characters in their classes, than by a too fastidious attention to
originals.

New York having but one county of Otsego, and the Susquehanna but one
proper source, there can be no mistake as to the site of the tale.
The history of this district of country, so far as it is connected
with civilized men, is soon told.

Otsego, in common with most of the interior of the province of New
York, was included in the county of Albany previously to the war of
the separation. It then became, in a subsequent division of
territory, a part of Montgomery; and finally, having obtained a
sufficient population of its own, it was set apart as a county by
itself shortly after the peace of 1783. It lies among those low spurs
of the Alleghanies which cover the midland counties of New York, and
it is a little east of a meridional line drawn through the centre of
the State. As the waters of New York flow either southerly into the
Atlantic or northerly into Ontario and its outlet, Otsego Lake, being
the source of the Susquehanna, is of necessity among its highest
lands. The face of the country, the climate as it was found by the
whites, and the manners of the settlers, are described with a
minuteness for which the author has no other apology than the force of
his own recollections.

Otsego is said to be a word compounded of Ot, a place of meeting, and
Sego, or Sago, the ordinary term of salutation used by the Indians of
this region. There is a tradition which says that the neighboring
tribes were accustomed to meet on the banks of the lake to make their
treaties, and otherwise to strengthen their alliances, and which
refers the name to this practice. As the Indian agent of New York had