February 6, 1826: “The Last of the Mohicans” Is Published

Daniel Day-Lewis in the 1992 film version

February 6, 1826, 200 years ago: The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper is published. It has been called the 1st great American novel.

It's also been called the 1st Western novel, as what we now call Western New York was, in a way, America's first "frontier."

James Fenimore Cooper was born on September 15, 1789 in Burlington, New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. But it would be near the source of the Delaware River, at Lake Otsego in Central New York, where his family would settle. Named for his father, Judge and eventual Congressman William Cooper, it became "Cooperstown."

James was admitted to Yale University at the age of 13, and expelled at 16 for a string of pranks. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy, served 2 years, and married Susan de Lancey, having a son and a daughter. In 1820, he published his first novel, Precaution. In 1823, with The Pioneers, he began what became known as The Leatherstocking Tales, which led to Cooperstown's section of New York becoming known as "Leatherstocking Country."

James Fenimore Cooper

The 1826 installment, The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757, became the best-known. Cooper's hero, Natty Bumppo, was a precursor to Tarzan: Born to white parents in the Province of New York (one of Britain's "Thirteen Colonies"), raised by Native Americans of the Delaware tribe, educated by his own people, and a fearless warrior.

Like Babe Ruth, James Brown and fictional boxer Apollo Creed, he had a lot of nicknames. The best-remembered is "Hawkeye," but he was also called "Trapper," inspiring two characters in the M*A*S*H franchise. On that show, Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce (played by Alan Alda) said that his father, also a doctor, nicknamed him "Hawkeye" after Bumppo, since it was his favorite book.

Bumppo's nicknames also included "Leatherstocking," "Straight-Tongue," "The Pigeon," "The Lap-Ear," "Pathfinder"; and, for his skill with a rifle, "Deerslayer" and "La Longue Carabine": The Long Rifle. The Tales tell of his life from 1740 to 1806, including the American Revolution.

Cooper wrote 5 novels about Bumppo, and also wrote seafaring novels, and what would now be considered historical fiction. He died on September 14, 1851, the day before his 62nd birthday, in Cooperstown.

Natty Bumppo has been played in film version of The Last of the Mohicans by Harry Lorraine in 1920, Harry Carey (not "Caray") in 1932, Randolph Scott in 1936, Kenneth Ives in a BBC production in 1971, Steve Forrest in an NBC TV-movie 1977, and Daniel Day-Lewis in 1992. In fitting with the whole "first frontier" idea, Carey and Scott had already become known as actors in Western films.