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James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. He lived most of his life in Cooperstown, New York, which was established by his father William. Cooper was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church and in his later years contributed generously to it.[1] He attended Yale University for three years, where he was a member of the Linonian Society, but was expelled for misbehavior.[2] Before embarking on his career as a writer he served in the U.S. Navy as a Midshipman which greatly influenced many of his novels and other writings. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales. Among naval historians Cooper's works on the early U.S. Navy have been well received, but they were sometimes criticized by his contemporaries. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece.[3]James Fenimore Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey, to William Cooper and Elizabeth (Fenimore) Cooper, the eleventh child of twelve children, most of whom died during infancy or childhood. He was descended from James Cooper, of Stratford-upon-Avon, England, who emigrated to the American colonies in 1679. James and his wife were Quakers who purchased plots of land in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Seventy five years after his arrival in America his great-grandson, William, was born on December 2, 1754, father of the author James Cooper.[4][5] Cooper lived the first year of his life in New Jersey. Shortly after his first birthday, his family moved to Cooperstown, New York, a community founded by his father, who was a United States Congressman. Their house was in the wilderness on the shore of Otsego Lake, an area in central New York that was surrounded by the Iroquois of the Six Nations.[3]

Shortly after the American Revolutionary War, Cooper's father purchased several thousand acres of land in upstate New York along the head-waters of the Susquehanna River. By 1788, William had selected and surveyed the site where Cooperstown would be established. He erected a home on the shore of Otsego lake, and in the autumn of 1790 and, after moving belongings, servants and carpenters to the location, he began construction of what would become Otsego Hall. Otsego Hall was completed in 1799 when James was ten years old.[5]