Indians.

There is a vivid tradition in the surviving family of Peter Cooper of
the admirable traits of his mother. She was educated among the Moravians
in Pennsylvania, who have had particular success in forming and
developing the female character. She was a woman in whom were blended
the diverse qualities of her eminent son, energy and tenderness, mental
force and moral elevation. She was the mother of two daughters and seven
sons, her fifth child being Peter, who was born in 1791.

To the end of his life, Peter Cooper had a clear recollection of many
interesting events which occurred before the beginning of the present
century.

"I remember," he used to say, "that I was about nine years old at the
time when Washington was buried. That is, he was buried at Mount Vernon;
but we had a funeral service in old St. Paul's. I stood in front of the
church, and I recall the event well, on account of his old white horse
and its trappings."

A poor hatter, with a family of nine children, must needs turn his
children to account, and the consequence was that Peter Cooper enjoyed
an education which gave him at least great manual dexterity. He learned
how to use both his hands and a portion of his brain. He learned how to
do things. His earliest recollection was his working for his father in
pulling, picking, and cleaning the wool used in making hat-bodies, and
he was kept at this work during his whole boyhood, except that one year
he went to school half of every day, learning a little arithmetic, as
well as reading and writing. By the time he was fifteen years old he had
learned to make a good beaver hat throughout, and a good beaver hat of
that period was an elaborate and imposing structure.

Then his father abandoned his hat shop and removed to Peekskill on the
Hudson, where he set up a brewery, and where Peter learned the whole art
and mystery of making beer. He was quick to learn every kind of work,
and even as a boy he was apt to suggest improvements in tools and
methods. At the age of seventeen, he was still working in the brewery, a
poor man's son, and engaged in an employment which for many and good
reasons he disliked. Brewing beer is a repulsive occupation.

Then, with his father's consent, he came alone to New York, intending to
apprentice himself to any trade that should fake his fancy. He visited
shop after shop, and at last applied for employment at a carriage
factory near the corner of Broadway and Chambers St