What Is It Named After? The Leatherstocking Trail

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — Here's a clue to the inspiration for the name of the Leatherstocking Trail that runs between Scarsdale and New Rochelle: The wooded trailway crosses Fenimore Road in Mamaroneck.

If the name of the remarkable 2.5-mile-long suburban hiking trail takes its name from the rugged, self-reliant outdoorsman of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, does that mean a fictional Natty Bumpo was envisioned running on the winding marshy path in Westchester?

Maybe.

Cooper was married to his bride Susan Augusta de Lancey just steps from the trailhead of that area which would later be known as the Leatherstocking Trail. Cooper and his family briefly lived in the area. It is widely believed that his early works of fiction were written here and later works were at least partially set in Westchester County.

This enormous turtle under a footbridge on the Leatherstocking Trail is now named "Yertle," but you're on your own figuring out the provenance of this name. (Jeff Edwards | Patch)

The trail itself makes up the southern part of the Colonial Greenway trail, a 15-mile hiking loop that connects parks in Mamaroneck, Scarsdale, Eastchester and New Rochelle. The Leatherstocking runs from Pinebrook Boulevard in New Rochelle through the center of the Town of Mamaroneck to Rock Ridge Road in Mamaroneck Village. The trail runs through northeastern hardwood forests, river basins, greenways, golf courses and the backyards of some of the priciest homes in North America.

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The trail can be accessed from Rock Ridge Road, Old White Plains Road, Country Road, Fenimore Road, Avon Road, Winged Foot Drive, Stratford Road, Highland Road, Weaver Street, Rouken Glen, Bonnie Way, Knollwood Drive, and Pine Brook Boulevard. Parking is very limited, but once the car is parked, the stress of finding a legal parking spot will quickly melt away, replaced by the timelessness of nature.

A hike on the Leatherstocking is much the same experience today as walking the ancient Iroquois footpaths of the Hudson Valley might have been for Hawkeye in the 1800s.