[Illustration:  THE NEW HOME AND THE OLD HOME.]

[Illustration:  INDIAN HUNTER.]

By the generosity of the late Mrs. Henry Codman Potter, this hunter’s domain has been transformed into beautiful “Cooper Grounds”; and here the red-man of bronze keeps ward and watch over memories that enshrine the genius of a noble soul whose records of this vanishing race are for all time.

[Illustration:  COOPER GROUNDS.]

A gentleman just from continental Europe in 1851 said of people there:  “They are all reading Cooper.”  A traveler, returned from Italy about that time, wrote:  “I found all they knew of America—­and that was not a little—­they had learned from Cooper’s novels.”  When an eminent physician who was called to attend some German immigrants asked how they knew so much of their new-home country, they replied:  “We learned it all from Cooper.  We have four translations of his works in German, and we all read them.”  February 22, 1852, Charles G. Leland of Philadelphia wrote of Cooper’s works:  “There were several translations issued at Frankfort, Germany, in 1824, in two hundred and fifty parts, a second large edition in 1834, and a third in 1851.  All his works, more than Scott and Shakespeare, are household words to the German people.”  Library records of to-day show no waning of this early popularity of the “Leatherstocking Tales” and “Sea Stories” of Fenimore Cooper.  In 1883 Victor Hugo told General Wilson that excepting the authors of France, “Cooper was the greatest novelist of the century.”  It was Balzac who said:  “If Cooper had succeeded in the painting of character to the same extent that he did in the painting the phenomena of nature, he would have uttered the last word of our art.”

From Hanau-on-Main, Germany, January, 1912, Herr Rudolf Drescher writes:  “Within two years two new translations of Cooper’s complete works have been issued.  One at Berlin, the other at Leipsic. 180 pictures by the artist Max Slevogt held one edition at $192, the other with less pictures was $60, and both were sold.  Cheaper editions without pictures also met with large sales.  I possess an 1826, German copy of ’The Pioneers.’” Another record is, Cooper’s works have been seen “in thirty different countries, in the languages of Finland, Turkey and Persia, in Constantinople, in Egypt, at Jerusalem, at Ispahan.”

The author’s literary cruise, dating back three years before the launching of “The Pilot” in 1823, was a long one.  And no admiral of mortal fame ever led so sturdy and motley a fleet—­from the proud man-of-war to the light felucca, gondola, and bark-canoe—­over ocean and inland waters.  With visions of forests, its moving spirit and skilful pilot still stands at the helm, the full light of the ages upon “eye, arm, sail, spar, and flag.”  Thus is Fenimore Cooper firmly anchored in the mind and heart of posterity as the creator of American romance.