A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

W. M. Thackeray - "Some Roundabout Papers"

L. Frank Baum - "The Road to Oz"

William Sharp - ""

Charles Dickens - "A Child's History of England"

The Pioneers

J >> James Fenimore Cooper >> The Pioneers



Prepared by Gary Rezny,
garez@netzero.net





THE PIONEERS

Or, The Sources of the Susquehanna


A Descriptive Tale


By J. FENIMORE COOPER




INTRODUCTION



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.




CHAPTER I.



“See, Winter comes, to rule the varied years,
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train;
Vapors, and clouds, and storms.”—Thomson.

Near the centre of the State of New York lies an extensive district of
country whose surface is a succession of hills and dales, or, to speak
with greater deference to geographical definitions, of mountains and
valleys. It is among these hills that the Delaware takes its rise;
and flowing from the limpid lakes and thousand springs of this region
the numerous sources of the Susquehanna meander through the valleys
until, uniting their streams, they form one of the proudest rivers of
the United States. The mountains are generally arable to the tops,
although instances are not wanting where the sides are jutted with
rocks that aid greatly in giving to the country that romantic and
picturesque character which it so eminently possesses. The vales are
narrow, rich, and cultivated, with a stream uniformly winding through
each. Beautiful and thriving villages are found interspersed along
the margins of the small lakes, or situated at those points of the
streams which are favorable for manufacturing; and neat and
comfortable farms, with every indication of wealth about them, are
scattered profusely through the vales, and even to the mountain tops.
Roads diverge in every direction from the even and graceful bottoms of
the valleys to the most rugged and intricate passes of the hills.
Academies and minor edifices of learning meet the eye of the stranger
at every few miles as be winds his way through this uneven territory,
and places for the worship of God abound with that frequency which
characterize a moral and reflecting people, and with that variety of
exterior and canonical government which flows from unfettered liberty
of conscience. In short, the whole district is hourly exhibiting how
much can be done, in even a rugged country and with a severe climate,
under the dominion of mild laws, and where every man feels a direct
interest in the prosperity of a commonwealth of which he knows himself
to form a part. The expedients of the pioneers who first broke ground
in the settlement of this country are succeeded by the permanent
improvements of the yeoman who intends to leave his remains to moulder
under the sod which he tills, or perhaps of the son, who, born in the
land, piously wishes to linger around the grave of his father. Only
forty years * have passed since this territory was a wilderness.

* Our tale begins in 1793, about seven years after the commencement of
one of the earliest of those settlements which have conduced to effect
that magical change in the power and condition of the State to which
we have alluded.

Very soon after the establishment of the independence of the States by
the peace of 1783, the enterprise of their citizens was directed to a
development of the natural ad vantages of their widely extended
dominions. Before the war of the Revolution, the inhabited parts of
the colony of New York were limited to less than a tenth of its
possessions, A narrow belt of country, extending for a short distance
on either side of the Hudson, with a similar occupation of fifty miles
on the banks of the Mohawk, together with the islands of Nassau and
Staten, and a few insulated settlements on chosen land along the
margins of streams, composed the country, which was then inhabited by
less than two hundred thousand souls. Within the short period we have
mentioned, the population has spread itself over five degrees of
latitude and seven of longitude, and has swelled to a million and a
half of inhabitants, who are maintained in abundance, and can look
forward to ages before the evil day must arrive when their possessions
shall become unequal to their wants.

It was near the setting of the sun, on a clear, cold day in December,
when a sleigh was moving slowly up one of the mountains in the
district we have described. The day had been fine for the season, and
but two or three large clouds, whose color seemed brightened by the
light reflected from the mass of snow that covered the earth, floated
in a sky of the purest blue. The road wound along the brow of a
precipice, and on one side was upheld by a foundation of logs piled
one upon the other, while a narrow excavation in the mountain in the
opposite direction had made a passage of sufficient width for the
ordinary travelling of that day. But logs, excavation, and every
thing that did not reach several feet above the earth lay alike buried
beneath the snow. A single track, barely wide enough to receive the
sleigh, * denoted the route of the highway, and this was sunk nearly
two feet below the surrounding surface.

* Sleigh is the word used in every part of the United States to denote
a traineau. It is of local use in the west of England, whence it is
most probably derived by the Americans. The latter draw a distinction
between a sled, or sledge, and a sleigh, the sleigh being shod with
metal. Sleighs are also subdivided into two - horse and one-horse
sleighs. Of the latter, there are the cutter, with thills so arranged
as to permit the horse to travel in the side track; the “pung,” or
“tow-pung” which is driven with a pole; and the “gumper,” a rude
construction used for temporary purposes in the new countries. Many
of the American sleighs are elegant though the use of this mode of
conveyance is much lessened with the melioration of the climate
consequent to the clearing of the forests.

In the vale, which lay at a distance of several hundred feet lower,
there was what, in the language of the country, was called a clearing,
and all the usual improvements of a new settlement; these even
extended up the hill to the point where the road turned short and ran
across the level land, which lay on the summit of the mountain; but
the summit itself remained in the forest. There was glittering in the
atmosphere, as if it was filled with innumerable shining particles;
and the noble bay horses that drew the sleigh were covered, in many
parts with a coat of hoar-frost. The vapor from their nostrils was
seen to issue like smoke; and every object in the view, as well as
every arrangement of the travellers, denoted the depth of a winter in
the mountains. The harness, which was of a deep, dull black,
differing from the glossy varnishing of the present day, was
ornamented with enormous plates and buckles of brass, that shone like
gold in those transient beams of the sun which found their way
obliquely through the tops of the trees. Huge saddles, studded with
nails and fitted with cloth that served as blankets to the shoulders
of the cattle, supported four high, square-topped turrets, through
which the stout reins led from the mouths of the horses to the hands
of the driver, who was a negro, of apparently twenty years of age.
His face, which nature had colored with a glistening black, was now
mottled with the cold, and his large shining eyes filled with tears; a
tribute to its power that the keen frosts of those regions always
extracted from one of his African origin. Still, there was a smiling
expression of good-humor in his happy countenance, that was created by
the thoughts of home and a Christmas fireside, with its Christmas
frolics. The sleigh was one of those large, comfortable, old-
fashioned conveyances, which would admit a whole family within its
bosom, but which now contained only two passengers besides the driver.
The color of its outside was a modest green, and that of its inside a
fiery red, The latter was intended to convey the idea of heat in that
cold climate. Large buffalo-skins trimmed around the edges with red
cloth cut into festoons, covered the back of the sleigh, and were
spread over its bottom and drawn up around the feet of the travellers
- one of whom was a man of middle age and the other a female just
entering upon womanhood. The former was of a large stature; but the
precautions he had taken to guard against the cold left but little of
his person exposed to view. A great-coat, that was abundantly
ornamented by a profusion of furs, enveloped the whole of his figure
excepting the head, which was covered with a cap of mar ten-skins
lined with morocco, the sides of which were made to fall, if
necessary, and were now drawn close over the ears and fastened beneath
his chin with a black rib bon. The top of the cap was surmounted with
the tail of the animal whose skin had furnished the rest of the
materials, which fell back, not ungracefully, a few inches be hind the
head. From beneath this mask were to be seen part of a fine, manly
face, and particularly a pair of expressive large blue eyes, that
promised extraordinary intellect, covert humor, and great benevolence.
The form of his companion was literally hid beneath the garments she
wore. There were furs and silks peeping from under a large camlet
cloak with a thick flannel lining, that by its cut and size was
evidently intended for a masculine wearer. A huge hood of black silk,
that was quilted with down, concealed the whole of her head, except at
a small opening in front for breath, through which occasionally
sparkled a pair of animated jet-black eyes.

Both the father and daughter (for such was the connection between the
two travellers) were too much occupied with their reflections to break
a stillness that derived little or no interruption from the easy
gliding of the sleigh by the sound of their voices. The former was
thinking of the wife that had held this their only child to her bosom,
when, four years before, she had reluctantly consented to relinquish
the society of her daughter in order that the latter might enjoy the
advantages of an education which the city of New York could only offer
at that period. A few months afterward death had deprived him of the
remaining companion of his solitude; but still he had enough real
regard for his child not to bring her into the comparative wilderness
in which he dwelt, until the full period had expired to which he had
limited her juvenile labors. The reflections of the daughter were
less melancholy, and mingled with a pleased astonishment at the novel
scenery she met at every turn in the road.

The mountain on which they were journeying was covered with pines that
rose without a branch some seventy or eighty feet, and which
frequently doubled that height by the addition of the tops. Through
the innumerable vistas that opened beneath the lofty trees, the eye
could penetrate until it was met by a distant inequality in the
ground, or was stopped by a view of the summit of the mountain which
lay on the opposite side of the valley to which they were hastening.
The dark trunks of the trees rose from the pure white of the snow in
regularly formed shafts, until, at a great height, their branches shot
forth horizontal limbs, that were covered with the meagre foliage of
an evergreen, affording a melancholy contrast to the torpor of nature
below. To the travellers there seemed to be no wind; but these pines
waved majestically at their topmost boughs, sending forth a dull,
plaintive sound that was quite in consonance with the rest of the
melancholy scene.

The sleigh had glided for some distance along the even surface, and
the gaze of the female was bent in inquisitive and, perhaps, timid
glances into the recesses of the forest, when a loud and continued
howling was heard, pealing under the long arches of the woods like the
cry of a numerous pack of hounds. The instant the sounds reached the
ear of the gentleman he cried aloud to the black:

“Hol up, Aggy; there is old Hector; I should know his bay among ten
thousand! The Leather-Stocking has put his hounds into the hills this
clear day, and they have started their game. There is a deer-track a
few rods ahead; and now, Bess, if thou canst muster courage enough to
stand fire, I will give thee a saddle for thy Christmas dinner.”

The black drew up, with a cheerful grin upon his chilled features, and
began thrashing his arms together in order to restore the circulation
of his fingers, while the speaker stood erect and, throwing aside his
outer covering, stepped from the sleigh upon a bank of snow which
sustained his weight without yielding.

In a few moments the speaker succeeded in extricating a double-
barrelled fowling-piece from among a multitude of trunks and
bandboxes. After throwing aside the thick mittens which had encased
his hands, there now appeared a pair of leather gloves tipped with
fur; he examined his priming, and was about to move forward, when the
light bounding noise of an animal plunging through the woods was
heard, and a fine buck darted into the path a short distance ahead of
him. The appearance of the animal was sudden, and his flight
inconceivably rapid; but the traveller appeared to be too keen a
sportsman to be disconcerted by either. As it came first into view he
raised the fowling-piece to his shoulder and, with a practised eye and
steady hand, drew a trigger. The deer dashed forward undaunted, and
apparently unhurt. Without lowering his piece, the traveller turned
its muzzle toward his victim, and fired again. Neither discharge,
however, seemed to have taken effect,

The whole scene had passed with a rapidity that confused the female,
who was unconsciously rejoicing in the escape of the buck, as he
rather darted like a meteor than ran across the road, when a sharp,
quick sound struck her ear, quite different from the full, round
reports of her father’s gun, but still sufficiently distinct to be
known as the concussion produced by firearms. At the same instant
that she heard this unexpected report, the buck sprang from the snow
to a great height in the air, and directly a second discharge, similar
in sound to the first, followed, when the animal came to the earth,
failing head long and rolling over on the crust with its own velocity.
A loud shout was given by the unseen marksman, and a couple of men
instantly appeared from behind the trunks of two of the pines, where
they had evidently placed them selves in expectation of the passage of
the deer.

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.