great struggles and unselfish loyalty while serving his
country in the American Revolution, and the story gave Cooper an idea
for his "Harvey Birch." The fact that strolling peddlers, staff in hand
and pack on back, were common visitors then at country houses, became
another aid. "It was after such a visit of a Yankee peddler of the old
sort, to the cottage at Angevine, that Harvey's lot in life was
decided--he was to be a spy and a peddler." It was something to the
author's after regret that he drew the dignity of George Washington into
the "Harper" of this story.

[Illustration: HARVEY BIRCH'S CAVE.]

"The entire country between the Americans on the skirts of the Highlands
and the British on Manhattan--or 'the Neutral Ground'--suffered more in
harried skirmishes, pillage, violence, fire, and the taking of life
itself, than any of its extent during this strife." Scarsdale and
Mamaroneck were in this region, with White Plains close by. Fort
Washington was on a near height, and Dobb's Ferry a few miles off. "The
Coopers' daily drive from Angevine discovered a pretty thicket, some
swampy land, and a cave in which to hide the loyal, to be fed by
friendly hands at night until escape was possible. There were also at
hand the gloomy horrors of a haunted wood where gliding ghosts fought
midnight battles"--all of this the farmers _knew_ and could tell of,
too. One of them, "Uncle John," lived just below the home hill in a wee
cot of four walls, each of a different color--red, yellow, brown, and
white. He frequently came up the Angevine-home hill to tell, between his
apples, nuts, and glasses of cider, tales of what he, too, _knew_, to a
good listener,--the master of the house. Then there was "Major Brom B.,
a hero of the great war, with his twenty-seven martial spirits, all
uniformed in silver gray, his negro Bonny and his gun, 'the Bucanneer,'
had not its fellow on the continent." These were all aids, and sources
of unfailing interest about the many Westchester chimney firesides of
that day. In his "Literary Haunts and Homes," Dr. Theodore F. Wolfe
tells of a fine, old-time home, beyond the valley below Cooper's
Angevine farm, where he placed many an exciting scene of this coming
tale. In 1899 Dr. Wolfe notes the house as changed, only by a piazza
across its front, from the days when Cooper knew it well, and that it
was pleasantly shaded by many of the fine, tall trees that gave it the
name of "The Locusts," which it kept in