Sweet, Timothy. American Georgics: Economy and Environment in Early American Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.
Taylor, Alan. William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
Thomas, Brook. Cross-Examinations of Law and Literature: Cooper, Hawthorne, Stowe, and Melville. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
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A NOTE ON THE TEXT
The text of this edition is based on the W. A. Town-send and Company edition published in 1859 and reprinted by the Riverside Press in their collected edition of Cooper’s works in 1872. The spelling and punctuation have been brought into conformity with modern American usage.
1 Though forests still crown the mountains of Otsego, the bear, the wolf, and the panther are nearly strangers to them. Even the innocent deer is rarely seen bounding beneath their arches; for the rifle and the activity of the settlers have driven them to other haunts. To this change (which, in some particulars, is melancholy to one who knew the country in its infancy) it may be added that the Otsego is beginning to be a niggard of its treasures.
2 The book was written in 1823.
3 The population of New York is now (1831) quite 2,000,000.
4 Sleigh is the word used in every part of the United States to denote a traineau. It is of local use in the west of England, whence it is most probably derived by the Americans. The latter draw a distinction between a sled, or sledge, and a sleigh; the sleigh being shod with metal. Sleighs are also subdivided into two-horse and one-horse sleighs. Of the latter, there are the cutter, with thills so arranged as to permit the horse to travel in the side track; the “pung,” or “tow-pung,” which is driven with a pole; and the “gumper,” a rude construction used for temporary purposes, in the new countries.
Many of the American sleighs are elegant, though the use of this mode of conveyance is much lessened with the melioration of the climate, consequent on the clearing of the forests.
5 The spectators, from immemorial usage, have a right to laugh at the casualties of a sleigh ride; and the Judge was no sooner certain that no harm was done, than he made full use of the privilege.
6 The periodical visits of St. Nicholas, or Santa Claus as he is termed, were never forgotten among the inhabitants of New York, until the emigration from New England brought in the opinions and usages of the Puritans. Like the “bon homme de Noel,” he arrives at each Christmas.
7 The grants of land, made either by the crown or the state, were by letters patent under the great seal, and the term “patent” is usually applied to any district of extent, thus conceded; though under the crown, manorial rights being often granted with the soil, in the older counties, the word “manor” is frequently used. There are many “manors” in New York, though all political and judicial rights have ceased.
8 The manumission of the slaves in New York has been gradual. When public opinion became strong in their favor, then grew up a custom of buying the services of a slave, for six or eight years, with a condition to liberate him at the end of the period. Then the law provided that all born after a certain day should be free, the males at twenty-eight, and the females at twenty-five. After this the owner was obliged to cause his servants to be taught to read and write before they reached the age of eighteen, and, finally, the few that remained were all unconditionally liberated in 1826, or after the publication of this tale. It was quite usual for men more or less connected with the Quakers, who never held slaves, to adopt the first expedient.
9 In America the term Yankee is of local meaning. It is thought to be derived from the manner in which the Indians of New England pronounced the word “English” or “Yengeese.” New York being originally a Dutch province, the term of course was not known there, and further south different dialects among the natives themselves probably produced a different pronunciation. Marmaduke and his cousin being Pennsylvanians by birth were not Yankees in the American sense of the word.
10 People who clear land by the acre or job are thus called.
11 It is possible that the reader may start at this declaration of Benjamin, but those who have lived in the new settlements of America are too much accustomed to hear of these European exploits to doubt it.
12 The divines of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, commonly call other denominations Dissenters, though there never was an established church in their own country!
13 The Susquehannah means crooked river; “hannah,” or hannock, meant “river,” in many of the native dialects. Thus we find Rappahannock as far south as Virginia.
14 Before the revolution, each province had its own money of account, though neither coined any but copper pieces. In New York the Spanish dollar was divided into eight shillings, each of the value of a fraction more than sixpence sterling. At present the Union has provided a decimal system, with coins to represent it.
15 The author has no better apology for interrupting the interest of a work of fiction by these desultory dialogues, than that they have reference to facts. In reviewing his work, after so many years, he is compelled to confess it is injured by too many allusions to incidents that are not at all suited to satisfy the just expectations of the general reader. One of these events is slightly touched on, in the commencement of this chapter.
More than thirty years since, a very near and dear relative of the writer, an elder sister and a second mother, was killed by a fall from a horse, in a ride among the very mountains mentioned in this tale. Few of her sex and years were more extensively known, or more universally beloved, than the admirable woman who thus fell a victim to the chances of the wilderness.
16 All this was literally true.
17 Of all the fish the writer has ever tasted, he thinks the one in question the best.
18 The probability of a fire in the woods, similar to that here described, has been questioned. The writer can only say that he once witnessed a fire in another part of New York that compelled a man to desert his wagon and horses in the highway, and in which the latter were destroyed. In order to estimate the probability of such an event, it is necessary to remember the effects of a long drought in that climate, and the abundance of deadwood which is found in a forest like that described. The fires in the American forests frequently rage to such an extent as to produce a sensible effect on the atmosphere at the distance of fifty miles. Houses, barns, and fences are quite commonly swept away in their course.
James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers James Fenimore Cooper
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