Cooperstown is a village in and the county seat of Otsego County, New York, United States. Most of the village lies within the town of Otsego, but some of the eastern part is in the town of Middlefield. Located at the foot of Otsego Lake in the Central New York Region, Cooperstown is approximately 60 miles west of Albany, 67 mi (108 km) southeast of Syracuse and 145 mi (233 km) northwest of New York City. The population of the village was 1,794 as of the 2020 census.
James Fenimore Cooper was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonial and indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought him fame and fortune. He lived much of his boyhood and his last fifteen years in Cooperstown, New York, which was founded by his father William Cooper on property that he owned. Cooper became a member of the Episcopal Church shortly before his death and contributed generously to it. He attended Yale University for three years, where he was a member of the Linonian Society.
Otsego Lake is a 4,046-acre (16.37 km2) lake located in Otsego County in the U.S. state of New York. It is the source of the Susquehanna River and largest lake in Otsego County. The Village of Cooperstown is located at the lake's southern end. Glimmerglass State Park is located on the lake's northeastern shore, and includes Hyde Hall, a large mansion constructed in 1817, that overlooks the lake. The Glimmerglass Opera, opened in June 1987, is located on the western shore.
The Leatherstocking Tales is a series of five novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper, set in the eighteenth-century era of development in the primarily former Iroquois areas in central New York. Each novel features Natty Bumppo, a frontiersman known to European-American settlers as "Leatherstocking", "The Pathfinder", and "the trapper". Native Americans call him "Deerslayer", "La Longue Carabine", and "Hawkeye".
The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale is a historical novel by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. It was the first of five novels published which became known as the Leatherstocking Tales. Published in 1823, The Pioneers is the fourth novel in terms of the chronology of the novels' plots.
Chingachgook is a fictional character in four of James Fenimore Cooper's five Leatherstocking Tales, including his 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans. Chingachgook was a lone Mohican chief and companion of the series' hero, Natty Bumppo. In The Deerslayer, Chingachgook married Wah-ta-Wah, who had a son with him named Uncas, but died while she was still young. Uncas, who was at his birth "last of the Mohicans", grew to manhood but was killed in a battle with the Huron warrior Magua. Chingachgook died as an old man in the novel The Pioneers, which makes him the actual "last of the Mohicans," having outlived his son.
David Shipman is generally considered to be the real-life inspiration for James Fenimore Cooper's character Natty Bumppo in the Leatherstocking Tales along with a pioneer man named Thomas Leffingwell, a co-founder of Norwich, CT, whose son founded the Leffingwell Inn, now a museum. When Cooper's father Judge William Cooper settled in what is now Otsego County, New York in the mid-1780s, Shipman lived alone in a small cabin in the hills south of the village of Cooperstown, a squatter on the land of Cooper's neighbor John Christopher Hartwick.
The Deerslayer, or The First War-Path (1841) was James Fenimore Cooper's last novel in his Leatherstocking Tales. Its 1740–1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically and in the lifetime of the hero of the Leatherstocking tales, Natty Bumppo. The novel's setting on Otsego Lake in central, upstate New York, is the same as that of The Pioneers, the first of the Leatherstocking Tales to be published (1823). The Deerslayer is considered to be the prequel to the rest of the series. Fenimore Cooper begins his work by relating the astonishing advance of civilization in New York State, which is the setting of four of his five Leatherstocking Tales.
The Prairie: A Tale (1827) is a novel by James Fenimore Cooper, the third novel written by him featuring Natty Bumppo. His fictitious frontier hero Bumppo is never called by his name, but is instead referred to as "the trapper" or "the old man". Chronologically The Prairie is the fifth and final installment of the Leatherstocking Tales, though it was published before The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841). It depicts Natty in the final year of his life, still proving helpful to people in distress on the American frontier. The book frequently references characters and events from the two books previously published in the Leatherstocking Tales as well as the two which Cooper would not write for more than ten years. Continuity with The Last of the Mohicans is indicated by the appearance of the grandson of Duncan and Alice Heyward, as well as the noble Pawnee chief Hard Heart, whose name is English for the French nickname for the Delaware, le Coeur-dur.
Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo is a fictional character and the protagonist of James Fenimore Cooper's pentalogy of novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales.
Lauren Groff is an American novelist and short story writer. She has written five novels and two short story collections, including Fates and Furies (2015), Florida (2018), Matrix (2022), and The Vaster Wilds (2023).
Delicate Edible Birds is a short story collection written by Lauren Groff. Groff was born and raised in Cooperstown, New York, home of American writers James Fenimore Cooper and W.W. Lord. Several of the stories take place in Upstate New York. Groff is also the author of the best-selling novel The Monsters of Templeton.
The Spy: a Tale of the Neutral Ground is a novel by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. His second novel, it was published in 1821 by Wiley & Halsted. The plot is set during the American Revolution and was inspired in part by the family friend John Jay. The Spy was successful and began Cooper's reputation as a popular and important American writer.
Afloat and Ashore is a nautical fiction novel by James Fenimore Cooper first published in 1844. Set in 1796–1804, the novel follows the maritime adventures of Miles Wallingford Jr., the son of wealthy New York landowners who chooses to go to sea after the death of his parents. The novel ends abruptly part way through, and is followed by what critic Harold D. Langely called a "necessary" sequel which resolves many thematic and plot elements. The novel is partially autobiographical, based in part on Cooper's own experiences as a sailor, and is his first full-length novel to fully employ a first-person narrative.
Mercedes of Castile; or, The Voyage to Cathay is an 1840 historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper. The novel is set in 15th-century Europe, and follows the preparations and expedition of Christopher Columbus westward to the new world.
The Monikins is an 1835 novel, written by James Fenimore Cooper. The novel, a beast fable, was written between his composition of two of his more famous novels from the Leatherstocking Tales, The Prairie and The Pathfinder. The critic Christina Starobin compares the novel's plot to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. The novel is a satire, narrated by the main character, the English Sir John Goldencalf. Goldencalf and the American captain Noah Poke travel on a series of humorous adventures to an Antarctic archipelago inhabited by a race of civilized monkeys.
Satanstoe is an 1845 novel by the early American novelist James Fenimore Cooper. The novel, sometimes listed with the alternate title The Family of Littlepage or The Littlepage Manuscripts, is the first of a three novel cycle, followed by The Chainbearer and The Redskins. The novel is a fictional autobiography which explores the 18th century colony of New York.
Wyandotté is a historical novel published by James Fenimore Cooper in 1843. The novel is set in New York state during the American Revolution. The main character of the novel is an Indian, "Saucy Nick", also called Wyandotté, whose depictions violate stereotypes of Native Americans.
Leatherstocking Creek is a small creek in central Otsego County, New York. It begins northwest of Pierstown and flows southeast then south before flowing into Otsego Lake north of Cooperstown, and just south of Three Mile Point.
Home as Found (1838) is a novel written by James Fenimore Cooper. It takes place in the fictional town of Templeton, which is modeled after the village of Cooperstown. In the novel the Effingham family moves back to Templeton from New York City.
