James Fenimore Cooper and Fort William Henry

David P. French

In spite of much careful biographical and literary research, little analysis has been made of the historical accuracy of Cooper's tales.  The present essay is designed to touch on three questions within that larger problem: why did Cooper write The Last of the Mohicans instead of some other novel; how much knowledge of actual history does it reflect; and what historical basis is there for the characters in it?  The first can be answered with reasonable certainty; the other two problems provide results less definitive than speculatively tantalizing

Coopers Interest in Fort William Henry

    Although the Fort Henry Massacre is naturally appropriate to historical fiction, three specific reasons make Cooper's choice of it not merely reasonable but almost predictable.  First, as is well known, he had recently visited the area with an English visitor, the Honorable E. G. Stanly, who called the caverns in Glens Falls "the very scene for a romance" and persuaded the novelist to write one.  Second, the story of the massacre had probably long interested him.  In 1799 or 1800, he had been sent to school in Albany under the Reverend William Ellison, the Tory rector of St. Peter's Church.  Such a man would almost certainly extol the virtues of British regular officers in the French and Indian Wars, and a notable example lay close at hand: the grave Lieutenant Colonel George Monro commandant of Fort Henry.  Various bits of evidence suggest that Ellison knew of Monro.  An earlier rector, for example had left a diary containing such entries as the following: "Nov. 3rd This morning Lieut. Col. Munro of ye 35th Regt departed this life very suddenly." Also, Ellison's immediate predecessor, the Reverend Harry Munro, was probably a relative of the soldier and could be expected to keep his kinsman's exploits alive.  Finally, at just about the time Cooper was in Albany, many graves, including Monro's, were moved during improvements to the church, and local interest rose in the illustrious dead.  Thus time, place, and schoolmaster make it probable that Cooper learned at an impressionable age of Montcalm's attack and its results.

    The initial hint of a third reason lies in Lewis Butler's impressive Annals of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, which calls Cooper son-in-law to "Captain J. Delancey, who may have been present at the [Fort Henry] massacre."  Elsewhere he calls Susan Cooper "the daughter of an officer of the 60th who was present at some of the scenes described by his son-in-law."  Since John Peter Delancey was in fact born on July 17,1753, however, he would have been only four years old at the time of the battle.  Yet Butler is by no means useless of the question, for his error was merely one of relationships.  The Delancey in question was almost certain James, John Peter's brother, who was born in 1732 and retired from military service in 1760; there is extant a letter in which he describes the capture of Fort Niagara in 1759.  This last connection is therefore indirect, since James died in 1800 when Susan was only eight years old and before she had even met the novelist-to-be.  Yet the Delancey association with the massacre is clear, and it would be strange if its memories did not at times color family conversations.  Furthermore, in 1820, William Heathcote Delancy, Cooper's brother-in-law, married Frances, daughter of the Reverend Harry Munro mentioned above and provided one more direct link with the events of the fort.  Thus it seems reasonable to say that not merely a casual trip to the battleground but also a host of quite personal influences in both Cooper's own life and that of his wife made the subject matter of The Last of the Mohicans unusually appropriate for him to write on.