An old hunter—­Shipman by name—­often came with his rifle and dogs during the early years of the new colony, to offer his game at William Cooper’s door, and was a great attraction for the lads of Otsego Hall.  A dim memory of Shipman served as an outline only for Cooper’s creation, “Natty,” as in strength and beauty of character he came from the writer’s pen, to live through the five “Leatherstocking Tales,” as “the ever familiar friend of boys.”  While Cooper placed no real character from life in this book, Judge Temple is accepted as a sketch of his father.  The aim was to create a character from the class to which each belonged.  Thus served brave old Indian John as “Chingachgook”; Mr. Grant, the missionary; and “Monsieur Le Quoi,” the Frenchman.  In “Chronicles of Cooperstown” it appears that a real “Mr. Le Quoy excited much interest in the place, in being superior to his occupation as a country grocer.”  One day a Mr. Renouard, a seaman, entered his shop for some tobacco, and returned in a few minutes agitated and pale, excitedly asking, “Who is the man that sold me this tobacco?” At the answer, “Mr. Le Quoy,” he replied, “Yes, Mr. Le Quoy de Mesereau.  When I went to Martinique to be port-captain of St. Pierre, this man was civil governor of the island, and refused to confirm my appointment.”  It was learned later that the French Revolution drove Mr. Le Quoy with little money to a New York friend,—­a Mr. Murray,—­who also knew well Judge Cooper, and they both advised this country store until peaceful France could and did invite its owner to return to his island home.

[Illustration:  NATTY’S CAVE.]

An Indian alarm of the early-village period of 1794 formed the opening chapter of the new book, but the incidents were mainly creations of Cooper’s fancy.  Yet the pigeon-flights, Natty’s cave, which sheltered Elizabeth Temple from the forest fire, and each charming picture of the Glimmerglass country, are true to life.  The academy, court-house, jail, inn; the “’Cricket’—­that famous old cannon which sent its thunders thousands of times over the Otsego hills on days of rejoicing—­are fairly given.”  The old gun was found when digging the cellar of Judge Cooper’s first house, and was said to have been buried by troops under Gen. James Clinton, who marched from Albany against the Indians in 1779.  They cut their way through forests, brought their boats to Lake Otsego, and their headquarters were in a log house built on the future site of the first Hall.  The place where was the old Clinton Dam is now marked by the Daughters of the American Revolution as the one Cooperstown, connecting link with the War of Independence.

[Illustration:  GENERAL JAMES CLINTON.]

[Illustration:  CLINTON DAM.]

The outward appearance of the old Hall is fairly given by Cooper’s pen, but once within, all is a faithful record, “even to the severed nose of Wolfe, and the urn that held the ashes of Queen Dido.”  The tale was of a great landlord living among his settlers on property bearing his name.  The book was “The Pioneers, or, Sources of the Susquehanna,” and “thirty-five hundred copies sold before noon of the day it was published.”