His Early Tears. 13 



residing in the West Indies, he frequently visited North 

 America, and with some foresight made purchases of land 

 in the French colony of Louisiana, in Virginia, and Penn- 

 sylvania. In one of his American visits he met and 

 married in Louisiana a lady of Spanish extraction, named 

 Anne Moynette, whose beauty and wealth may have made 

 her equally attractive. A family of three sons and one 

 daughter blessed this union, and the subject of this 

 biographical sketch was the youngest of the sons. A few 

 years after his birth Madame Audubon accompanied her 

 husband to the estate of Aux Cayes in the island of St. 

 Domingo, and there miserably perished during the memo- 

 rable rising of the negro population. 



The black revolt so endangered the property of the 

 foreigners resident in St. Domingo, that the plate and 

 money belonging to the Audubon family had to be carried 

 away to New Orleans by the more faithful of their servants. 

 Returning to France with his family, the elder Audubon 

 again married, left his young son, the future naturalist, 

 under charge of his second wife, and returned to the 

 United States, in the employment of the French govern- 

 ment, as an officer in the Imperial navy. While there he 

 became attached to the army under Lafayette. Moving 

 hither and thither under various changes, he seldom or 

 never communicated with his boy ; but meanwhile the prop- 

 erty which remained to him in St. Domingo was greatly 

 augmenting in value. During a visit paid to Pennsylvania, 

 the restless Frenchman purchased the farm of Millgrove on 

 the Perkiomen Creek, near the Schuylkill Falls. Finally, 

 after a life of restless adventure, he returned to France 

 and filled a post in the marine ; and after spending some 

 portion of his years at Rochefort, retired to his estate on 

 the Loire. This estate was left by Commodore Audubon to 

 his son John James, who conveyed it to his sister without 

 even visiting the domain he so generously willed away. 



