28 



AUDUBON 



William Bakewell advised me to study the mercantile business j 

 my father approved, and to insure this training under the best 

 auspices I went to New York, where 1 entered as a clerk for your 

 great-uncle Benjamin Bakewell, while Rozier went to a French 

 house at Philadelphia. 



The mercantile business did not suit me. The very first ven- 

 ture which I undertook was in indigo ; it cost me several hundred 

 pounds, the whole of which was lost. Rozier was no more fortu- 

 nate than I, for he shipped a cargo of hams to the West Indies, 

 and not more than one-fifth of the cost was returned. Yet I 

 suppose we both obtained a smattering of business. 



Time passed, and at last, on April 8th, i8o8, your mother and 

 I were married by the Rev. Dr. Latimer, of Philadelphia, and the 

 next morning left Fatland Ford and Mill Grove for Louisville, Ky. 

 For some two years previous to this, Rozier and I had visited the 

 country from time to time as merchants, had thought well of it, 

 and liked it exceedingly. Its fertility and abundance, the hospi- 

 tality and kindness of the people were sufficiently winning things 

 to entice any one to go there with a view to comfort and happiness. 



We had marked Louisville as a spot designed by nature to be- 

 come a place of great importance, and, had we been as wise as we 

 now are, I might never have published the " Birds of America ; " 

 for a few hundred dollars laid out at that period, in lands or town 

 lots near Louisville, would, if left to grow over with grass to a 

 date ten years past (this being 1835), have become an immense 

 fortune. But young heads are on young shoulders ; it was not to 

 be, and who cares ? 



On our way to Pittsburg, we met with a sad accident, that 

 nearly cost the life of your mother. The coach upset on the 

 mountains, and she was severely, but fortunately not fatally hurt. 

 We floated down the Ohio in a flatboat, in company with several 

 other young families ; we had many goods, and opened a large 

 store at Louisville, which went on prosperously when I attended to 

 it ; but birds were birds then as now, and my thoughts were ever 

 and anon turning toward them as the objects of my greatest delight. 

 I shot, I drew, I looked on nature only ; my days were happy 

 beyond human conception, and beyond this I really cared not. 



