James Fenimore Cooper was inspired by a tale related to him by neighbor and family friend John Jay. It was more successful and became a bestseller; the setting of this Revolutionary War tale is widely believed to have been John Jay's family home "The Locusts" in Rye, New York. In 1823, Cooper published "The Pioneers", the first of the "Leatherstocking" series. The series features Natty Bumppo, a resourceful American woodsman at home with the Delaware Indians and their chief Chingachgook. Bumppo was also the main character of Cooper's most famous novel "The Last of the Mohicans" (1826), written in New York City where
Henry S. F. Cooper Jr. James Fenimore Cooper and sixth generation descendent of William Cooper, founder of Cooperstown, New York. He had a brother, James Fenimore Cooper IV, and two sisters, Susan and Katherine. James passed away in 2014 and his sisters passed away within the year prior to that. Cooper spent summers throughout his childhood and later life in Cooperstown, and grew up swimming in Otsego Lake and in the surrounding forest and fields. Cooper attributes his interest in science writing to elementary school, where he read a copy of "From the Earth to the Moon", an 1865 novel by Jules Verne. From ages