Cooper's Inspirational Visit

By Steve Wick | Staff Writer

James Fenimore Cooper, whose contact with Sag Harbor resulted in two books. (National Archives Photo/Matthew Brady)

It was whale oil that brought James Fenimore Cooper to Sag Harbor. He stayed long enough to get a book out of it.

Cooper, born and raised in upstate New York, came to Sag Harbor in 1819 after his marriage to Susan DeLancey, whose family owned land in Sag Harbor and on Shelter Island.

That year, Cooper bought shares in a whaling vessel, the Union, which sailed from Sag Harbor on its maiden voyage. He based two books -- ``The Water Witch'' and ``The Sea Lions'' -- on his experiences in Sag Harbor. The first few chapters of ``The Sea Lions'' are set in Orient Point, where Cooper also spent time.

If these books had modest success, his subsequent books made him a household name. In the mid-1820s, he published a series of novels, including ``The Last of the Mohicans,'' that featured woodsman Natty Bumppo. According to Dorothy Zaykowski's ``Sag Harbor -- The Story of an American Beauty,'' it is believed that Bumppo was modeled after a celebrated Sag Harbor whaling captain, David Hand, who had lived a colorful life.

``Captain Hand had been a seaman and privateer and, before the age of twenty, had seen Washington, been a prisoner of war five times, and was one of the exchange of prisoners from the Jersey prison ship,'' Zaykowski wrote.