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
USS Fenimore Cooper (1853) passages between Batavia and Singapore and from Java northward to the South China Sea until June 1854, when she rejoined the flagship at Hong Kong. Through that summer, the expedition cruised the coast of China, joining the East India Squadron in protecting American interests. Returning to its surveys in September 1854, the squadron sailed northward to Petropavlovsk, where the ships separated. "Vincennes" penetrated the Arctic, while "Fenimore Cooper" searched the Aleutians unsuccessfully for information concerning the fate of the men of the whaler "Monongahela", missing since 1853. Returning to the United States, "Fenimore Cooper" called at Sitka, Alaska, then Russian