from the "Land o' Cakes" in 1801, and found, as an employee of Judge Cooper, an opening for his trade, and soon became a great favorite with the Cooper boys. This master-mason took great pride in exact work, with which no trifling was permitted. No stone could be moved but his true eye would detect it in a flash, and wild was the fury with which his fiery trowel flew for the culprit, and with such convincing force that it was wise to avoid further meddling with the "gude mon's" work. Of "Jamie Allen," master-mason and staunch auld kirke mon, many an amusing story is told in Fenimore Cooper's "Wyandotté, or the Hutted Knoll," written in 1843. These men among others marked the unusual in Cooper's vacations from Dr. Ellison's school-rule at Albany. Later in life he wrote a lively memory-sketch of his tutor, the rector of St. Peter's Church. But the death in 1802 of this accomplished gentleman sent his pupil—then a stripling of thirteen—to Yale. He entered the freshman 1802-3 January-term class, and, "excepting the poet Hillhouse, two weeks his junior, James Cooper was the youngest student in college." There "his progress in his studies is said to have been honorable to his
talents." And "in the ancient languages he had no superior in his class."
Cooper owned to having learned little at college. When left to his own bent, his early love for out-of-door life drew him to roam the hills and explore near shores, and to his first view of the grand old ocean, which later claimed his tribute of service. For a boyish frolic in his junior year the lad left Yale, and this incident ended his college career. It is of record that Judge Cooper took the boy's part against the faculty version and brought his son home. Yet something from his books James Cooper must have gleaned, for there is a story of a young sailor who, in some public place in the streets of an English port, attracted the curiosity of the crowd by explaining to his companions the meaning of a Latin motto.
