. The story of Cooperstown . in 1811 to Susan deLancey, and brought his bride to Cooperstownon their honeymoon. Three years later they cameback to take up their residence at Fenimore justout of the village, on Otsego Lake, but, afterthree seasons of farming, circumstances once moredrew Fenimore Cooper away from Cooperstown. It was in 1834, when he had become a novelistof international fame, and had lived for sevenyears in Europe, that Cooper, at the age of forty-five years, took steps to make a permanent homein the village of his childhood. Otsego Hall,which his father had built upon the site
. The story of Cooperstown . in 1811 to Susan deLancey, and brought his bride to Cooperstownon their honeymoon. Three years later they cameback to take up their residence at Fenimore justout of the village, on Otsego Lake, but, afterthree seasons of farming, circumstances once moredrew Fenimore Cooper away from Cooperstown. It was in 1834, when he had become a novelistof international fame, and had lived for sevenyears in Europe, that Cooper, at the age of forty-five years, took steps to make a permanent homein the village of his childhood. Otsego Hall,which his father had built upon the site nowmarked by the statue of the Indian Hunter, inthe Cooper Grounds, was repaired and partlyremodeled, and here Fenimore Cooper dweltuntil his death in 1851. 258 FENIMORE COOPER IN THE VILLAGE 259 Two names of later renown are connected withFenimore Coopers reconstruction of Otsego the artisans employed was a lad of seven-teen years apprenticed as a joiner, Erastus , who already had begun to attract atten-. Fenimore tion as a wood-carver, and afterward becamefamous as a sculptor. While the alterations werein progress Cooper had as his guest in Coopers-town Samuel F. B. Morse, who assisted him incarrying out his ideas for the reconstruction of theHall, and drew the designs which gave it morethe style of an English country house.^ The local ^ James Fenimore Cooper, by Mary E. Phillips, p. 262. 260 THE STORY OF COOPERSTOWN gossips said that Morse aspired to the hand ofhis friends eldest daughter, Susan Augusta Feni-more, then twenty-one years of age, but thatCooper had no mind to yield so fair a prize to animpecunious painter, a widower, and already
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