Jay's older sister, Sarah Duyckinck, who became Mrs.
Richard Bancker. Her name Sarah may have been given purposely to Sarah
Wharton of Cooper's story. Cooper was thirty-two when it was written,
and it is not unlikely that Mrs. Jay, then eighty-five years of age, was
pleased with this delicate tribute the young novelist paid to the beauty
of her own and her sister's youth.
[Illustration: LAFAYETTE THEATRE.]
[Illustration: COOPER'S HEROINES.]
Four daughters and a son now shared the author's home life, and in order
to place his little girls in a school and be near his publishers, Cooper
rented a modest brick house on Broadway, across the street from Niblo's
Garden, near No. 585, Astor's home, which was a grand resort of
Halleck and Irving, who wrote there a part of his "Life of Washington."
Cooper's house was just above Prince Street--then almost out of town.
[Illustration: WINDHURST'S NOOK, UNDER THE PARK THEATRE.]
The modern club being then unknown, the brilliant men of the day met in
taverns, and there talked of "everything under the starry scope of
heaven." In the 1820's there was Edward Windhurst's famous nook under
the sidewalk below Park Theatre, where Edmund Kean, Junius Brutus Booth,
Cooper, Morris, Willis, and Halleck made gay and brilliant talk.