Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1882-10-06
FENIMORE COOPER.
The Great NOvelIsts Four Daughters
Living Ina New York state.

Correspondence OF the Detroit Post and Tribune |
Four daughters of Fenimore Cooper
are living here in Cooperstown, N. Y,
two of them are widows and two were
never married The latter have built up
for themselves novel industry-the care
of orphans. Being naturally affection
ate and care.giving, they first picked up
one Or two orphans of their church (Epis-
copaD, and these thrived, more waits
drifted to the extemporized harbor, until
now the ladies have erected comforta-
BILE building and have charge of more
than hundred little ones
called on these ladies' ON Monday in
their own residence, picturesque Gothic
villa, built on the high bank just below
where Otsego lake pours out its surplus
towards the sea in the newborn Susque-
hanna. 1t is n pretty house, embowered,
rambling and begirt with piazzas and
fronted with pleasant lawn.
1t was only minute after the little
girl at the door received my card before
Miss Susan Fenimore Cooper made her
appearance from an upper room and re-
ceived Inc pleasantly. l was not little
curious to see the lady who is, in a sense,
her fathers literary executor, and whose
books, especially Rural Hours" reveal
an exquisite love Of nature and power
of description scarcely inferior to his own,
and style far more elegant and graceful
than his. She was just out of school, |
believe, when her father died suddenly 30
years ago, but he had for some years
placed great reliance on her literary taste
and Judgment and she was sometimes his
amaunensis.
Yes" she said, sit III true that no
biography of my father has ever been
W ritten. 1t was his request on his death
be that no sketch OF his life should be
aut borized by us,
"l'Ihe cause of such an unusual injunc-
ton We do not know. We can only
infer that his life had been 30 full OF vic
issitudes in many lands, and for years
upon the ca, that he felt that nobody
was suflici emily in possession of facts
enough to tell the story adequately.
I'VE have here almost everything Of
interest that father used. These books
along the wall were his those antlers
over the outer and inner door those
high back chairs, some of these pictures.
We have also good many of his manu-
scripts up stairs. Otsego Hall, the fami-
" museum, during the whole of his life,
was burnt, you know, some two or three
years after his death. We then took
some of the bricks and put up this build
ing here. AT that table in the library ut
Otsego Hnll-a large room wainscotted
in oak in the southwestern corner-my
father wrote not less than twenty of his
books.
"He always wrote two hours every
morning wrote rapidly, almost always
with Lis own hand, and seldom erased or
amended what he had written. Then he
drove up to his farm on the east side Of
/ he lake couple of miles from here.
l'ou walked up to The Chalet to-day
Il nat was his fsvorite resort during the
ls st years of his life. He generally went
tb ere to work rather than to rest. 1t was
Il battle with the mountain, He was de-
te rBiined that the farm should become q
80 urce OF profit, and the mountain was
de lermined that it should not. When he
ha,t cut off trees enough for clearing he
had contest with the great lodges that
see med everywhere to underlie the soil
In many places the plow could not be Be-
in he ground for rods and even acres to
getller. Every fall father would say,
que ss the farm will pay next year. Blu
the most he ever got from it was yegeta
bles for the table at the Hail."