oses at the head of
them with the gravity of fifty or three score."[14]

Miss Susan Fenimore Cooper, daughter of the novelist, says that for some
years after the village was commenced, Mill Island was a favorite resort
of the Indians, who came frequently in parties to the new settlement,
remaining here for months together. Mill Island lies in the Susquehanna
a short distance below Fernleigh, near the dam, where the river reaches
out two arms to enclose it, and with so little effort that it is
difficult to distinguish the island from the mainland. In the early days
of the village the island was covered with woods, and the Indians chose
it for their camp, in preference to other situations. Miss Cooper thinks
it may have been a place of resort to their fishing and hunting parties
when the country was a wilderness. In _Rural Hours_, writing in 1851,
she gives a curious description of a visit made at Otsego Hall by some
Indians who had encamped at Mill Island. There were three of them,--a
father, son, and grandson,--who made their appearance, claiming a
hereditary acquaintance with the master of the house, Fenimore Cooper.

[Illustration: _C. F. Zabriskie_

AT MILL ISLAND]

"The leader and patriarch of the party," says Miss Cooper, "was a
Methodist minister--the Rev. Mr. Kunkerpott. He was notwithstanding a
full-blooded Indian, with the regular copper-colored complexion, and
high cheek bones; the outline of his face was decidedly Roman, and his
long, gray hair had a wave which is rare among his people; his mouth,
where the savage expression is usually most strongly marked, was small,
with a kindly expression about it. Altogether he was a strange mixture
of the Methodist preacher and the Indian patriarch. His son was much
more savage than himself in appearance--a silent, cold-looking man; and
the grandson, a boy of ten or twelve, was one of the most uncouth,
impish-looking creatures we ever beheld. He wore a long-tailed coat
twice too large for him, with boots of the same size. The child's face
was very wild, and he was bareheaded, with an unusual quantity of long,
black hair streaming about his head and shoulders. While the grandfather
was conversing about old times, the boy diverted himself by twirling
around on one leg, a feat which would have seemed almost impossible,
booted as he was, but which he nevertheless accomplished with remarkable
dexterity, spinning round and round, his arms extended, his large black
eyes st