James Fenimore Cooper's Frontier: The Pioneers as History

Scientific Curiosity 

 

Consider Richard, who is usually depicted showing only his boastful and foolish side. 

However, even he is a son of the Age of Reason, tracking weather patterns and other 

developments. Cooper makes a point of showing us Richard’s scientific accoutrements: “A 

Fahrenheit's thermometer in a mahogany case, and with a barometer annexed, was hung against 

the wall, at some little distance from the stove, which Benjamin consulted, every half hour, with 

prodigious exactitude.”

155

 These are fine instruments, no doubt expensive, and both of which had 

been invented in the past century and a half.  

Also, Cooper wrote, “among the other pursuits of Richard, he had a passion to keep a 

register of all passing events; and his diary, which was written in the manner of a journal, or log 

book, embraced not only such circumstances as affected himself, but observations on the 

                                                 

152

 Greene 22 

153

 Cohen 20 

154

 Heffner 164 

155

 Cooper 59 

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weather, and all the occurrences of the family, and frequently of the village.” To this end, 

“Richard invented a kind of hieroglyphical character, which was intended to note all the ordinary 

occurrences of a day, such as how the wind blew, whether the sun shone, or whether it rained, 

the hours, etc.”

156

 Interestingly, for all his folly, it is Richard who several times prevails upon 

Temple with an appeal to reason – and to science.