Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 July 1902 — ONE GREAT NOVELIST. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ONE GREAT NOVELIST.

VARYING CAREER OF JAMES FENNIMORE COOPER. Un promising Youth of This Recognized Genins—Hie Long-Dormant PowersChan ge from Popularity to Unpopu- ■ ■larity-Foremost Amerlcan Novellst.

James Fennimore Cooper, the dean of American novelists, holds a position in our native literature at once

unique and distinctive. It matters •but little now that ds literary genius should have remained d o r m a nt for so long a time as a diamond in the rough before iccident chipped off the crude exterior, disclosing the bril-

JAMES V. coofeb. liancy within. It is of small Importance that his early life, spent in aimless pursuits, was wholly without promise of future achievements, and soon but a regrettable memory will also be the fact that during the last few years of his life through misunderstandings and misrepresentations his breast was filled with feelings of deep rancor toward men who should have been his friends and who in turn denounced both him and the products of his pen. These circumstances, the inevitable contradictory accompaniments of recognized ability, have waned indistinctly into a hazy background, against which stands boldly the undisputed truth that the author of “The Spy and The Pilot” is justly worthy of all praise that has been or may be accorded him. The life of this varying popular and unpopular author had Its' beginning September 15, 1789, at Burlington, N. J. His parents were both of Quaker extraction. Soon after the close of the Revolutionary war the Cooper family established a household within the borders of New York State near the headwaters of the Susquehanna River. They encouraged the populating of this vicinity and subsequently laid out the site of Cooperstown. The Cooper family decided to make their permanent home in the town founded by them and in 1799 completed the erection of a spacious manor house, known as Otsego Hall, which-was for many years the most commodious and stately private residence in central New York. To every reader that has been charmed with the spell of Cooper’s Indian romances, the surroundings of his boyhood days are significant. During those years the foremost pioneers of emigration had barely begun to push their way westward through the Mohawk Valley, the first available highway to the west. Out of the forest that bordered Otsego Lake Indians came for barter, or possibly with hostile intent, and from these no doubt Cooper drew

(His tomb and that of his wife in Christ Church Cemetery, Cooperstown.)

the portraits of the red men who live in his pages. Such wild surroundings could not but stimulate a naturally active Imagination and the influence of the wilderness, augmented afterwards by the somewhat similar Influence of the sea, pervaded bls entire life. From a private tutor he received ,his earliest education and at the age of 13 entered the freshman class of Yale College. According to bis own account, he learned but little at college. His love of out-of-doors freedom led him to neglect his books and he roamed about and explored the nigged hills northward of New Haven and the equally picturesque I shores of Long Island Sound. Gradually he became wilder and more persistent in his defiance of academic restraints and was finally expelled. Upon leaving his studies the love of activity and adventure laid hold on the youth and he decided to take up the life of a seaman. In 180 Che made his first voyage as a sailor before the mast on the ship Sterling, sailing from New York with a cargo of flour for foreign markets. After this be served for a time as midshipman on the Vesuvius and was later ordered to Oswego* N. Y., with a construction party to build a brig for service on Lake Ontario. Then he was given charge of the gunboat flotilla on Lake Champlain and was subsequently ordered to the Wasp. In ISII he married a daughter of John DeLancey, of Westchester County, N. Y., and resigned bls position in the navy to settle into a quiet, domestic life. In deference to his wife's wishes be built his home hi Westchester County on what was known as the Angevlne farm In the town of Scarsdale, In which locality many stirring events of the Revolution had taken place. The Impressions gained from the historic associations surrounding him here were of Inestimable value to him In the descriptive coloring of "The Spy." There still remains standing near Scarsdale the ruins of a chimney once within the Dlsbrow House, wherein the original of Cooper's Harvey Birch Is said to have successfully hid from bls pursuers. At 30 years of age James Fennimore Cooper was following a quiet, commonplace existence, and no thought of a literary life had as yet entered his mind. One day while reading an English novel to bis wife be half-jestingly

remarked: “I believe I could write fl better story myself.” His wife was sure that he could and so encouraged the idea that he made the attempt His initial work was “Precaution,” a novel in two volumes, published anonymously in an inferior manner during the year 1820. This first novel was in no respects a sample of the author’s talent It dealt with high life in Enwas personally unfamiliar, save through the pages of fiction, and while the venture can hardly be said to have enabled him to taste of the sweets of authorship, it had the effect of stimulating the desire to write. Its modes* success caused his friends to urge hlrl upon some more familiar theme, and remembering an interesting tale of fl spy that he had heard some years be fore from the lips of John Jay, be set about putting it into a story. “The Spy” was the result and during the winter of 1821-22 the American public awoke to the fact that it possessed a novelist of its own, and the immediate success of the book, which was unprecedented at the time in the annals of American literature, determined Cooper’s future career. The next five years witnessed tfie

(Chimney of the Dlsbrow House In Mamaroneck, which was the hiding place of Harvey Birch, a character In Cooper's The Spy.)

publication of some of bls best works, among them being “The Pioneers,” “The Pilot,” and “Lionel Lincoln.” In 1826 his popularity had attained Its zenith with the publication of “The Last of the Mohicans.” But with fame came envy and uncharitableness from his contemporaries at home and abroad. English reviewers claimed him as a native, fixing his birthplace in the Isle of Man, and denounced him as a renegade. Naturally of a head-strong and combative disposition, he resented the accusations and insinuations thrust upon him and in so doing could not help but give offense to a large class. His self-assertive manner made him enemies among men who could not understand his nature. He made frequent visits to England, during which his company was sought by the most distinguished men of the time, and during one of these visits he was unwillingly brought into a controversy aver the economy and efliciency of the United States government. His utterances on this subject were misconstrued and his published letters brought forth what now seems an altogether unexplainable bitterness against their author. As one of the most successful of authors, Cooper’s fame is assured. His libel suits and controversies are forgotten, bls offensive criticisms are seldom read, and he is remembered only as the most brilliajat and successful of American novelists.

WHERE COOPER SLEEPS.

A RELIC THAT RECALLS COCPER.