Oak Openings by James Fennimore Cooper. After returning from his European travels in the 1830s, Cooper was persuaded by his nephew, Horace H. Comstock, to invest in Michigan real estate. The Potawatomi had ceded much of their land in central Michigan by 1833 and their former territory became known as "oak-openings." By 1837, Cooper's $6,000 investment was losing value, though he watched as his fellow New Yorkers attempted to colonize the area like honeybees. The experience inspired The Oak Openings; or, The Bee Hunter, and the novel became one of the first representations of Beekeeping in American literature. Though not the first author to use the term "oak openings," Frederick Marryat did so, Cooper popularized the term for the type of oak clad Savannah with the publication of the novel.