The Deerslayer or The First Warpath was the last of James Fenimore Coopers Leatherstocking Tales to be written Its 1740-1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically and in the lifetime of the hero of the Leatherstocking tales Natty Bumppo The novels setting on Otsego Lake in central upstate New York is the same as that of The Pioneers the first of the Leatherstocking Tales to be published The Deerslayer is considered to be the ...