254 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



would enter the river clad in a regular bathing costume 

 and cross with ease to the Indiana shore. 



In spite of the hard times Audubon managed to keep 

 out of serious business troubles until he entered into 

 another partnership with Thomas Bakewell, his brother- 

 in-law. Their project in this second association was to 

 erect a steam lumber and grist mill at Henderson, which 

 of all mortal follies the naturalist considered in the retro- 

 spect to have been one of the worst. It is recorded that 

 on the sixteenth day of March, 1817, John James Au- 

 dubon and Thomas W. Bakewell, under the designation 

 of "Audubon and Bakewell," applied to the trustees of 

 the village for a ninety-nine year lease of a section of 

 land on the river front. Their petition was granted, 

 upon a consideration of $20 per annum, and the part- 

 ners began to build their mill on the property and com- 

 pleted it within that year. Thomas W. Pears, 9 a former 

 fellow-clerk of both Audubon and Bakewell in New 

 York, early joined the enterprise, which was regarded 

 at the time as one of considerable magnitude. Their 

 mill, which stood for ninety-five years, became famous 

 in the annals of the Ohio Valley. 10 Said the historian of 

 Henderson County, writing in 1879: 



The weather boarding, whip-sawed out of yellow poplar, is 

 still intact on three sides. The joists are of unhewn logs, many 

 of them over a foot in diameter, and raggedly rough. The 

 foundation walls are built of flat, broken rock and are four and 

 a half feet thick. Mr. Audubon operated the mill on a large 

 scale for those times. His grist-mill was a great convenience, 

 and furnished a ready market for all of the surplus wheat 

 raised in the surrounding country. His saw-mill also was a 

 wonderful convenience, doing the sawing for the entire county. 



9 See Note 15, Vol. I, p. 124. 



10 A Henderson correspondent of Joseph M. Wade, under the signature 

 of "W. S. J.," August 8, 1883, gave the following account of the structure. 



