[Illustration:  FENIMORE COOPER’S SCREEN GIFT.]

Mr. Keese’s words, dating January, 1910, are:  “And now comes in a rather singular discovery made by the writer a few days ago:  In looking over a book in my library, published about ninety years ago, there is an article on Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, England, with a steel engraving of the front of the Abbey, which is almost identical with the design of the original screen in Christ Church.  Who was responsible for transplanting the same to this country appears to be unknown, but the fact is interesting in that Newstead Abbey was the home of the Byron family and that of Lord Byron.”

In a letter of April 22, 1840, to H. Bleeker, Esq., Cooper wrote of this screen:  “I have just been revolutionizing Christ’s Church, Cooperstown, not turning out a vestry but converting its pine interior into oak—­bona fide oak, and erecting a screen that I trust, though it may have no influence on my soul, will carry my name down to posterity.  It is really a pretty thing—­pure Gothic, and is the wonder of the country round.”

Of Cooper himself was said:  “Thus step by step his feet were guided into the ways of peace.”  It was of the Protestant Episcopal church that his wife’s brother, William Heathcote de Lancey—­a genius of goodness—­was bishop.

[Illustration:  BISHOP WILLIAM HEATHCOTE DE LANCEY.]

A beautiful, tender, and touching tribute to the love of his life was Fenimore Cooper’s will.  In part it reads:  “I, James Fenimore Cooper, give and bequeath to my wife, Susan Augusta, all my property, whether personal or mixed, to be enjoyed by her and her heirs forever.  I make my said wife the executrix of my will.”

In a little over four months his wife followed him to the far country.  Of his children, Elizabeth, the first-born, died in infancy; Susan Augusta, the author, was the second; the third, Caroline Martha, became Mrs. Henry Frederick Phinney; next came Anne Charlotte, then Maria Frances, who married Richard Cooper; Fenimore, the first son, they lost in babyhood, and Paul Fenimore, the youngest, became a member of the bar in Albany, New York.

[Illustration:  THE DE LANCEY ARMS.]

Cooper left his family a competency, but the Hall home soon passed into other hands; later it was burnt.  From rescued brick an attractive house was built on the west bank of the Susquehanna for his daughters Susan Augusta and Anne Charlotte, both now resting near father and mother in Christ’s Church yard.  Their niece, Miss Susan Augusta Cooper, daughter of their sister, Maria Frances, Mrs. Richard Cooper, now lives in this picturesque house, and there she reverently treasures many personal belongings of her famous grandfather, and also those of her author-aunt, Susan Augusta Cooper, whose best memorial, however, is the noble orphanage on the river-bank some ways below.  The oaken doors saved from the flames of the burning Hall served for this new home, which overlooked the grounds of their old home.  The site of the latter is marked by Ward’s “Indian Hunter.”  Aptly placed, peering through mists of green toward the author’s church-yard grave, he is a most fitting guardian of the one-time garden of Fenimore Cooper.