Cooper's most famous hero, carved in marble, rifle in hand, and with the dog Hector at his feet, stands at the top of the Leatherstocking monument in Lakewood cemetery, on a rise of ground near the entrance, overlooking Otsego Lake from the east side, about fifteen minutes walk from the village of Cooperstown. That a monument commemorative of Cooper and Leather-Stocking should stand in the public cemetery, in which neither the author nor his supposed model is buried, is sometimes puzzling to visitors. It is said, however, that the site was chosen with reference to certain scenes in The Pioneers. The monument stands near the spot upon which the novelist, for the purpose of his romance, placed the hut of Natty Bumppo. It is not far below the road referred to in the opening scene of the tale, where the travelers gained their first glimpse of the village, and stands at the foot of the wooded slope upon which, in the same story, Leather-Stocking shot the panther that was about to spring upon Elizabeth Temple.
Leatherstocking Monument
The monument itself was the result of an unsuccessful effort which was made shortly after Fenimore Cooper's death in 1851 to erect in his memory a statue or monument in one of the public squares of New York City. To this end, ten days after his death, a public meeting of citizens of New York, at which Washington Irving presided, was held in the City Hall; two weeks later the Historical Society of New York held a meeting in commemoration of Cooper; and on February 24, 1852, there was a great demonstration at Metropolitan Hall, with speeches by Daniel Webster and George Bancroft, and a memorial discourse by William Cullen Bryant. The raising of funds for a memorial, which these meetings set as their object, was not commensurate with the expenditure of rhetoric. The sum of $678 was contributed, chiefly at the meeting in Metropolitan Hall, and the committee organized to solicit subscriptions did nothing further.
Six years later Alfred Clarke and G. Pomeroy Keese of Cooperstown undertook to raise by subscription a sufficient sum to erect a monument in Cooper's memory in or near the village in which he lived, having in view the transfer of whatever sum might be on deposit in New York toward the proposed monument. They raised $2,500, to which Washington Irving, acting for the defunct committee in New York, added the $678 already contributed.
The monument, of white Italian marble, with the statuette of Leather-Stocking at the top, was sculptured by Robert E. Launitz, and erected in the spring of 1860. The small bronze casts of this statuette, which one sees in some of the older homes in Cooperstown, belong to the same period.
Another attempt to give artistic expression to pride in Natty Bumppo was wrought in less permanent material. Upon the drop-curtain on the stage of the Village Hall was painted the scene from The Pioneers which represents Leather-Stocking, Judge Temple, and Edwards grouped about a deer that has been shot on the border of the lake. In producing this scene the artist enlarged an illustration drawn by F. O. C. Darley for an early edition of The Pioneers. The original scene described by Cooper, and as depicted by Darley, was a wintry one, showing the lake shore in a mantle of snow. This was thought to be a bit too chilly for a playhouse, so the view as transferred to the curtain was brightened up by the addition of green foliage; and deft touches of the scene painter's brush, without altering the pose of any of the figures, changed winter into glorious summer. Many a Cooperstown audience, waiting for the performance to begin, has studied the scene which this curtain displays, not without wonder that Leather-Stocking is in furs, and that Judge Temple, in so radiant a summertime, has taken the precaution to retain his earmuffs.
Natty Bumppo's Cave, a not very remarkable freak of nature which Fenimore Cooper's pen has made one of the chief points of interest in the region of Cooperstown, is about a mile from the village, high up on the hill that rises from the eastern side of the lake. It offers a stiff climb to the inexperienced, but not to others. It is not much of a cave, being hardly more than a deep and curiously formed cleft between the rocks. From the platform of rock over the cave a magnificent view may be had of the lake and its more distant shores, with the hills beyond.