ABSTRACT
William Cooper, the emigrant ancestor of James Fenimore Cooper, arrived in 1679, and settled at Burlington, New Jersey. He immediately took an active part in public affairs, and his name appears in the list of members of the Colonial Legislature for 1681. Judge Cooper being a member of the Congress, which then held its sessions in Philadelphia, his family remained much of the time at Burlington, where the author, when but six years of age, commenced under a private tutor of some eminence his classical education. The first work which Mr. Cooper published after his return to the United States was A letter to his Countrymen and Homeward Bound. After having been in Europe about two years he published his Notions of the Americans, in which he "endeavored to repel some of the hostile opinions of the other hemisphere, and to turn the tables on those who at that time most derided and calumniated us".
