Leatherstocking Country: A Successful Combination of America’s History with Literature

Bruce Venter

Our July tour entitled Leatherstocking Tales: The Real Historic Sites of James Fenimore Cooper’s Novels proved to be a good bet as we combined familiar titles (and some not so familiar) from American literature with the historic sites that influenced the famous American author. I wasn’t sure how this concept would play when I first conceived it sometime last year, but finding the right tour leader made all the difference. Dr. Wayne Franklin, professor of English and department head at the University of Connecticut proved to be “the man” when it comes to Cooper expertise. Wayne did a fantastic job, demonstrating not only a knowledge of Cooper’s writings but also being familiar with the historical background of 18th and 19th century sites and personalities which influenced Cooper. Wayne has Albany, NY roots as does your humble blogger, so we were able to reminisce about the city’s rich, colorful political history which we shared in common. We had a great, mixed group of participants who came because of their interest in Cooper as well as American history. As always, there were a number of repeat customers along with some new faces. Wayne also brought along his lovely wife, Suzanne who provided much enjoyable conversation. It was great to have my cousin, Ann O’Brien Teta with us. One of America’s History’s tour leaders, Bill Welsch also joined the tour.

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Leatherstocking Tales – July 6-9, 2011

Wednesday, July 6 (7:30 PM) thru Saturday, July 9 (5 PM)
Headquartered in Albany, NY
Led by Wayne Franklin and Bruce Venter

We all remember the novels of James Fenimore Cooper from our youth either through movie versions, the “Classic” comic books series or by actually reading them in English class.

Cooper was a popular and successful writer in his own time in part because he described many actual historical places in his books. These sites were readily identified by early 19th century readers because they had learned about these same places in school. Cooper was able to vividly describe these historical sites because he had actually visited them himself. Whether it was sitting on a porch in Westchester County, sailing upon the crystal blue waters of Lake George or tramping through the woods near his boyhood home in Cooperstown, he was able to translate what he observed into stirring tales of early America.

Our tour will explore the real historic and geographic sites portrayed in several Cooper novels. It will give us a better understanding of the author’s insight into America’s frontier legacy. Explaining how the actual places and events were reflected in the New Yorker’s fiction is one of our goals. While we will concentrate on three popular novels, The Spy, The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer, there will be plenty of references to places associated with lesser known works like Satanstoe and The Pioneers.

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