Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/769

Rh led law. In 1849 he was admitted to the bai\ and began practice in Shelbyville. He was elected to the state legislature in 1853, and again in 1857. In April, 1862, he was appointed judge of the 7th judicial circuit in Tennessee, an office which he retained until 1866, when for a year he was pro- fessor in the law-school at Lebanon, Tenn. Sub- sequently he settled in Nashville, and resumed his practice. He was elected to the state senate in 1869, and in 1870 was chosen as a Democrat to the U. S. senate, serving from 4 March, 1871, till 3 March, 1877.

COOPER, James, senator, b. in Frederick coun- ty, Md., 8 May, 1810; d. in Camp Chase, near Co- lumbus, Ohio, 28 March, 1863. He studied at St. Mary's college, and was graduated at Washington college, Pa., in 1832, after which he studied law with Thaddeus Stevens. In 1834 he was admitted to the bar, and began to practise in Gettysburg, Pa. He was elected to congress as a Whig, and served for two terms, from 2 Dec, 1839, till 3 March, 1843. He was a member of the state legis- lature during the years 1843, 1844, 1846, and 1848, and its speaker in 1847. In 1848 he was made at- torney-general of Pennsylvania, and he was elected to the IJ. S. senate as a" Whig, holding office from 3 Dec, 1849, till 3 March, 1855. On the expiration of his term he settled in Philadelphia, and later in Frederick City, Md. Soon after the beginning of the civil war he took command of all the volun- teers in Maiyland, and organized them into regi- ments. On 17 May, 1861, he was made brigadier- general in the volunteer service, his appointment being among the first that were made during the war. Later he was placed in command of Camp Chase, where he served until his death.

COOPER, James B., naval officer, b. in Bucks county, Pa., 6 March, 1753 ; d. in Haddonfield, N. J., 5 Feb., 1854. He served during the revo- lutionary war as captain in Lee's legion, and was actively engaged in the contests at Stony Point, Paulus Hook, Guilford Court-House, and Eutaw Springs. In 1812 he entered the navy as master, and served in that capacity during the war. He was promoted to lieutenant in April, 1822, and be- came commander in September, 1841. — His son, Benjamin, naval officer, b. in New Jersey about 1793 ; d. in Brooklyn, L. 1., 1 June, 1850. He was appointed to the U. S. navy as midshipman on 16 Jan., 1809, and served with distinction during the war of 1812. He fought bravely under Capt. James Lawrence on the " Hornet," in her action with the " Peacock " in February, 1813, and was made lieutenant in December, 1814. Later he was again promoted, and attained the grade of captain in February, 1828.

COOPER, James Fenimore, author, b. in Burlington, N. J., 15 Sept., 1789; d. in Cooperstown, N. Y., 14 Sept., 1851. On his father's side he was descended from James Cooper, of Stratford-on-Avon, England, who emigrated to America in 1679 and made extensive purchases of land from the original proprietaries in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He and his immediate descendants were Quakers, and for a long time many of them remained on the lands thus acquired. His mother, Elizabeth Fenimore, was of Swedish descent, and this name too is of frequent occurrence among the Society of Friends in the old Quaker settlements. Cooper was the eleventh of twelve children, most of whom died early. Soon after the conclusion of the revolutionary war William Cooper became the owner of a tract of land, several thousand acres in extent, within the borders of New York state and lying along the head-waters of the Susquehanna river. He encouraged the settlement of this tract as early as 1786, and by 1788 had selected and laid out the site of Cooperstown, on the shore of Otsego lake. A dwelling-house was erected, and in the autumn of 1790 the formidable task was undertaken of transporting a company of fifteen persons, including servants, from the comparative civilization of New Jersey to the wilderness of central New York. The journey was accomplished on 10 Nov., and for six years the family lived in the log-house originally constructed for their domicile. In 1796 Mr. Cooper determined to make his home permanently in the town he had founded, which by that time promised to become a thriving settlement. He began the construction of a mansion, completed in 1799, which he named Otsego Hall, and which was for many years the manor-house of his own possessions, and by far the most spacious and stately private residence in central New York. To every reader that has fallen under the spell of Cooper's Indian romances, the surroundings of his boyhood days are significant. The American frontier prior to the 19th century was very different from that which exists at present. Then the foremost pioneers of emigration had barely begun to push their way westward through the Mohawk valley, the first available highway to the west. Out of the forest that bordered the shores of Otsego lake and surrounded the little settlement, Indians came for barter, or possibly with hostile intent, and until young Cooper was well advanced toward manhood the possibility of an Indian raid was by no means remote. The Six Nations were still strong enough to array a powerful band of warriors, and from their chieftains Cooper, no doubt, drew the portraits of the men that live in his pages. Such surroundings could not but stimulate a naturally active imagination, and the mysterious influence of the wilderness, augmented subsequently by the not dissimilar influence of the sea, pervaded his entire life.

The wilderness was his earliest and most potent teacher, after that the village school, and then private instruction in the family of the Rev. J. Ellison, the English rector of St. Peter's Episcopal church in Albany. This gentleman was a graduate of an English university, an accomplished scholar, and an irreconcilable monarchist. It is to be feared that the free air of the western continent did not altogether counteract the influence of his tutor during the formative period of the young American's mind. As an instructor, however, Ellison was, undeniably, well equipped, and such teachers were, in those days, extremely rare. His death, in 1802, interrupted Cooper's preparatory studies, but he was already fitted to join the freshman class at Yale in the beginning of its second term, January, 1803. According to his own account, he learned but little at college. Indeed, the thoroughness of his preparation in the classics under Ellison made it so easy for him to maintain a fair standing in his class that he was at liberty to pass his time as pleased him best. His love for out-of-door life led him to explore the rugged hills northward of New Haven, and the equally picturesque shores of Long Island sound probably gave him his first intimate acquaintance with the ocean. No doubt all this was, to some extent, favorable to the development of his sympathy with nature; but it did not improve his standing with the college authorities. Gradually he became wilder in his defiance of the academic restraints, and was at last expelled, during his third year. Perhaps, if the faculty could have foreseen the brilliant career of