FENIMORE COOPER IN THE VILLAGE
The childhood memories of James Fenimore Cooper were associated with the
village which his father had settled at the foot of Otsego Lake, for
hither he was brought a babe in arms, and remained until, at the age of
nine years, he was sent to Albany to be tutored by the rector of St.
Peter's Church. After his career at Yale and in the Navy, he was married
in 1811 to Susan de Lancey, and brought his bride to Cooperstown on
their honeymoon. Three years later they came back to take up their
residence at "Fenimore" just out of the village, on Otsego Lake, but,
after three seasons of farming, circumstances once more drew Fenimore
Cooper away from Cooperstown.
It was in 1834, when he had become a novelist of international fame, and
had lived for seven years in Europe, that Cooper, at the age of
forty-five years, took steps to make a permanent home in the village of
his childhood. Otsego Hall, which his father had built upon the site now
marked by the statue of the Indian Hunter, in the Cooper Grounds, was
repaired and partly remodeled, and here Fenimore Cooper dwelt until his
death in 1851.
[Illustration: FENIMORE]
Two names of later renown are connected with Fenimore Cooper's
reconstruction of Otsego Hall. Among the artisans employed was a lad of
seventeen years apprenticed as a joiner, Erastus D. Palmer, who already
had begun to attract attention as a wood-carver, and afterward became
famous as a sculptor. While the alterations were in progress Cooper had
as his guest in Cooperstown Samuel F. B. Morse, who assisted him in
carrying out his ideas for the reconstruction of the Hall, and drew the
designs which gave it more the style of an English country house.[102]
The local gossips said that Morse aspired to the hand of his friend's
eldest daughter, Susan Augusta Fenimore, then twenty-one years of age,
but that Cooper had no mind to yield so fair a prize to an impecunious
painter, a widower, and already forty-three years old. Morse was at this
time experimenting with the telegraph instrument which was afterward to
bring him wealth and such fame as an inventor as to overshadow his
reputation as an artist.
[Illustration: OTSEGO HALL]
The Cooper Grounds, now kept as a public park by the Clark Estate,
include the property that belonged to Fenimore Cooper. Otsego Hall,
which was destroyed by fire in 1852, after the novelist's death, must
be imagined at the centre of the grounds, where its outward appearance,
as well as the arrangement of its interior, may be reconstructed by the
fancy from the wooden model made from a design by G. Pomeroy Keese, and
now to be seen in the village museum. Cooper's favorite garden-seat
exists in facsimile in its original situation at the southeast corner of
the grounds.
When in 1834 the old mansion of the founder of Cooperstown began once
more to be occupied it was a matter of great interest to the people of
the village. Many of them well remembered Fenimore Cooper and his bride
when, twenty years before, they had lived at Fenimore. They recalled the
former resident as James Cooper, for it was not until 1826 that he
adopted the middle name, in compliance with a request which his mother
had made that he should use her family name.[103] Twenty years had made
many changes in Cooperstown, and there was a large proportion of
residents who knew Fenimore Cooper only from his writings and by
reputation. Therefore when he came back to dwell in the home of his
youth he was regarded by many almost as a newcomer in the neighborhood,
and to his family as well as to himself a rather cautious welcome was
given. It had to be admitted at the outset that the changes which
Fenimore Cooper made in Otsego Hall were disapproved by some of the
villagers. They did not like the foreign air which the old house now
began to give itself with its battlements and gothic elaborations. Here
was the first muttering of the storm that clouded the later years of
Fenimore Cooper.
[Illustration: JAMES FENIMORE COOPER]
Cooper's personal appearance was in accord with the strong individuality
of his character. He was of massive, compact form, six feet in height,
over two hundred pounds in weight and rather portly in later years, of
firm and aristocratic bearing, a commanding figure: "a very castle of a
man" was the phrase which Washington Irving applied to him. The
bust[104] made by David d'Angers in Paris in 1828 gives to Cooper a
classic splendor of head and countenance which is in agreement with the
impression produced upon those who well remembered him. He had a full,
expansive forehead, strong features, florid complexion, a mouth firm
without harshness, and clear gray eyes. His head, which was set firmly
and proudly upon giant shoulders, had a peculiar and incessant
oscillating motion. His expressive eyes also were singularly volatile in
their movement--seldom at perfect rest. He was always clean shaven, so
that nothing was lost of the changes of expression which animated his
mobile face in conversation. He had a hearty way of meeting men, a
little bustling, and an emphatic frankness of manner which Bryant says
startled him at first, but which he came at last to like and to admire.
Cooper was a great talker. His voice was agreeably sonorous. He talked
well, and with infinite resource. He could dash into animated
conversation on almost any subject, and was not slow to express decided
opinions, in which at times he almost demanded acquiescence. His
earnestness was often mistaken for brusqueness and violence; "for," says
Lounsbury,[105] "he was, in some measure, of that class of men who
appear to be excited when they are only interested." He created a strong
impression of vigor, intelligence, impulsiveness, vivacity, and
manliness.
When walking Cooper usually carried a stick, but never for support. In
his last years he carried a small, slender walking stick of polished
wood, having a curved handle, and too short for any purpose but to
flourish in the hands. As he walked briskly along the village street,
erect, and with expanded chest, this slender stick was often held
horizontally across his back with his arms skewered behind it, while at
his heels a pet dog trotted, a little black mongrel called "Frisk." In
returning from the walk which proved to be his last he stopped at
Edgewater, then the home of his niece, and, on leaving, forgot to take
his stick. There it has remained, through the years that have passed
since his death, just as he left it, hanging by its curved handle from a
shelf of one of the bookcases in the library.
During this residence in Cooperstown Fenimore Cooper wrote some twenty
of his novels, his _Naval History_, the _Chronicles of Cooperstown_,
besides many sketches of travel and articles contributed to magazines.
This prodigious amount of writing, together with many other activities,
made his life a full one. He rose early, and a considerable portion of
his writing was accomplished before breakfast. In summer hardly a day
passed without a visit to the Chalet farm, on the east side of the lake,
where he sought relaxation from his mental labors. Accordingly, at
about eleven o'clock he might be seen issuing from the gate of his
residence in a wagon, driving a tall sorrel horse named Pumpkin. This
animal was ill suited to the dignity of his driver. He had a singularity
of gait which consisted in occasionally going on three legs, and at
times elevating both hind legs in a manner rather amusing than alarming;
often he persisted in backing when urged to go forward, and always his
emotions were expressed by the switching of his very light wisp of a
tail. Mrs. Cooper was most frequently Mr. Cooper's companion on these
daily excursions, although often the eldest daughter took the place in
the vehicle by her father's side.
[Illustration: THE CHALET]
In the late afternoon Cooper usually devoted some time to the
composition of his novels, without touching pen to paper. It was his
custom to work out the scenes of his stories while promenading the large
hall of his home. Here he paced to and fro in the twilight of the
afternoon, his hands crossed behind his back, his brow carrying the
impression of deep thought. He nodded vigorously from time to time, and
muttered to himself, inventing and carrying on the conversation of his
various imaginary characters. After the evening meal he put work aside,
and passed the time with the family, sometimes reading, often in a game
of chess with Mrs. Cooper, whom, ever since their wedding day, when they
played chess between the ceremony and supper, he had fondly called his
"check-mate." He never smoked, and seldom drank beyond a glass of wine
which he took with his dinner.
[Illustration: THE NOVELIST'S LIBRARY
From a drawing by G. Pomeroy Keese]
In the early morning, when Cooper shut himself in the library, he set
down on paper in its final form the portion of narrative that he had
worked out while pacing the hall the previous afternoon. The library
opened from the main hall, and occupied the southwestern corner of the
house. It was lighted by tall, deeply-recessed windows, against which
the branches of the evergreens outside flung their waving shadows. The
wainscoting was of dark oak, and the sombre bookcases that lined the
walls were of the same material. A large fireplace occupied the space
between the two western windows. Across the room stood a folding
screen[106] upon which had been pasted a collection of engravings
representing scenes known to the family during their tour and residence
in Europe, together with a number of notes and autographs from persons
of distinction. Attached to the top of one of the bookcases was a huge
pair of antlers[107] holding in their embrace a calabash from the
southern seas.
The table at which the novelist sat once belonged to his maternal
grandfather, Richard Fenimore, and had been brought by Judge Cooper from
Burlington at the settlement of Cooperstown. It was a plain one of
English walnut, and the chair in which he sat was of the same material.
Cooper wrote rapidly, in a fine, small, clear hand, upon large sheets of
foolscap, and seldom made an erasure. No company was permitted in the
room while he was writing except an Angora cat who was allowed to bound
upon the desk without rebuke, or even to perch upon the author's
shoulders. Here the cat settled down contentedly, and with half-shut
eyes watched the steady driving of the quill across the paper.
[Illustration: A PAGE OF COOPER'S MANUSCRIPT
(Two-fifths of actual size)]
Among the many books written in this library _The Deerslayer_ brought
the greatest fame to Cooperstown, for it peopled the shores of Otsego
Lake with the creatures of Cooper's fancy, and added to the natural
beauty of its scenery the glamour of romance. The idea of writing this
story came to Fenimore Cooper on a summer afternoon as he drove from the
Chalet homeward in his farm wagon, with his favorite daughter by his
side, along the shaded road on the east shore of the lake. He was
singing cheerily, for, although no musician, often he sang snatches of
familiar songs that had struck his fancy, and above the rumbling of the
wagon his booming voice frequently was heard along the road in a sudden
burst of "Scots, wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled!" or Moore's "Love's Young
Dream"--always especial favorites with him. On this occasion, however,
it was a political song that he was singing, a ditty then popular during
the campaign of 1840 in the party opposed to his own. Suddenly he
paused, as an opening in the woods revealed a charming view of the lake.
His spirited gray eye rested a moment on the water, with an expression
of abstracted poetical thought, familiar to those who lived with him;
then, turning to the companion at his side, he exclaimed: "I must write
one more book, dearie, about our little lake!" Again his eye rested on
the water and wooded shores with the far-seeing look of one who already
had a vision of living figures and dusky forms moving amid the quiet
scene. A moment of silence followed. Then Fenimore Cooper cracked his
whip, resumed his song, with some careless chat on incidents of the day,
and drove homeward. Not long afterward he shut himself in his library,
and the first pages of _The Deerslayer_ were written.[108]
There were perhaps many in the village who felt honored in being
neighbor to a novelist of international fame. But the general sentiment
toward Fenimore Cooper in his home town was not altogether created by
his success as a writer. It may be that the aged Miss Nancy Williams,
who lived in the house which still stands on Main Street next east of
the Second National Bank, was not alone in her estimate of this kind of
success. Her favorite seat was at a front window where she was daily
occupied in knitting, and watching all passers-by. Whenever Fenimore
Cooper passed, whom she had known as a boy, Miss Williams called out to
him: "James, why don't you stop wasting your time writing those silly
novels, and try to make something of yourself!"
[Illustration: _C. A. Schneider_
THE HOME OF NANCY WILLIAMS]
Whatever may have been the village estimate of his fame as a novelist,
there were certain personal traits in Cooper that went farther than
anything he ever wrote to fix the esteem of his fellow citizens. Among
acquaintances whom he admitted as his social equals he was universally
beloved; to these he showed all the charm and fascination of a gracious
personality and brilliant mind. The more intimately Cooper was
approached the more unreservedly he was admired, and within his own
family he was almost adored. In the humbler walks of life those who
habitually recognized Cooper as a superior had nothing to complain of.
But there were many in Cooperstown who had no warmth of feeling toward
Fenimore Cooper. They were quick to detect in him an attitude of
contemptuous superiority toward the villagers. Some of the neighbors
felt that he willingly remained a stranger to them. When he passed along
the street without seeing people who expected a greeting from him, his
friends averred that it was because his mind, abstracted from present
scenes and passers-by, was engaged in the dramatic development of some
tale of sea or forest. But those who felt snubbed by his indifference
were less charitable in their interpretation of his bearing toward them.
Cooper had been for seven years a lion in Europe, splendidly entertained
by the Princess Galitzin in Paris, where he was overwhelmed with
invitations from counts and countesses; dining at Holland House in
London with Lord and Lady Holland; a guest of honor at a ball given by a
prince in Rome; presented at the brilliant Tuscan court at Florence, for
which occasion he was decked in lace frills and ruff, with dress hat and
sword;--such incidents of his foreign life began to be mentioned to
account for Cooper's disinclination to encourage familiar acquaintance
with the villagers of Cooperstown.
Cooper himself was entirely unconscious of any arrogance in his
attitude, and when, in connection with the later controversies, it came
to his knowledge that some villagers accused him of posing as an
aristocrat in Cooperstown, he resented the imputation with some
bitterness. "In this part of the world," he said, "it is thought
aristocratic not to frequent taverns, and lounge at corners, squirting
tobacco juice."[109] Cooper was strongly democratic in his convictions,
and was so far from having been a toady during his residence in Europe
that he had made enemies in aristocratic circles abroad by his fearless
championship of republican institutions. At the same time he was
fastidiously undemocratic in many of his tastes. It is a keen
observation of Lounsbury's that Cooper "was an aristocrat in feeling,
and a democrat by conviction." His recognition of the worth of true
manhood, entirely apart from rank and social refinement, is shown in the
noble character of Leather-Stocking. Yet the manners and customs of
uncultivated people in real life were most offensive to his squeamish
taste, and much of his concern for the welfare of his countrymen had to
do with their neglect of the decencies and amenities of social
behaviour.
More than half a century after his death there were some living in
Cooperstown who frequently related their childhood memories of Fenimore
Cooper. His tendency to lecture the neighbors on their manners was
burned into the memory of a child who, as she sat on her doorstep, was
engaged with the novelist in pleasant conversation, until he spied a
ring that she was wearing upon the third finger of her left hand. This
he made the text of a solemn declaration upon the impropriety of wearing
falsely the symbol of a sacred relationship. The lesson intended was
probably sensible and wholesome, but the effect produced upon the child
was a terror of Fenimore Cooper which lasted as long as life. On the
other hand, one who was a slip of a girl at the time used afterward to
boast that Fenimore Cooper had opened a gate for her when she was riding
horseback, and stood hat in hand while she passed through.
Allowance must be made for a somewhat distorted perspective in the
impression produced by Cooper upon the memories of not a few children,
for, judging from their reminiscences, the Garden of Eden was not more
inviting than his, nor its fruits more to be desired, nor was the angel
with the flaming sword more terribly vigilant than Fenimore Cooper in
guarding the trees from unholy hands. The glimpses of the novelist most
vividly remembered by these youngsters relate to attempted invasions of
the orchard near his house, and their furious repulse by the irascible
owner, who charged upon the trespassers with loud objurgations and a
flourishing stick. One who picked a rose without permission long
remembered the "awful lecture" that Cooper gave her, and how he said,
"It is just as bad to take my flowers as to steal my money."[110]
Among the children of his own friends there was quite a different
opinion of Cooper. Elihu Phinney, who was a playmate of the novelist's
son Paul, and a frequent guest at Otsego Hall, had an intense admiration
for the author of the _Leather-Stocking Tales_, although he long
remembered a lesson in table manners, by which, on one of these visits,
his host had startled him. At dinner young Elihu passed his plate with
knife and fork upon it for a second supply, when from the head of the
table came this reprimand: "My boy, never leave your implements on the
plate. You might drop knife or fork in a lady's lap. Take them both
firmly in your left hand, and hold them until your plate is returned."
Half a century afterward Elihu Phinney declared that whatever the ruling
of etiquette might be in this matter, he had never since failed to heed
this bit of advice from Fenimore Cooper. Mrs. Stephen H. Synnott, wife
of a one-time rector of Christ Church in Cooperstown, remembered Cooper
as a genuine lover of children. She was Alice Trumbull Worthington, and
during the novelist's latter years she lived as a child in the White
House on Main Street, nearest neighbor to Otsego Hall. "To meet Fenimore
Cooper on the street in the village was always a pleasure," says Mrs.
Synnott. "His eye twinkled, his face beamed, and his cane pointed at
you with a smile and a greeting of some forthcoming humor. When I
happened to be passing the gates of the old Hall, and he and Mrs. Cooper
were driving home from his farm, I often ran to open the gate for him,
which trifling act he acknowledged with old-time courtesy. His fine
garden joined my father's, and once, being in the vicinity of the fence,
he tossed me several muskmelons to catch, which at that time were quite
rare in the village gardens."
To this same little girl, when she had sent him an appreciation of one
of his novels, Fenimore Cooper wrote a letter that certainly shows a
benignant attitude toward children. "I am so much accustomed to
newspapers," he wrote, "that their censure and their praise pass but for
little, but the attentions of a young lady of your tender years to an
old man who is old enough to be her grandfather are not so easily
overlooked.... I hope that you and I and John will have an opportunity
of visiting the blackberry bushes, next summer, in company. I now invite
you to select your party, to be composed of as many little girls, and
little boys, too, if you can find those you like, to go to my farm next
summer, and spend an hour or two in finding berries. It shall be your
party, and the invitations must go out in your name, and you must speak
to me about it, in order that I may not forget it, and you can have your
school if you like or any one else. I shall ask only one guest myself,
and that will be John,[111] who knows the road, having been there once
already."
Another child who found Fenimore Cooper a most genial friend was
Caroline A. Foote, who afterward became Mrs. G. Pomeroy Keese. She was a
frequent visitor at Otsego Hall, where the novelist made much of her,
and when she was thirteen years old he wrote some original verses in her
autograph album, at her request, concluding with these lines:
In after life, when thou shalt grow
To womanhood, and learn to feel
The tenderness the aged know
To guide their children's weal,
Then wilt thou bless with bended knee
Some smiling child as I bless thee.
Encouraged by this success, Caroline Foote afterward asked Cooper to
write some verses for her schoolmate, Julia Bryant, daughter of William
Cullen Bryant, who was a warm friend of the novelist. With his young
petitioner by his side Cooper sat at the old desk in the library of
Otsego Hall and laughingly dashed off these lines:
Charming young lady, Miss Julia by name,
Your friend, little Cally, your wishes proclaim;
Read this, and you'll soon learn to know it,
I'm not your papa the great lyric poet.
In order to understand the local controversy which divided village
sentiment concerning Fenimore Cooper, and gave rise to the long series
of libel suits, it is necessary to consider certain influences of more
remote origin.
In 1826, when Cooper began his seven years' residence in Europe, before
making his home in Cooperstown, he had become the most widely read of
American authors. No other American writer, in fact, during the
nineteenth century, enjoyed so wide a contemporary popularity. His works
appeared simultaneously in America, England, and France. They were
speedily translated into German and Italian, and in most instances soon
found their way into the other cultivated tongues of Europe.[112]
Cooper's friend Morse said that his novels were published, as soon as he
produced them, in thirty-four different places in Europe, and that they
had been seen by American travelers in the languages of Turkey and
Persia, in Constantinople, in Egypt, at Jerusalem, at Ispahan. At a
dinner given in New York in Cooper's honor, just before his departure
for Europe, Chancellor Kent, who presided, voiced the general feeling by
toasting him as the "genius which has rendered our native soil classic
ground, and given to our early history the enchantment of fiction."
Patriotism in Cooper was almost a passion, and it burned in him with new
ardor because of the misunderstanding and disparagement of America which
he encountered almost everywhere in Europe. The praise which came to him
from Europeans irritated him with its air of surprise that anything good
could be expected from America or an American. Nor did he much
ingratiate himself in British society, where, when the conversation
turned upon matters discreditable to the United States, it became his
custom to bring up other matters discreditable to Great Britain. On the
Continent he pursued much the same course, and published his first
"novels with a purpose," _The Bravo_, _The Heidenmauer_, and _The
Headsman_, the object of which was to demonstrate the superiority of
democratic institutions over the medieval inheritances of Europe. In his
introduction to _The Heidenmauer_ he wrote a sentence that stirred the
wrath of the newspaper press of his own country: "Each hour, as life
advances," he asserted, "am I made to see how capricious and vulgar is
the immortality conferred by a newspaper." This provoked at home the
retort "The press has built him up; the press shall pull him down!" He
began to be bitterly attacked in some American newspapers, which accused
him of "flouting his Americanism throughout Europe."
When Cooper returned to America in 1833 it was with a sore heart. He had
tried to set Europe right about America, and the result had been only to
arouse resentment abroad and antagonism at home. It is not surprising
that he found America much changed in seven years, and not for the
better. It had been a period of rapid growth. New men were beginning to
push the "old families" to the wall, and social rank was beginning to
wait on wealth, in utter indifference to the classifications of the
elder aristocracy. To Cooper it seemed that while America had grown in
his absence there had been a vast expansion of mediocrity. Manners were
dying out; architecture had become debased; towns were larger but more
tawdry. In these observations, although they were furiously resented at
the time, Cooper was probably correct. There was a period of about fifty
years in the nineteenth century, when, in the development of material
resources, there was a large indifference to manners in America, and a
decline in the love for beautiful things and in the power to create
them. This period of neglect toward the refinements of life set in at
just about the time of Cooper's residence abroad.
But America, in this awkward age of its youthful growth, was in no mood
either to profit by criticisms or to be indifferent to them. Cooper
began to regard the attitude of Americans as pusillanimous. They toadied
to foreign opinion, and dared not stand up for America abroad; while at
home nothing American was ever to be criticised. When he expressed the
opinion that the bay of Naples was more beautiful than the bay of New
York, or complained that the streets of New York were ill-paved and
poorly lighted as compared with those of foreign cities, he was informed
by the hushed voices of friends that it would never do. His criticisms
of America were received with deeper umbrage, as coming from an
American, than the sarcasms of Dickens which, ten years later, aroused a
tempest of indignation.
It was in these circumstances that he returned to the village of his
youth, and took up his residence at Otsego Hall, in Cooperstown. Here he
wrote the _Letter to His Countrymen_ in which he set out to answer
certain criticisms of his writings that had appeared in New York
newspapers, and, in apparent disgust, publicly announced that he had
made up his mind to abandon authorship. Into this letter he imported
some remarks upon a political controversy which was then agitating the
nation, and touched the political situation in such a way, at a time
when feeling ran high, that he succeeded in enraging the adherents of
both political parties.
A storm of newspaper abuse then fell upon Cooper. He was not the man to
realize that, in controversy, silence is sometimes the most effective
weapon. He replied to every attack. Nor did he remain on the defensive.
He began new hostilities. He abandoned his resolution to abandon
authorship. _The Monikins_, a satirical novel in which men are
burlesqued by monkeys, was published in 1835. In the ten volumes of
travel published from 1836 to 1838 he dealt out occasional criticisms of
both England and America with so impartial a hand that he drew down upon
himself the savage vituperation of the press on both sides of the
Atlantic. Then came the period during which, from being the most popular
American author, he became the most unpopular man of letters to whom the
nation has ever given birth. "For years," says Lounsbury, "a storm of
abuse fell upon him, which for violence, for virulence, and even for
malignity, surpassed anything in the history of American literature, if
not in the history of literature itself."
[Illustration: THREE-MILE POINT]
On the western shore of Otsego Lake there is a low, wooded tongue of
land which projects for a short distance into the water, and is called,
in reference to its distance from Cooperstown, Three-Mile Point. This
has been a favorite resort for picnics and other outings of villagers
since 1822. When Fenimore Cooper took up his residence in the village in
1834, after his return from Europe, he found that the free use of
Three-Mile Point by the public had given rise to the notion that it was
owned by the community. This impression he took pains to correct, saying
that while he had no desire to prevent the public from resorting to the
Point, he wished it clearly understood that it was owned by the
descendants of Judge William Cooper, of whose will he was executor. A
defiant attitude toward his claim, and the destruction of a tree at
Three-Mile Point afterward led Cooper to publish in the _Freeman's
Journal_ the following warning:
The public is warned against trespassing on the Three-Mile
Point, it being the intention of the subscriber rigidly to
enforce the title of the estate, of which he is the
representative, to the same. The public has not, nor has it
ever had any right to the same beyond what has been conceded
by the liberality of the owners. J. FENIMORE COOPER.
Immediately upon the publication of this notice, a handbill was put into
circulation, which, in sarcastic terms, called for a public meeting of
protest. "The citizens of the Village of Cooperstown," it ran, "are
requested to meet at the Inn of Isaac Lewis, in said Village, this
evening, at 7 o'clock, to take means to meet, and defend against the
arrogant pretensions of one James Fenimore Cooper, claiming title to the
'Three-Mile Point,' and denying to the citizens the right of using the
same, as they have been accustomed to from time immemorial, without
being indebted to the LIBERALITY of any one man, whether native
or foreigner."
[Illustration: THE CALL FOR THE INDIGNATION MEETING
From original printer's proof: one-half actual size.]
The meeting was held, and stirring speeches were made. A series of
resolutions was passed, following a preamble setting forth the facts as
understood by the meeting of citizens:
Resolved, By the aforesaid citizens that we will wholly
disregard the notice given by James F. Cooper, forbidding the
public to frequent the Three-Mile Point.
Resolved, That inasmuch as it is well known that the late
William Cooper intended the use of the Point in question for
the citizens of this village and its vicinity, we deem it no
more than a proper respect for the memory and intentions of
the father, that the son should recognize the claim of the
citizens to the use of the premises, even had he the power to
deny it.
Resolved, That we will hold his threat to enforce title to the
premises, as we do his whole conduct in relation to the
matter, in perfect contempt.
Resolved, That the language and conduct of Cooper, in his
attempts to procure acknowledgments of "liberality," and his
attempt to force the citizens into asking his permission to
use the premises, has been such as to render himself odious to
a greater portion of the citizens of this community.
Resolved, That we do recommend and request the trustees of the
Franklin Library, in this village, to remove all books, of
which Cooper is the author, from said library.
Resolved also, That we will and do denounce any man as
sycophant, who has, or shall, ask permission of James F.
Cooper to visit the Point in question.
It was said that the meeting resolved to take Cooper's books from the
Library and burn them at a public bonfire, but if so, this proposal did
not appear in the resolutions as finally drafted.
The actual point at issue in this controversy was soon settled. In a
letter to the _Freeman's Journal_ Cooper showed that his father's will,
drawn up in 1808, made a particular devise of Three-Mile Point. The
words of the document were explicit: "I give and bequeath my place,
called Myrtle Grove [Three-Mile Point], on the west side of the Lake
Otsego, to all my descendants in common until the year 1850; then to be
inherited by the youngest thereof bearing my name."
But the results of the controversy were far-reaching. The quarrel gave
rise to Cooper's unfortunate book _Home as Found_, to new controversies,
and to the long series of libel suits.
_Home as Found_ was intended to set forth in the course of a story the
principles involved in the dispute about Three-Mile Point. It gave the
author an opportunity also to enlarge upon his criticisms of America,
and particularly of New York City. For this purpose the story brought
upon the scene an American family long resident in Europe whom the
writer called the Effinghams. Against the vulgar background of American
life the members of this family were intended to personify all the
accomplishments of culture and social refinement.
Cooper's own attitude was astonishing in his failure to realize that in
the Effinghams he would be supposed to be representing himself and his
own family. The intimation was sufficiently obvious. The family returned
from residence abroad; the removal to the village of "Templeton," with
direct reference to _The Pioneers_; the story of the Three-Mile Point
controversy--the inference seemed to follow from the parallel that the
Effinghams were the Coopers. But Cooper's general unwillingness to
acknowledge that any of his characters were drawn from life was here
carried to the last extreme. It was evident that he was honestly
unconscious of any such inference; his purpose was to deal with
principles, not persons. When the name of Effingham was derisively
applied to him, he resented the imputation.
The controversy between Cooper and his critics had now reached a degree
of violence that was grotesque. To stand alone, as Cooper stood, against
furious assaults that represented the sentiments of nearly the whole
public was not conducive to playful moods of the spirit; yet the
controversy had its humorous side, and if the novelist had had a keen
sense of humor he would have been spared much trouble. Certain aspects
of the ludicrous appealed to Cooper, and there was a range of absurdity
within which his merriment was easily excited, as when he laughed until
the tears ran down his cheeks because his man-of-all-work thought that
boiled oil should be called "biled ile"; but his attempts to create and
sustain humorous characters, such as the singing-master in _The Last of
the Mohicans_, justify Balzac's comments on Cooper's "profound and
radical impotence for the comic." Nothing could be more comic than his
rôle of lecturer to the American people upon refinements of social usage
and manners. The many who were guilty of the vulgarities which he wished
to correct were precisely those who could not be made to see the
impropriety of them, and most fiercely resented any attempt to improve
their deportment. If Cooper had possessed an acute sense of humor he
would never have written _Home as Found_, nor would he have dignified
with a reply the attack of every scribbler who assailed him. But he took
all criticisms seriously, and felt it a solemn duty, in justice to
himself and to the principles for which he stood, to defend himself
against all and sundry. There is no doubt that in standing alone against
the whole world he believed himself to be performing a public service,
and displayed a degree of courage which is too rare not to command
extraordinary admiration. At the same time those of his friends who
described him as borne down by the weight of his sorrow at the
misunderstanding and ingratitude which he encountered had not taken the
full measure of his character. So splendid a fighter as Fenimore Cooper
usually finds some pleasure in fighting, especially if, as in his case,
he is habitually victorious. He leaped into the fray of each controversy
with such alacrity that it is difficult to avoid the belief that Cooper
was animated not only by a sense of justice, but by a joy of battle.
The occasion of the libel suits was the publication in August, 1837, in
the _Otsego Republican_, a Cooperstown newspaper, of an article copied
from the _Norwich Telegraph_, in which Cooper was roundly abused in
reference to the Three-Mile Point controversy, and to which the
_Republican_ added comments of its own, repeating the disproved
statement that the father of the novelist had reserved the Point for the
use of the inhabitants of the village. Cooper promptly notified the
editor of the _Republican_, Andrew M. Barber, that unless the statements
were retracted he would enter suit for libel. Barber refused to retract;
the suit was begun; and in May, 1839, at the final trial, the jury
returned a verdict of four hundred dollars for the plaintiff. The
editor sought to avoid the payment of the whole award, and a great
outcry was raised against Cooper because the sheriff levied upon some
money which Barber had laid away and locked up in a trunk. Cooper sued
also the _Norwich Telegraph_, and when other newspapers took the side of
their associates he entered suit promptly against any that published
libelous statements. In this way one suit led to another, until Cooper
was bringing action against the _Oneida Whig_, published at Utica; the
_Courier and Enquirer_ of New York, edited by James Watson Webb; the
_Evening Signal_ of New York, edited by Park Benjamin; the _Commercial
Advertiser_ of New York, edited by Col. William L. Stone; the _Tribune_,
edited by Horace Greeley; and the _Albany Evening Journal_, edited by
Thurlow Weed. This list includes the leading Whig journals of the time
in the State of New York, which were among the most influential in the
whole country. Col. Stone, Thurlow Weed, and Watson Webb were former
residents of Cooperstown, the two first named having each served an
apprenticeship as printer in the office of the _Freeman's Journal_. Weed
was recognized as the leader of the Whig party in the nation, and his
newspaper was correspondingly important. He was Cooper's most persistent
opponent, and in 1841 the novelist had commenced five suits against him
for various articles published in the _Evening Journal_. It is a curious
fact that Weed was noted as a bigoted admirer of his adversary's novels.
Weed himself afterward related that when about to leave Albany by
stage-coach to attend one of these trials, and inquiring at the
booksellers for some late publication to read on the journey, he was
informed that the only new book was _The Two Admirals_, which had just
been issued. "I took the book," said Weed, "and soon became so absorbed
that I had hardly any time or thought for the trial, through which the
author who charmed me was trying to push me to the wall."
The libel suits extended over the period from 1838 to 1844. Cooper acted
almost wholly as his own lawyer, and argued his own cases in court. He
was pitted against leaders of the bar in the greatest State in the
Union. He had become personally unpopular, and was engaged in an
unpopular cause. He won his verdicts from reluctant juries, but, in
nearly every case, he won. The libel law of the State of New York was
made, to a great extent, by the Fenimore Cooper cases.
To complete the story, the final disposition of Three-Mile Point, the
innocuous cause of all this controversy, must here be anticipated. In
1899 Simon Uhlman, a wealthy hop merchant, purchased a summer home on
the lakeside nearest to Three-Mile Point, and, desiring to acquire this
tongue of land for his own use, made inquiries of Samuel M. Shaw, the
veteran editor of the _Freeman's Journal_, to ascertain from whom the
purchase might be made. Shaw learned from G. Pomeroy Keese that under
the terms of Judge Cooper's will, the Point was then owned by William
Cooper of Baltimore, and hastily arranged for the purchase at a
moderate price, not for Uhlman, but for the village of Cooperstown. Thus
Uhlman lost a desirable water front, and William Cooper a big price for
his land, but the citizens of Cooperstown gained a playground, the
denial of which to their forebears had nearly caused a riot. Uhlman
afterward sold his place, Uncas Lodge, to Adolphus Busch of St. Louis.
Cooper's reputation as an author suffered from his success as a litigant
in an unpopular cause, and his prosecution of the libel suits injured
the sale of his books, not only then, but for some years after his
death. In 1844, just after Cooper had reduced the newspapers of the
State to silence, Edward Everett Hale visited Cooperstown, and says that
when he tried to buy a copy of _The Pioneers_ at a local bookseller's
the dealer coolly declared that he had never heard of the book.[113]
While public attention was engaged by the libel suits, Cooper was
occupied with much else. It was during this period that he published his
important _Naval History_, besides ten of his novels. Nor was there any
loss of interest in his various avocations, among which, in 1840, he
found time to plan and supervise extensive alterations in Christ Church,
of which he had become a vestryman in 1835. With his mind full of the
Gothic splendor of churches that he had seen in England, he set out to
beautify the village church at home. The broad windows with rounded tops
he caused to be somewhat narrowed, and pointed, in the fashion usually
described as Gothic. Traces of this change still appear in the exterior
brickwork of the church, for the outline of the original windows has
never been obliterated. To this alteration Cooper added the buttresses
all about the church, not for structural necessity, but as an
architectural embellishment. The interior he caused to be entirely
remodeled, and finished in native oak. Cooper especially prided himself
upon an oaken screen which, as his gift to the church, he erected behind
the altar. The alterations in the church are referred to in a letter
dated "Hall, Cooperstown, April 22nd, 1840" and addressed to Harmanus
Bleecker of Albany:
"I have just been revolutionizing Christ Church, Cooperstown,
not turning out a vestry, but converting its pine interior
into oak--_bona fide_ oak, and erecting a screen that I trust,
though it may have no influence on my soul, will carry my name
down to posterity. It is really a pretty thing--pure Gothic,
and is the wonder of the country round."
This screen remained in the church, with some alteration, until 1891,
when, at the time the chancel was built, it was unfortunately thrown out
and not replaced. In 1910 the remnants of the old screen were
reconstructed to fit the two archways that open into the church on
either side of the chancel, and the panels of the original work were cut
out, allowing a vista through the tracery. The screen that stands at the
left hand as one faces the chancel is almost entirely of the original
design and material.
[Illustration: THE COOPER SCREENS IN CHRIST CHURCH]
Amid his manifold interests, Fenimore Cooper at one time amused himself
in the study of the so-called occult sciences. Having advocated with
apparent enthusiasm a belief in animal magnetism and clairvoyance, he
caused public meetings to be held in the old Court House in Cooperstown,
where, evening after evening, the mysteries of hypnotism were discussed.
On one of these occasions a negro, who had proved at several meetings to
be an excellent subject, was hypnotized in the presence of the audience,
and pronounced to be both clairvoyant and insensible to pain. While
Cooper was descanting eloquently upon this strange phenomenon, the
darkey, suddenly rolling up his eyeballs, and displaying all his ivory,
sprung spasmodically into the air, and then tumbled back in his seat.
This startling interruption of the lecture remained unexplained for many
years, until Elihu Phinney, the young friend and neighbor of Fenimore
Cooper, confessed to being responsible for it. It seems that, during the
course of the lectures, Phinney had had an argument with Harvey Perkins
concerning the possibility of a truly hypnotic state, which Perkins
affirmed and Phinney denied. Perkins finally said:
"So, you won't admit that the negro is rendered insensible to pain?"
"Never, no, not for a moment," was the reply.
"Well," said Perkins, "here is a darning needle four inches long. Take
this with you to the lecture to-night, and at the first opportunity
thrust it slyly for a full inch into his thigh. If he flinches, I will
give up; if not, you will believe."
"Most assuredly," said Phinney, and it was this test which caused the
interruption of Fenimore Cooper's lecture on hypnotism.[114]
In the summer of 1843, at about eleven o'clock every morning, Fenimore
Cooper was seen coming forth from the gates of Otsego Hall escorting a
strange-looking companion. The figures of the two men offered a singular
contrast. Cooper, tall and portly, with the ruddy glow of health upon
his countenance, was swinging a light whip of a cane more ornamental
than useful, and stepped forward with a firm and elastic tread. The man
by his side was a shriveled and weather-beaten hulk, hobbling, and with
halting step pressing heavily upon a crooked stick that served for his
support. Sometimes they walked the village streets together. At other
times they came down upon the border of the lake for a sail upon its
waters in a skiff which Cooper had rigged with a lug-sail in
recollection of early Mediterranean days. Here the stranger was more at
home, for the man was Ned Myers, an old sailor who had been Cooper's
messmate on board the _Sterling_ nearly forty years before. The old
salt, who had passed a lifetime on many seas, developed a great respect
for Otsego Lake, which he found to be "a slippery place to navigate." "I
thought I had seen all sorts of winds before I saw the Otsego," he
afterward declared, "but on this lake it sometimes blew two or three
different ways at the same time."
It was a strange chance which renewed the acquaintance between Fenimore
Cooper and Ned Myers. Their ways were long separated. Myers had
continued to follow the sea, and became at last a derelict at the
"Sailor's Snug Harbor" at the port of New York. Here it was that having
read some of Cooper's sea tales it occurred to the old sailor that the
author might be the young James Cooper whom he had known aboard the
_Sterling_. Accordingly he wrote to the novelist at Cooperstown, seeking
the desired information, and received in reply a cordial letter
beginning with the words, "I am your old shipmate, Ned."
On his next visit in New York, Cooper got into touch with Myers, and
invited the old tar to spend several weeks of the summer as his guest at
Otsego Hall in Cooperstown. The novelist had much in common with Ned
Myers, for his own experience at sea was sufficient to qualify him as a
sailor. "I have been myself," said Cooper, "one of eleven hands,
officers included, to navigate a ship of three hundred tons across the
Atlantic Ocean; and, what is more, we often reefed topsails with the
watch." While in Cooperstown as the guest of the novelist the old sailor
who had shipped on seventy-two different craft, and had passed a quarter
of a century out of sight of land, spun the yarn of his experience which
Cooper wove into the story of _Ned Myers_.
It is remarkable that one whose writings evince so strong an orthodoxy
of Christian faith, with a championship of churchly doctrines too rigid
for many of his readers, did not himself become a communicant of the
Church until the last year of his life. On Sunday, July 27, 1851, Bishop
de Lancey visited Christ Church, Cooperstown, and among those to whom he
administered the sacrament of Confirmation, in the presence of a large
congregation, was his brother-in-law, James Fenimore Cooper. The
novelist's family pew was one which stood sidelong at the right of the
chancel. He had by this time become quite infirm, and the bishop, after
receiving the other candidates at the sanctuary rail, left the chancel,
and administered Confirmation to Fenimore Cooper kneeling in his own
pew.
[Illustration: _Alice Choate_
AT FENIMORE COOPER'S GRAVE]
Fenimore Cooper died less than two months later, on Sunday, September
14, 1851, aged sixty-two years lacking one day. The body lay in state at
Otsego Hall, and on Wednesday the funeral services were held in Christ
Church, the interment being made in the Cooper plot in Christ
churchyard. This grave, covered by the prostrate slab of marble marked
by a cross, and bearing an inscription that sets forth nothing beyond
the novelist's name, with dates of birth and death, has become a shrine
of literary pilgrimage. The hurried tourist is disappointed in not being
greeted by some conspicuous monument to beckon him at once to the famous
tomb; but a more genuine tribute to the novelist's memory appears when
the visitor's eye lights upon the path leading from the gate of the
enclosure, and deeply worn in the sod by the feet of wayfarers in many a
long journey, through the years, to Cooper's grave.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 102: _James Fenimore Cooper_, by Mary E. Phillips, p. 262.]
[Footnote 103: In 1826 he applied to the legislature to change his name
to James Cooper Fenimore, since there were no men of his mother's family
to continue the name. The request was not granted, but the change was
made to James Fenimore-Cooper. He soon dropped the hyphen.]
[Footnote 104: Now in the hall at Fynmere, the home built in Cooperstown
by the novelist's grandson, James Fenimore Cooper of Albany.]
[Footnote 105: _James Fenimore Cooper_, by Thomas R. Lounsbury, American
Men of Letters series, p. 80.]
[Footnote 106: Now at Fynmere.]
[Footnote 107: Now at Edgewater.]
[Footnote 108: _Pages and Pictures_, Susan Fenimore Cooper, p. 322.]
[Footnote 109: _James Fenimore Cooper_, W. B. Shubrick Clymer, p. 90.]
[Footnote 110: Livermore, p. 204.]
[Footnote 111: John Worthington, afterward United States Consul in
Malta.]
[Footnote 112: Lounsbury.]
[Footnote 113: Cooperstown Centennial Book, p. 133.]
[Footnote 114: _Reminiscences_, Elihu Phinney, 1890.]