Johann Adam Hartmann (1748-1836) was a German born trapper and frontiersman in New York State. Some consider him as a possible inspiration for Natty Bumpo, the main character in

James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought h ...

Leatherstocking Tales The ''Leatherstocking Tales'' is a series of five novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper, set in the eighteenth-century era of development in the primarily former Iroquois areas in central New York. Each novel features Natty Bumppo ...

. Hartmann was born in

Edenkoben Edenkoben () is a municipality in the Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It lies approximately halfway between Landau and Neustadt an der Weinstraße. Edenkoben is one of the towns situated along the German Wine R ...

Palatinate Palatinate or county palatine may refer to: *the territory or jurisdiction of a count palatine United Kingdom and Ireland *County palatine in England and Ireland * Palatinate (award), student sporting award of Durham University *Palatinate (col ...

(Germany) in 1748. His parents were ''Anna Maria Scholl'', a native of Edenkoben and ''Johann Hartmann'', a weaver who was originally from Switzerland. The couple married in 1737. Hartman left his hometown at the age of 16 to travel on the ship ''Boston'' from

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. From there he moved to

Upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long ...

where he lived as frontiersman, trapper and hunter. When the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of ...

broke out in 1775 Hartmann joined the American side and served as ranger at Fort Dayton. He participated in the Battle of Oriskany, where he got wounded by a shot. One description of his war time career goes as follows: After the war Hartmann stayed in

Herkimer County Herkimer County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 60,139. Its county seat is Herkimer. The county was created in 1791 north of the Mohawk River out of part of Montgomery County. It is named af ...

and lived of a disability pension, that he received as a veteran of the revolution. He died on April 5, 1836. The ''Leatherstocking Tales'' (German: ''Lederstrumpf'') were hugely popular in Germany and in 1934 Carl Suesser published an article in Westermanns Monatshefte in which he suggested that Cooper might have been inspired by Hartmann when he created the character of Natty Bumpo.Carl Suesser: ''War Lederstrumpf ein Deutscher?''. In: Westermanns Monatshefte. Illustrierte Deutsche Zeitschrift, May 1934. Braunschweig 1934, pp. 245–249 (German) Alfred H. Kuby pointed out in 1983, that Cooper has mentioned Hartmann in the first edition of ''The Pioneers'' (1823) and that during his travels in Europe Cooper had spent some time in the region where Hartmann was born.Alfred H. Kuby: ''Johann Adam Hartmann - Der Lederstrumpf vom Mohawktal''. In: Roland Paul (Hrsg.): ''300 Jahre Pfälzer in Amerika''. Pfälzische Verlagsanstalt, 1983, pp. 155-157. (German/English) The city of Edenkoben dedicated a plaque to Hartmann on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Oriskany. Due to some computation error, that only got discovered after the plaque had been set up, it contains the wrong year of birth, 1743 instead of 1748. The German sculptor

Gernot Rumpf Gernot Rumpf (born 1941) is a German sculptor known for his fountains and other bronze sculptures, with the Palatinate and biblical motifs. These can be seen not only in German cities, but also in Jerusalem and Tokyo. A part of his work came ...

designed a fountain for the city of Edenkoben, which was completed in 1990.Stephanie Jacobs: ''Wider den 'Unrat der Gründerjahre'. Paul Cassirer und die Pan-Presse''. In: Rahel E. Feilchenfeldt-Steiner (ed.), Thomas Raff (ed.): ''Ein Fest der Künste: Paul Cassirer : der Kunsthändler als Verleger''. C. H. Beck, 2006, p
108
(German) The Lederstrumpfbrunnen (lit. ''Leatherstocking fountain'') features three major statues of figures related to the Leatherstocking Tales, one of them is a statue of Hartmann/Bumpo displayed with a hunting rifle and a dog.

External links

''Im Wilden Westen der Pfalz''
- report on the German radio broadcaster SR 3 Saarlandwelle on May 12, 2005 (German)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hartmann, Johann Adam German emigrants to the United States German hunters 1748 births 1836 deaths