general
in the Continental army, and a trusted agent of Washington. The outbreak
of hostilities in 1776 had found John Campbell a prosperous merchant and
owner of real estate in New York city. He at once lent to the
Revolutionary government eleven hundred guineas,--the whole of his ready
money,--entered the service, was made deputy quartermaster-general, and
was directed to superintend the hasty evacuation of the city by the Whig
inhabitants, and to protect them and their property as far as possible.
Lingering too long to assist some of the laggards, he was captured by
the forces landed from the British fleet, but was subsequently released;
and he made a temporary home at Fishkill while actively engaged in
establishing the lines by which the British army, though holding the
city and commanding its access to the sea, was practically besieged.
General Campbell served throughout the war, and after hostilities had
ceased commanded the troops at West Point until they were finally
disbanded in 1785.

It is easy to imagine how the young lieutenant and the daughter of the
commander who must have been frequently brought into personal relations
with him may have met and loved and wedded in the midst of those
troublous times, but the romance would have no special bearing on this
history. It is enough to say that by this marriage the best blood of
England and Scotland--of servants of God and lovers of freedom--was
blended in the nine children, seven sons and two daughters, of whom
Peter Cooper--born February 12, 1791, in Little Dock (now Water) Street,
New York--was the fifth.

John Cooper was not characteristically a seer of visions or a dreamer of
dreams. On the contrary, the accounts of him which have come down to us
describe him as a stalwart athlete, who "could lift a barrel of cider
from the ground and put it in a wagon," and who once, being cornered and
attacked by a bull, seized the animal's nose with one hand and so
battered its head with a stone that it was glad to turn and fly. Yet he
came of a race that believed in Divine guidance; and on one occasion at
least he acted upon that belief in a matter then deemed more important,
perhaps, than now. The incident can be given best in the words of Peter
Cooper himself, who wrote:--

"My father used to tell me how he came to call me Peter. When I was born
he became strongly impressed with the idea that I would some day have
more than ordinary fame, and what name he should giv