in the same story, Leather-Stocking shot the panther that was
about to spring upon Elizabeth Temple.

[Illustration: LEATHERSTOCKING MONUMENT]

The monument itself was the result of an unsuccessful effort which was
made shortly after Fenimore Cooper's death in 1851 to erect in his
memory a statue or monument in one of the public squares of New York
City. To this end, ten days after his death, a public meeting of
citizens of New York, at which Washington Irving presided, was held in
the City Hall; two weeks later the Historical Society of New York held a
meeting in commemoration of Cooper; and on February 24, 1852, there was
a great demonstration at Metropolitan Hall, with speeches by Daniel
Webster and George Bancroft, and a memorial discourse by William Cullen
Bryant. The raising of funds for a memorial, which these meetings set as
their object, was not commensurate with the expenditure of rhetoric. The
sum of $678 was contributed, chiefly at the meeting in Metropolitan
Hall, and the committee organized to solicit subscriptions did nothing
further.

Six years later Alfred Clarke and G. Pomeroy Keese of Cooperstown
undertook to raise by subscription a sufficient sum to erect a monument
in Cooper's memory in or near the village in which he lived, having in
view the transfer of whatever sum might be on deposit in New York toward
the proposed monument. They raised $2,500, to which Washington Irving,
acting for the defunct committee in New York, added the $678 already
contributed.

The monument, of white Italian marble, with the statuette of
Leather-Stocking at the top, was sculptured by Robert E. Launitz, and
erected in the spring of 1860. The small bronze casts of this statuette,
which one sees in some of the older homes in Cooperstown, belong to the
same period.

Another attempt to give artistic expression to pride in Natty Bumppo was
wrought in less permanent material. Upon the drop-curtain on the stage
of the Village Hall was painted the scene from _The Pioneers_ which
represents Leather-Stocking, Judge Temple, and Edwards grouped about a
deer that has been shot on the border of the lake. In producing this
scene the artist enlarged an illustration drawn by F. O. C. Darley for
an early edition of _The Pioneers_. The original scene described by
Cooper, and as depicted by Darley, was a wintry one, showing the lake
shore in a mantle of snow. This was thought to be a bit too chilly for a
playhouse, so the view as tran