The Chainbearer

by James Fenimore Cooper

First published 1845

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3.0(27)

In the 1780s, Mordaunt Littlepage travels into upper New York to inspect and survey family lands in the unsettled aftermath of the Revolution. He is accompanied by the veteran surveyor Andries Coejemans, the “Chainbearer”, whose practical knowledge of boundaries becomes vital as squatters, rival claimants and local resentments turn apparently technical questions about property into personal danger.

The novel shifts the Littlepage family story from colonial inheritance to the legal and political uncertainties of the new republic. Survey lines, deeds and occupation determine who can claim the land, while Cooper uses Mordaunt’s experiences to explore the conflict between formal ownership and the expectations of people who believe settlement or revolutionary change gives them a competing right.