Peter Cooper / The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4

ich found the restored reign of the Stuarts intolerable. He settled at Fishkill-on-the-Hudson; and his son Obadiah-whom tradition declares to have been the fourth white man child born in wh

st shortsighted and obstinate tyranny by Englishmen on both sides of the ocean, and in which the victory for liberty was won on this side sooner than on the other. What the Coopers and their kind achieved here was applauded openly in the mother country by the descendants of a common ancestry as a triumph for the common cause. The use of foreign mercenaries under British commanders in this country was the direct result of the impossibility of induc

ores in the zone of debatable territory,-the "bloody ground" which surrounded the British lines in New York. At the close of the war, New York having been evacuated by the enemy, Lieutenant John Cooper retired to civil life, and re

n hundred guineas,-the whole of his ready money,-entered the service, was made deputy quartermaster-general, and was directed to superintend the hasty evacuation of the city by the Whig inhabitants, and to protect them and their property as far as possible. Lingering too long to assist some of the laggards, he was captured by the forces landed from the British fleet, but was su

midst of those troublous times, but the romance would have no special bearing on this history. It is enough to say that by this marriage the best blood of England and Scotland-of servants of

ground and put it in a wagon," and who once, being cornered and attacked by a bull, seized the animal's nose with one hand and so battered its head with a stone that it was glad to turn and fly. Yet he came of a race that

ious and frequent thought. While walking on Broadway one dark night it seemed as though a voice spoke to him in a clear and distinct manner: 'Call him Peter!' That seeming voice settled my name. My father said that he f

, of its recipient had been indicated by his acts. In this instance the subsequent life of the son did not in any peculiar way imitate that of the Apostle Peter. Evidently not that partic

ly hazardous to assume that current public affairs largely affected such domestic choices. Peter Cooper's birth was practically simultaneous with the launching of that Ship of State, the "Union, strong and great," in which all patriots had embarked "their hopes, triumphant o'er their fears." To his veteran-soldie

boyish soul,-the belief in a beneficent mission, the yearning to discover it, the resolve to execute it, and the conviction th

these opportunities. Secondly, he was a lover of his fellow men, determined to employ for their benefit the means and powers which he felt himself able to accumulate by thought, toil, and frugal economy. Thirdly, he was even in his philanthropy essentially still an American, intent most of all upon the welfare of