234 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



next summer? Try what you can do for your New York 

 friend. [The following on outside of letter-sheet] I will make 

 up a box for you in a few days, and send it to you through 

 Mr. Chevalier. 



Audubon, who ever found city life irksome, as early 

 as 1841 had begun to look about for a farm, or some 

 retired spot within easy access to New York, where he 

 could establish the families of himself, of his two sons, 

 and have about him many of the animals which he then 

 wished to study and depict for his new work. Edward 

 Harris would have been glad to have had him for a 

 neighbor, and wrote from Moorestown, New Jersey, on 

 July 5, 1841, suggesting that he examine "a small farm 

 close to his village, containing about 25 acres of very 

 good land," which the owner was then willing to sell 

 for $3,500, though, added Harris, "when Mr. Havell 

 was here, he asked $5,000 for it." A spot more to his 

 liking, however, was found on the Hudson River, in 

 Carmansville, later known as Washington Heights, 

 where he purchased from thirty to forty acres of land 

 which had a river frontage of a thousand feet, from the 

 present One Hundred and Fifty-fifth to One Hundred 

 and Fifty-eighth Streets, and extended to the easterly 

 limits of the village at the old Bloomingdale Road, near 

 the present Amsterdam Avenue. This tract was well 

 wooded, and among the grand forest trees on the 

 place a large tulip or white wood attracted general 

 attention from its great girth and commanding height. 

 Audubon decided to place his house at the foot of the 

 river bluff, amid a cluster of fine oaks, chestnuts and 

 evergreens, and a clearing had to be made before the site 

 could be laid off; it was some years before the railroad 

 came to mar his river view and interrupt access to the 



