Introduction

by James Fenimore Cooper

　　x-toc:pioneers.phpAs 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 muchof its contents is literal fact, and how much is intended to representa general picture. The author is very sensible that, had he confinedhimself to the latter, always the most effective, as it is the mostvaluable, mode of conveying knowledge of this nature, he would havemade a far better book. But in commencing to describe scenes, andperhaps 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 totruth, an indispensable requisite in history and travels, destroys thecharm of fiction; for all that is necessary to be conveyed to the mindby the latter had better be done by delineations of principles, and ofcharacters in their classes, than by a too fastidious attention tooriginals.

　　New York having but one county of Otsego, and the Susquehanna but oneproper 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 connectedwith civilized men, is soon told.

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

　　Otsego is said to be a word compounded of Ot, a place of meeting, andSego, or Sago, the ordinary term of salutation used by the Indians ofthis region. There is a tradition which says that the neighboringtribes were accustomed to meet on the banks of the lake to make theirtreaties, and otherwise to strengthen their alliances, and whichrefers the name to this practice. As the Indian agent of New York hada log dwelling at the foot of the lake, however, it is not impossiblethat the appellation grew out of the meetings that were held at hiscouncil fires; the war drove off the agent, in common with the otherofficers of the crown; and his rude dwelling was soon abandoned. Theauthor remembers it, a few years later, reduced to the humble officeof a smoke-house.

　　In 1779 an expedition was sent against the hostile Indians, who dweltabout a hundred miles west of Otsego, on the banks of the Cayuga. Thewhole country was then a wilderness, and it was necessary to transportthe bag gage of the troops by means of the rivers--a devious butpracticable route. One brigade ascended the Mohawk until it reachedthe point nearest to the sources of the Susquehanna, whence it cut alane through the forest to the head of the Otsego. The boats andbaggage were carried over this "portage," and the troops proceeded tothe other extremity of the lake, where they disembarked and encamped.The Susquehanna, a narrow though rapid stream at its source, was muchfilled with "flood wood," or fallen trees; and the troops adopted anovel expedient to facilitate their passage. The Otsego is about ninemiles in length, varying in breadth from half a mile to a mile and ahalf. The water is of great depth, limpid, and supplied from athousand springs. At its foot the banks are rather less than thirtyfeet high the remainder of its margin being in mountains, intervals,and points. The outlet, or the Susquehanna, flows through a gorge inthe low banks just mentioned, which may have a width of two hundredfeet. This gorge was dammed and the waters of the lake collected: theSusquehanna was converted into a rill.

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

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

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

　　In 1785 the authors father, who had an interest in extensive tractsof land in this wilderness, arrived with a party of surveyors. Themanner in which the scene met his eye is described by Judge Temple.At the commencement of the following year the settlement began; andfrom that time to this the country has continued to flourish. It is asingular feature in American life that at the beginning of thiscentury, when the proprietor of the estate had occasion for settlerson a new settlement and in a remote county, he was enabled to drawthem from among the increase of the former colony.

　　Although the settlement of this part of Otsego a little preceded thebirth of the author, it was not sufficiently advanced to render itdesirable that an event so important to himself should take place inthe wilderness. Perhaps his mother had a reasonable distrust of thepractice of Dr Todd, who must then have been in the novitiate of hisexperimental acquirements. Be that as it may, the author was broughtan infant into this valley, and all his first impressions were hereobtained. He has inhabited it ever since, at intervals; and he thinkshe 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 ispregnant with industry and enterprise. Its manufacturers areprosperous, and it is worthy of remark that one of the most ingeniousmachines known in European art is derived from the keen ingenuitywhich is exercised in this remote region.

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

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

　　The author has elsewhere said that the character of Leather-Stockingis a creation, rendered probable by such auxiliaries as were necessaryto produce that effect. Had he drawn still more upon fancy, thelovers of fiction would not have so much cause for their objections tohis work. Still, the picture would not have been in the least truewithout some substitutes for most of the other personages. The greatproprietor resident on his lands, and giving his name to instead ofreceiving it from his estates as in Europe, is common over the wholeof New York. The physician with his theory, rather obtained from thancorrected 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, abrother 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 toall who have ever dwelt in a new country.

　　It may be well to say here, a little more explicitly, that there wasno real intention to describe with particular accuracy any realcharacters in this book. It has been often said, and in publishedstatements, that the heroine of this book was drawn after the sisterof the writer, who was killed by a fall from a horse now near half acentury since. So ingenious is conjecture that a personal resemblancehas been discovered between the fictitious character and the deceasedrelative! It is scarcely possible to describe two females of the sameclass in life who would be less alike, personally, than ElizabethTemple and the sister of the author who met with the deplorable fatementioned. In a word, they were as unlike in this respect as inhistory, 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 apain that would induce him to cancel it, were it not still morepainful to have it believed that one whom he regarded with a reverencethat surpassed the love of a brother was converted by him into theheroine of a work of fiction.

　　From circumstances which, after this Introduction, will be obvious toall, the author has had more pleasure in writing "The Pioneers" thanthe book will probably ever give any of its readers. He is quiteaware of its numerous faults, some of which he has endeavored torepair in this edition; but as he has--in intention, at least--done hisfull share in amusing the world, he trusts to its good-nature foroverlooking this attempt to please himself.