either in magazines
or cyclopaedias, are not only unsatisfactory on account of their
incompleteness, but are all in greater or less degree untrustworthy in
their details.

It is a necessary result of this dying injunction that the direct and
authoritative sources of information contained in family papers are
closed to the biographer. Still it is believed that no facts of
importance in the record of an eventful and extraordinary career have
been omitted or have even been passed over slightingly. A large part
of the matter contained in this volume has never been given to the
public in any form: and for that reason among others no pains have
been spared to make this narrative absolutely accurate, so far as it
goes. Correction of any errors, if such are found, will be gratefully
welcomed.

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. (p. 001)

Chapter I.

1789-1820.

In one of the interior counties of New York, less than one hundred and
fifty miles in a direct line from the commercial capital of the Union,
lies the village of Cooperstown. The place is not and probably never
will be an important one; but in its situation and surroundings nature
has given it much that wealth cannot furnish or art create. It stands
on the southeastern shore of Otsego Lake, just at the point where the
Susquehanna pours out from it on its long journey to the Chesapeake.
The river runs here in a rapid current through a narrow valley, shut
in by parallel ranges of lofty hills. The lake, not more than nine
miles in length, is twelve hundred feet above tide-water. Low and
wooded points of land and sweeping bays give to its shores the
attraction of continuous diversity. About it, on every side, stand
hills, which slope gradually or rise sharply to heights varying from
two to five hundred feet. Lake, forest, and stream unite to form a
scene of quiet but picturesque beauty, that hardly needs the
additional charm of romantic association which has been imparted to
it.

Though it was here that the days of Cooper's childhood were (p. 002)
passed, it was not here that he was born. When that event took place
the village had hardly even an existence on paper. Cooper's father, a
resident of Burlington, New Jersey, had come, shortly after the close
of the Revolutionary War, into the possession of vast tracts of land,
embracing many thousands of acres, along the head-waters of the
Susquehanna. In 1786 he began