INTRODUCTION

The Pioneers

by James F. Cooper

INTRODUCTION, THE PIONEERS by James F. Cooper
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As this work professes, in its title-page, to be a descriptive tale,
they who will take the trouble to read it may be glad to know how much
of its contents is literal fact, and how much is intended to represent
a general picture. The author is very sensible that, had he confined
himself to the latter, always the most effective, as it is the most
valuable, mode of conveying knowledge of this nature, he would have
made a far better book. But in commencing to describe scenes, and
perhaps he may add characters, that were so familiar to his own youth,
there was a constant temptation to delineate that which he had known,
rather than that which he might have imagined. This rigid adhesion to
truth, an indispensable requisite in history and travels, destroys the
charm of fiction; for all that is necessary to be conveyed to the mind
by the latter had better be done by delineations of principles, and of
characters in their classes, than by a too fastidious attention to
originals.

New York having but one county of Otsego, and the Susquehanna but one
proper source, there can be no mistake as to the site of the tale.
The history of this district of country, so far as it is connected
with civilized men, is soon told.

Otsego, in common with most of the interior of the province of New
York, was included in the county of Albany previously to the war of
the separation. It then became, in a subsequent division of
territory, a part of Montgomery; and finally, having obtained a
sufficient population of its own, it was set apart as a county by
itself shortly after the peace of 1783. It lies among those low spurs
of the Alleghanies which cover the midland counties of New York, and
it is a little east of a meridional line drawn through the centre of
the State. As the waters of New York flow either southerly into the
Atlantic or northerly into Ontario and its outlet, Otsego Lake, being
the source of the Susquehanna, is of necessity among its highest
lands. The face of the country, the climate as it was found by the
whites, and the manners of the settlers, are described with a
minuteness for which the author has no other apology than the force of
his own recollections.

Otsego is said to be a word compounded of Ot, a place of meeting, and
Sego, or Sago, the ordinary term of salutation used by the Indians of
this region. There is a tradition which says that the neighboring
tribes were accustomed to meet on the banks of the lake to make their
treaties, and otherwise to strengthen their alliances, and which
refers the name to this practice. As the Indian agent of New York had
a log dwelling at the foot of the lake, however, it is not impossible
that the appellation grew out of the meetings that were held at his
council fires; the war drove off the agent, in common with the other
officers of the crown; and his rude dwelling was soon abandoned. The
author remembers it, a few years later, reduced to the humble office
of a smoke-house.

In 1779 an expedition was sent against the hostile Indians, who dwelt
about a hundred miles west of Otsego, on the banks of the Cayuga. The
whole country was then a wilderness, and it was necessary to transport
the bag gage of the troops by means of the rivers—a devious but
practicable route. One brigade ascended the Mohawk until it reached
the point nearest to the sources of the Susquehanna, whence it cut a
lane through the forest to the head of the Otsego. The boats and
baggage were carried over this “portage,” and the troops proceeded to
the other extremity of the lake, where they disembarked and encamped.
The Susquehanna, a narrow though rapid stream at its source, was much
filled with “flood wood,” or fallen trees; and the troops adopted a
novel expedient to facilitate their passage. The Otsego is about nine
miles in length, varying in breadth from half a mile to a mile and a
half. The water is of great depth, limpid, and supplied from a
thousand springs. At its foot the banks are rather less than thirty
feet high the remainder of its margin being in mountains, intervals,
and points. The outlet, or the Susquehanna, flows through a gorge in
the low banks just mentioned, which may have a width of two hundred
feet. This gorge was dammed and the waters of the lake collected: the
Susquehanna was converted into a rill.

When all was ready the troops embarked, the damn was knocked away, the
Otsego poured out its torrent, and the boats went merrily down with
the current.

General James Clinton, the brother of George Clinton, then governor of
New York, and the father of De Witt Clinton, who died governor of the
same State in 1827, commanded the brigade employed on this duty.
During the stay of the troops at the foot of the Otsego a soldier was
shot for desertion. The grave of this unfortunate man was the first
place of human interment that the author ever beheld, as the smoke-
house was the first ruin! The swivel alluded to in this work was
buried and abandoned by the troops on this occasion, and it was
subsequently found in digging the cellars of the authors paternal
residence.

Soon after the close of the war, Washington, accompanied by many
distinguished men, visited the scene of this tale, it is said with a
view to examine the facilities for opening a communication by water
with other points of the country. He stayed but a few hours.

In 1785 the author’s father, who had an interest in extensive tracts
of land in this wilderness, arrived with a party of surveyors. The
manner in which the scene met his eye is described by Judge Temple.
At the commencement of the following year the settlement began; and
from that time to this the country has continued to flourish. It is a
singular feature in American life that at the beginning of this
century, when the proprietor of the estate had occasion for settlers
on a new settlement and in a remote county, he was enabled to draw
them from among the increase of the former colony.

Although the settlement of this part of Otsego a little preceded the
birth of the author, it was not sufficiently advanced to render it
desirable that an event so important to himself should take place in
the wilderness. Perhaps his mother had a reasonable distrust of the
practice of Dr Todd, who must then have been in the novitiate of his
experimental acquirements. Be that as it may, the author was brought
an infant into this valley, and all his first impressions were here
obtained. He has inhabited it ever since, at intervals; and he thinks
he can answer for the faithfulness of the picture he has drawn.
Otsego has now become one of the most populous districts of New York.
It sends forth its emigrants like any other old region, and it is
pregnant with industry and enterprise. Its manufacturers are
prosperous, and it is worthy of remark that one of the most ingenious
machines known in European art is derived from the keen ingenuity
which is exercised in this remote region.

In order to prevent mistake, it may be well to say that the incidents
of this tale are purely a fiction. The literal facts are chiefly
connected with the natural and artificial objects and the customs of
the inhabitants. Thus the academy, and court-house, and jail, and
inn, and most similar things, are tolerably exact. They have all,
long since, given place to other buildings of a more pretending
character. There is also some liberty taken with the truth in the
description of the principal dwelling; the real building had no
“firstly” and “lastly.” It was of bricks, and not of stone; and its
roof exhibited none of the peculiar beauties of the “composite order.”
It was erected in an age too primitive for that ambitious school of
architecture. But the author indulged his recollections freely when
he had fairly entered the door. Here all is literal, even to the
severed arm of Wolfe, and the urn which held the ashes of Queen Dido.*

* Though forests still crown the mountains of Otsego, the bear, the
wolf, and the panther are nearly strangers to them. Even the innocent
deer is rarely seen bounding beneath their arches; for the rifle and
the activity of the settlers hare driven them to other haunts. To
this change (which in some particulars is melancholy to one who knew
the country in its infancy), it may be added that the Otsego is
beginning to be a niggard of its treasures.

The author has elsewhere said that the character of Leather-Stocking
is a creation, rendered probable by such auxiliaries as were necessary
to produce that effect. Had he drawn still more upon fancy, the
lovers of fiction would not have so much cause for their objections to
his work. Still, the picture would not have been in the least true
without some substitutes for most of the other personages. The great
proprietor resident on his lands, and giving his name to instead of
receiving it from his estates as in Europe, is common over the whole
of New York. The physician with his theory, rather obtained from than
corrected by experiments on the human constitution; the pious, self-
denying, laborious, and ill-paid missionary; the half-educated,
litigious, envious, and disreputable lawyer, with his counterpoise, a
brother of the profession, of better origin and of better character;
the shiftless, bargaining, discontented seller of his “betterments;”
the plausible carpenter, and most of the others, are more familiar to
all who have ever dwelt in a new country.

It may be well to say here, a little more explicitly, that there was
no real intention to describe with particular accuracy any real
characters in this book. It has been often said, and in published
statements, that the heroine of this book was drawn after the sister
of the writer, who was killed by a fall from a horse now near half a
century since. So ingenious is conjecture that a personal resemblance
has been discovered between the fictitious character and the deceased
relative! It is scarcely possible to describe two females of the same
class in life who would be less alike, personally, than Elizabeth
Temple and the sister of the author who met with the deplorable fate
mentioned. In a word, they were as unlike in this respect as in
history, character, and fortunes.

Circumstances rendered this sister singularly dear to the author.
After a lapse of half a century, he is writing this paragraph with a
pain that would induce him to cancel it, were it not still more
painful to have it believed that one whom he regarded with a reverence
that surpassed the love of a brother was converted by him into the
heroine of a work of fiction.

From circumstances which, after this Introduction, will be obvious to
all, the author has had more pleasure in writing “The Pioneers” than
the book will probably ever give any of its readers. He is quite
aware of its numerous faults, some of which he has endeavored to
repair in this edition; but as he has—in intention, at least—done his
full share in amusing the world, he trusts to its good-nature for
overlooking this attempt to please himself.