Hannah Cooper Memorial

A Monument with a Love Story

How the Tragic Death of J. Fenimore Cooper's Sister is Commemorated

New York Tribune, August 17, 1902

Memorial to Hannah Cooper
  located on NYS Route 51
two miles south of Morris, NY*

There stands in the beautiful Butternut Valley, near the Village of Morris, N.Y. [Otsego Co.], a shaft of marble erected more than a century ago [in 1902] under somewhat unusual circumstances.  Around it clusters a love story filled with interest and pathos.  The monument marks the scene of the tragic death of Miss Hannah Cooper, a sister of James Fenimore Cooper.  The story is little told, and the monument has been seen by comparatively few--only those who have strayed from the beaten paths or have chanced to pass it in journeying cross country. The site of the monument is near the famous old Morris Manor, the estates of the Morris family since that section of the State was first visited by the white man.

 

The family of Cooper, the novelist, and the Morris family, although living twenty-five miles apart, were intimate, and the young people visited often back and forth, in Cooperstown and at Morris Manor. These visits brought on an attachment between John Cox Morris, third son of General Jacob Morris, and Hannah Cooper, resulting in an engagement.

 

Miss Cooper was visiting at the home of her betrothed, and on the fatal morning formed one of a merry party of young people out horseback riding.  Her horse was a spirited animal, and it is said that when the party started out old General Morris jokingly remarked to Miss Cooper, "I shall expect to see you ride to glory on that beast yet."

 

When less than a mile away from the Morris home a little dog ran out from a log cabin beside the road and Miss Cooper's horse jumped to one side quickly and threw the young lady to the ground.  She was instantly killed.  Her body as taken to her home in Cooperstown.

 

Probably "the friend" who put up the monument was John Cox Morris.  He afterward became a side judge of the county and practiced law some.  He never married, and died about 1860.  It is said that the iron fence which encloses the monument came from ore found in the hillside nearby. The fence is all hammered out by hand, the pickets being about an inch square and spiked-shape on top; the corner posts are two inches square--all hand made on the forge in a shop near the spot where they now stand.  The monument is about seven feet high and eighteen inches square.  It is surmounted by an urn, and has the following inscription lettered in quaint old style, with the long "s": 

 

"Sacred to the memory of Miss Hannah Cooper, daughter of the Hon'ble William Cooper and Elizabeth, his wife.  In the bloom of youth, in perfect health and surrounded with her virtues, on the 10th day of September, 1800, she was instantly translated from this world, thrown from her horse on the spot on which this monument is erected.  Sensible, gentle, amiable, in life beloved, in death lamented by all who knew her.  Unconscious of her own perfections, she was a stranger to all ambition but that of doing good.  By her death, the tender joys of an affectionate father, the fond expectations of a delighted mother, in an instant were blasted."

 

"Passenger Stop! and for a moment, reflect that neither accomplishments of person, nor great improvements of mind, nor yet greater goodness of heart, can arrest the hand of death.  But she was prepared for that immortality in which she believed, and of which she was worthy." 

 

"To departed worth and excellence this monument is erected, this tribute of affection is inscribed, by a friend, this 1st day of January, 1801."

 

On the front side are the following verses:

"The sculptured marble,

The recording tomb,

Shall mouldering perish

In the hand of time;

Thy weeping friends

Be gathered to their home,

And Memory cease to mark thy shrine."

 

"Some Hoary moss,

Some drooping willowed shade

Or decent sod,

Or still more humble dust,

Shall guard the spot

Where thou are laid

In long

Oblivious silence lost"

 

On the north side are these lines:

 

"For thee, sweet maid!

Resplendent beams of thought,

Wisdom's rich lore,

By Seraphs' hands were given;

Thy spotless soul.

The pure effulgence caught,

it sparkled--was exhaled--

And went to Heaven."

 

"Twas thine

To animate life's swift career,

Mild, modest, artless,

Innocently gay;

Twas thine to fill an higher

Nobler sphere

With sainted spirits

In the realms of day.

 

Thy native worth

With diamond pen enrolled,

Beyond this sculptured

Monuemtn shall live,

And Charity

Of fair ethereal mould

A lasting tribute

To thy memory give."

 

*www.flickr.com, Photo by Kellsboro, Hannah Cooper Memorial