Susan Fenimore Cooper (1813–1894)

American authoress, second child of James Fenimore Cooper; born in Scarsdale, NY, in 1813. For several years before the death of her father she was his secretary and amanuensis. In 1873 she founded an orphanage in Cooperstown, NY, and in 1886 established the Friendly Society, an association of ladies to care for the inmates of the orphanage. Her published works are Rural Hours (1850); Country Hours; or, Journal of a Naturalist (1852); Rhyme and Reason of Country Life (1854); and Mt. Vernon to the Children of America (1858). Her works, though little read at the present day, had merits of their own, and showed considerable power of observation and a pleasing, cultivated style. She died in Cooperstown, NY, on the 31st of December 1894.