o74 Grinnell, Audubon Park. [July 



which rose many forest trees, some of them of great size. Much 

 of the land between the present 155th and 157th Streets was 

 overgrown with thick-standing young hemlocks, and no grass 

 grew on the shaded ground. North of 157th Street were the 

 "near woods," so-called, through which ran a brook, and this tract 

 remained wild and unimproved until the year 1870, when it was 

 added to Audubon Park. To the north of 158th Street was a 

 larger piece of woodland. Great white pines stood about the 

 Audubon houses, and on one of them grew a vine of fox grapes, 

 some of which the children always managed to get, after the first 

 hard frost of autumn. 



At a little distance from the houses the Hudson River Railroad 

 ran across a wide cove, on an embankment, and the tide from the 

 river rose and fell in the ponds lying between this causeway and 

 the old river bank. In these ponds the boys fished for killies 

 and eels, and in summer went crabbing. In winter the quiet 

 water froze and we had good skating. The ponds were long 

 ago filled up and even their memory has passed away. 



The interior of the Audubon House was attractive — an old- 

 fashioned country house, more or less worn and shabby from the 

 tramping and play of a multitude of children. In the hall were 

 antlers of elk and deer, which supported guns, shot pouches, 

 powder flasks, and belts. Pictures that now are famous hung on 

 the walls. In the dining-room facing the entrance from the hall, 

 was the portrait of the naturalist and his dog, painted by John 

 Woodhouse Audubon. The painting of pheasants started by a 

 dog — now in the American Museum — was in the parlor south of 

 the hall, and the picture of the eagle and the lamb upstairs in 

 Madam Audubon's bedroom. Everywhere were vivid reminders 

 of the former owner of the land. 



To the north of the Victor Audubon and east of the John Audu- 

 bon house, on a hillock, was the wooden building with a cellar 

 known as "the cave," where some of the old copper plates were 

 stored for a time. This building was always locked, and the boys 

 seldom had an opportunity to look into it, except when John 

 Audubon opened it and they were permitted to follow him in. 

 John Harden, the man who boxed these plates, died last summer 

 in his eighty-ninth year, on the very borders of Audubon Park, 

 where he had lived for sixty-seven years. 



