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By Root 1046 0

tells the story, in a softened and rosy-hued version, of the founding of Cooperstown (called Templeton in the novel) and the events of its early history. Judge Marmaduke Temple, the town founder and a thinly disguised version of Cooper’s father, is pictured as a remote figure whose ways clash with the republicanism of the new America. Part of the Cooper mythology is that young James ran away to sea as a common sailor in 1806 in defiance of his father’s wishes. The truth is less romantic. Though James’s father may have had some misgivings about his son’s interest in a naval career, William Cooper arranged for the sea journey to prepare James for taking up a career as a naval officer (see Taylor, William Cooper’s Town, pp. 338-345). Cooper spent a year sailing to England and the Mediterranean on the merchant ship Stirling, being chased at one stage by a pirate ship. On January 1, 1808, Cooper received his midshipman’s warrant signed by President Thomas Jefferson, and was first sent to Lake Ontario and subsequently stationed in New York City

When James’s father died in October 1809, he inherited $50,000 in cash and a share in Judge Cooper’s extensive estate, initially valued at $750,000. At eighteen, Cooper was a rich, handsome, and energetic young man and a highly desirable marriage prospect. In the following year he met Susan De Lancey at a ball in New York City; he married her on January 1, 1811. She was an heiress and the daughter of socially prominent parents with a distinguished family lineage, and Cooper thus repeated the experience of his father in marrying into a higher social class. In this case, however, the match seemed to offer advantages to both sides. The De Lanceys, a Loyalist family, had lost much of their property under the New York State Confiscation Act of October 22, 1779. Cooper’s wealth put him among the very well off and brought advantages to his in-laws. Susan had inherited wealth of her own from her mother’s side of the family, so the couple seemed doubly assured of a comfortable future. She evidently extracted a promise from him to give up his naval career.

Extravagant spending of his own cash inheritance and the mismanagement of his father’s affairs by his elder brothers, plus the impact of the War of 1812 on real estate values, brought an unraveling of Cooper’s financial situation and the beginnings of the money problems that dogged him for years. But the financial decline was a slow process, and the family continued to live in a genteel style. The couple moved back and forth between Westchester County and Cooperstown, with Cooper acting as a gentleman farmer. He founded a bible and an agricultural society, and also served as an aide-de-camp to his friend Governor DeWitt Clinton with the rank of colonel. Later he became quartermaster and then paymaster of the Fourth Infantry Division of New York State, where he was resplendent at reviews in a blue and buff uniform, astride his charger Bullhead, wearing a cocked hat. It is likely that, but for the mounting financial problems, Cooper would have lived out his life as a country gentleman, surrounded by his loving wife and family, and benevolently engaged in civic activities and in the public life of his county and state.

Financial pressures caused an estrangement from the De Lancey family in 1818 when Susan’s brothers, afraid Cooper might mortgage or sell the property, changed the legal status of their sister’s Scarsdale farm, where Susan and James and their children were then living, to remove it from Cooper’s control. Cooper broke off relations with the De Lanceys as a result and moved his family to New York City. He tried a number of business ventures, including buying a whaling ship and sending it off on a South American voyage to harvest whale oil. Through this venture he gained an intimate knowledge of the whaling business that showed up in his seafaring novels. All of Cooper’s business ventures, however, proved to be fruitless, and probably worsened his financial situation. He was not a good businessman.

The story of how Cooper turned to