Although Fenimore Cooper was usually loath to admit that any character in his novels was drawn from life, Father Nash was generally recognized as the original of the Rev. Mr. Grant in the novel descriptive of Cooperstown which appeared under the title of _The Pioneers_. If this identification be justified, it must be said that while the author of the _Leather-Stocking Tales_ has well represented the genuine piety of his model, he has disguised him as a rather anaemic and depressing person. Father Nash was a man of rugged health, six feet in height, full in figure, over two hundred pounds in weight, of fresh and fair complexion, wearing a wig of longish hair parted in the middle, and dressed always, as circumstances permitted, with a strict regard for neatness. [Illustration: FATHER NASH] The only original portrait of Father Nash now remaining, from which all the extant engravings were taken, hangs in the sacristy of Christ Church. This portrait was given to the church in 1910, when the parish centennial was celebrated, by Father Nash's granddaughter, Mrs. Anna Marie Holland, of Saginaw, Michigan, and his great grandson, Harry C. Nash, of Buffalo. Mrs. Holland related a quaint incident concerning the portrait as connected with her own childhood. As it hung in her father's house, she used to be both annoyed and terrified at the manner in which the eyes of the portrait followed her about the room with persistent and, as she thought, reproving gaze. Especially when she had been guilty of some childish prank, the silent reproach in her grandfather's eyes was intolerable. One day she climbed upon a chair before the portrait, and with a pin attempted to blind the eyes. The pin pricks are still visible upon the canvas. At three score years and ten Father Nash looked upon the bright side of everything, being full of anecdote and humor, and appeared to have more of the simplicity and vivacity of youth than men who were thirty years his junior. One who saw him at this period of life attributed the old missionary's health and vigor in part to his great cheerfulness.[90] The slightest sketch of Father Nash would be incomplete without some reference to the story of his answer to a farmer who asked him what he fed his lambs. "Catechism," replied Father Nash, "catechism!" And behind the smile that followed this homely sally the analyst of character would have seen the earnest purpose of his mission to the children of Otsego which was one of the sublime secrets of his ministry.