304 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



It has been stated that Audubon got nothing from Dr. 

 Drake, but that "Mrs. Audubon afterwards received 

 four hundred dollars, of the twelve hundred due," and 

 that the remainder was never paid. 2 This matter can 

 now be fully cleared up, and it will appear that the 

 Cincinnati College was in no way involved; Dr. Drake 

 was not its president, although he drew its charter and 

 was one of its trustees; the Museum in which the nat- 

 uralist worked was an independent foundation; and 

 Mrs. Audubon was probably paid in full for the service 

 which her husband had rendered. 



Audubon wrote in his journal in 1820, when this 

 experience was fresh in his mind, that owing to his 

 talent for stuffing fishes he entered the service of the 

 Western Museum at a salary of $125 a month; he made 

 no complaint at that time of any lack of pay. More- 

 over, on the day before he started on his cruise down 

 the Ohio River on the 11th of October of that year, 

 the Rev. Elijah Slack gave him a letter of introduction 

 in which he said that Audubon had "been engaged in 

 our museum for 3 to 4 months, and that his perform- 

 ances do honor to his pencil." Since Mr. Slack, like 

 Dr. Drake, was one of the managers of the Western 

 Museum, he must have known of Audubon's term of 

 service. We are convinced that Dr. Daniel Drake, 3 



2 Ibid., vol. i, p. 49. 



3 Dr. Daniel Drake (1785-1852) was one of the most versatile and 

 prolific writers on medicine which the West has ever produced, and 

 Cincinnati owed to him much, for he was instrumental in organizing 

 in that city a church, a literary society, a museum, a hospital, a college, 

 and a school of medicine, while he enjoyed a large medical practice, lectured 

 on botany, and was a partner in two mercantile establishments. We might 

 also add that his "Notice concerning Cincinnati" (pp. 1-28, i-iv. Printed 

 for the author at Cincinnati, 1810), of which only three copies are known 

 to exist, is the earliest and rarest published record of that city. This 

 little pamphlet included a "Flora" of the city for 1809, and from it we 

 transcribe this interesting extract (p. 27): "May 10. Black locust in full 

 flower." 



