Near the center 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 of the United States. The mountains are generally arable to the
tops, altho instances are not wanting where the sides are jutted with
rocks, that aid greatly in giving to the country that romantic and
picturesque character which it so eminently possesses.
[Footnote 59: From Chapters I and III of "The Pioneers." Cooper's
father, Judge William Cooper, the founder of Cooperstown, first
visited Otsego Lake in 1785, built a house there in 1787 and in 1790
made it the permanent home of his family. In 1790 the place contained
35 other people. The selection here given pictures the circumstances
in which Judge Cooper, as well as Marmaduke Temple, visited Otsego
Lake. Fenimore Cooper was not two years old when his father settled
there. His native place was Burlington, N. J. Judge Cooper's settling
at Cooperstown was a consequence of his having acquired, through
foreclosure, extensive lands which George Croghan had failed in an
attempt to settle, near the lake. Except for this circumstance, it is
unlikely that his son ever would have acquired that intimate knowledge
of Indian and frontier life of which he has left such notable pictures
in his books.]
The vales are narrow, rich and cultivated, with a stream uniformly
winding through each. Beautiful and thriving villages are found
interspersed along the margins of the small lakes, or situated at
those points of the stream which are favorable for manufacturing; and
neat and comfortable farms, with every indication of wealth about
them, are scattered profusely through the vales, and even to the
mountain tops. Roads diverge in every direction from the even and
graceful bottoms of the valleys to the most rugged and intricate
passes of the hills. Academies[60] and minor edifices of learning meet
the eye of the stranger at every few miles as he winds his way through
this uneven territory, and places for the worship of God abound with
that frequency which characterizes a moral and reflecting people, and
with that variety of exterior and canonical government which flows
from unfettered liberty of conscience....
[Footnote 60: An "academy" was a high school or seminary, of which an
example could be found as late as fifty years ago in almost every
prosperous village of Central New York.]
It was near the setting of the sun, on a clear, cold day in December,
when a sleigh was moving slowly up one of the mountains in the
district we have described. The day had been fine for the season, and
but two or three large clouds, whose color seemed brightened by the
light reflected from the mass of snow that covered the earth, floated
in a sky of the purest blue. The road wound along the brow of a
precipice, and on one side was upheld by a foundation of logs, piled
one upon the other, while a narrow excavation in the mountain in the
opposite direction had made a passage of sufficient width for the
ordinary traveling of that day. But logs, excavation, and everything
that did not reach several feet above the earth lay alike buried
beneath the snow. A single track, barely wide enough to receive the
sleigh, denoted the route of the highway, and this was sunk nearly two
feet below the surrounding surface.
In the vale, which lay at a distance of several hundred feet lower,
there was what, in the language of the country, was called a clearing,
and all the usual improvements of a new settlement; these even
extended up the hill to the point where the road turned short and ran
across the level land, which lay on the summit of the mountain; but
the summit itself remained in the forest. There was glittering in the
atmosphere, as if it was filled with innumerable shining particles;
and the noble bay horses that drew the sleigh were covered, in many
parts, with a coat of hoar-frost. The vapor from their nostrils was
seen to issue like smoke; and every object in the view, as well as
every arrangement of the travelers, denoted the depth of a winter in
the mountains.
The harness, which was of a deep, dull black, differing from the
glossy varnishing of the present day, was ornamented with enormous
plates and buckles of brass, that shone like gold in those transient
beams of the sun which found their way obliquely through the tops of
the trees. Huge saddles, studded with nails and fitted with cloth that
served as blankets to the shoulders of the cattle, supported four
high, square-topped turrets, through which the stout reins led from
the mouths of the horses to the hands of the driver, who was a negro
of apparently twenty years of age. His face, which Nature had colored
with a glistening black, was now mottled with the cold, and his large
shining eyes filled with tears; a tribute to its power, that the keen
frosts of those regions always extracted from one of his African
origin. Still, there was a smiling expression of good humor in his
happy countenance, that was created by the thoughts of home, and a
Christmas fireside, with its Christmas frolics....
A dark spot of a few acres in extent at the southern extremity of this
beautiful flat, and immediately under the feet of our travelers, alone
showed by its rippling surface, and the vapors which exhaled from it,
that what at first might seem a plain was one of the mountain lakes,
locked in the frosts of winter. A narrow current rushed impetuously
from its bosom at the open place we mentioned and was to be traced for
miles as it wound its way toward the south through the real valley, by
its borders of hemlock and pine, and by the vapor which arose from its
warmer surface into the chill atmosphere of the hills. The banks of
this lovely basin, at its outlet,[61] or southern end, were steep, but
not high; and in that direction the land continued, far as the eye
could reach, a narrow but graceful valley, along which the settlers
had scattered their humble habitations, with a profusion that bespoke
the quality of the soil, and the comparative facilities of
intercourse.
[Footnote 61: The outlet of this lake is the Susquehanna River.]
Immediately on the bank of the lake and at its foot stood the village
of Templeton.[62] It consisted of some fifty buildings, including
those of every description, chiefly built of wood and which in their
architecture bore no great marks of taste, but which also, by the
unfinished appearance of most of the dwellings, indicated the hasty
manner of their construction. To the eye they presented a variety of
colors. A few were white in both front and rear, but more bore that
expensive color on their fronts only, while their economical but
ambitious owners had covered the remaining sides of the edifices with
a dingy red. One or two were slowly assuming the russet of age; while
the uncovered beams that were to be seen through the broken windows on
their second stories showed that either the taste or the vanity of
their proprietors had led them to undertake a task which they were
unable to accomplish.
[Footnote 62: Templeton is another name for Cooperstown.]
The whole were grouped in a manner that aped the streets of the city,
and were evidently so arranged by the directions of one who looked to
the wants of posterity rather than to the convenience of the present
incumbents. Some three or four of the better sort of buildings, in
addition to the uniformity of their color, were fitted with green
blinds, which, at that season at least, were rather strangely
contrasted to the chill aspect of the lake, the mountains, the
forests, and the wide fields of snow. Before the doors of these
pretentious dwellings were placed a few saplings, either without
branches, or possessing only the feeble shoots of one or two summers'
growth, that looked not unlike tall grenadiers on post near the
threshold of princes. In truth, the occupants of these favored
habitations were the nobles of Templeton, as Marmaduke was its king.
They were the dwellings of two young men who were cunning in the law;
an equal number of that class who chaffered to the wants of the
community under the title of storekeepers; and a disciple of
AEsculapius, who, for a novelty, brought more subjects into the world
than he sent out of it.
In the midst of this incongruous group of dwellings rose the mansion
of the Judge, towering above all its neighbors. It stood in the center
of an enclosure of several acres, which was covered with fruit-trees.
Some of the latter had been left by the Indians, and began already to
assume the moss and inclination of age, therein forming a very marked
contrast to the infant plantations that peered over most of the
picketed fences of the village. In addition to this show of
cultivation were two rows of young Lombardy poplars, a tree but lately
introduced into America, formally lining either side of a pathway
which led from a gate that opened on the principal street to the front
door of the building. The house itself had been built entirely under
the superintendence of a certain Mr. Richard Jones, whom we have
already mentioned, and who, from his cleverness in small matters, and
an entire willingness to exert his talents, added to the circumstances
of their being sisters' children, ordinarily superintended all the
minor concerns of Marmaduke Temple. Richard was fond of saying that
this child of invention consisted of nothing more or less than what
should form the groundwork of every clergyman's discourse, viz., a
firstly and a lastly. He had commenced his labors, in the first year
of their residence, by erecting a tall, gaunt edifice of wood, with
its gable toward the highway. In this shelter, for it was little more,
the family resided three years. By the end of that period Richard had
completed his design. He had availed himself, in this heavy
undertaking, of the experience of a certain wandering Eastern
mechanic, who, by exhibiting a few soiled plates of English
architecture, and talking learnedly of friezes, entablatures, and
particularly of the composite order, had obtained a very undue
influence over Richard's taste in everything that pertained to that
branch of the fine arts. Not that Mr. Jones did not affect to consider
Hiram Doolittle a perfect empiric in his profession, being in the
constant habit of listening to his treatises on architecture with a
kind of indulgent smile; yet, either from an inability to oppose them
by anything plausible from his own stores of learning, or from secret
admiration, Richard generally submitted to the arguments of his
coadjutor.
Together they had not only directed a dwelling for Marmaduke, but they
had given a fashion to the architecture of the whole country. The
composite order, Mr. Doolittle would contend, was an order composed of
many others, and was intended to be the most useful of all, for it
admitted into its construction such alterations as convenience or
circumstances might require. To this proposition Richard usually
assented; and when rival geniuses, who monopolize not only all the
reputation, but most of the money of the neighborhood, are of a mind,
it is not uncommon to see them lead the fashion, even in graver
matters. In the present instance, as we have already hinted, the
castle, as Judge Temple's dwelling was termed in common parlance, came
to be the model, in some one or other of its numerous excellences, for
every aspiring edifice within twenty miles of it.[63]
[Footnote 63: Judge Cooper's new home was called Otsego Hall. It was
afterward improved by Fenimore Cooper and remained his home during the
many years he spent in Cooperstown. A few years after his death it was
destroyed by fire. Its site is now a village park.]