ALEXANDER WILSON, 



IV, 



WILSON soon found that he could 

 not indulge in his favorite pursuits 

 consistently with his conscientious dis- 

 charge of his duty to his pupils. His 

 dream of writing and illustrating a work on 

 ornithology, once it had taken definite 

 shape, and presented itself as a task within 

 the compass of his abilities, became the one 

 idea of his life, to which every other con- 

 sideration must be subordinated, and to 

 give effect to it, it would be necessary to 

 resign his school appointment. He had 

 no hesitation in making the sacrifice, but 

 before cutting himself adrift he prudently 

 looked about for some means of providing 

 for his necessary expenses. He applied to 

 Mr. Brown, the conductor of the Literary 

 Magazine, who accepted his " Rural Walk " 

 and " Solitary Tutor " — two poetical pieces, 

 the latter being descriptive of his own 

 career, his early preparation for the church, 

 his disappointment at being diverted into 

 another and less congenial channel, his 

 struggle to emancipate himself, his emigra- 

 tion, his school house on the Schuylkill, and 

 his favorite haunts in Bartram's woods. 



The acceptance of these pieces encour- 

 aged him to make a journey on foot to the 

 Falls of Niagara, which he accomplished 

 along with two friends, starting in October, 

 1804. The lateness of the season exposed 

 them to many hardships on the return jour- 

 ney, a distance of over six hundred miles, 

 which he describes as in great part " through 

 deep snows and uninhabited forests, over 

 stupendous mountains and down danger- 

 ous rivers." 



This journey neither satisfied nor dis- 

 couraged him, on the contrary, it appears 

 only to have awakened in him a real design 

 of becoming a traveler, and by his acqui- 

 sitions adding something to the common 

 stock of knowledge, but he realized keenly 



his deficiency in many acquirements neces- 

 sary to an explorer, especially in botany, 

 mineralogy and drawing, and meditated a 

 preparatory course of study of these sub- 

 jects, consulting his friend Mr. Bartram as 

 usual. 



This, his first journey in the pursuit of 

 material for his natural history, is described 

 in the poem of the " Foresters," afterward 

 published in the " Portfolio," and furnished 

 the materials for his beautiful description 

 and poem of the bald eagle and fish hawk. 

 Other journeys were undertaken in the 

 following year, the most patent and im- 

 mediate result of which was the destruction 

 of the success of his school. His own 

 neglect was aggravated by the severe win- 

 ter of 1805, which pressed hard on the 

 settlers. 



Writing to Mr. Duncan at its close he 

 says: "This winter has been entirely lost 

 to me as well as to yourself. I shall on 

 the 12th of next month be scarcely able to 

 collect a sufficiency to pay my board, hav- 

 ing not more than twenty-seven scholars. 

 Five or six families who used to send me 

 their children have been almost in a state 

 of starvation." 



Wilson still remained at Union School, 

 and " managed to maintain himself honest- 

 ly," as his biographer tells us, but he 

 could not give up the design of illustrating 

 the birds of the United States, though pru- 

 dence, represented by Mr. Lawson's calcu- 

 lations, still forbade the scheme. 



On July 2 of this year he wrote to Mr. 

 Bartram, " I dare say you will smile at my 

 presumption when I tell you that I have 

 seriously begun to make a collection of 

 drawings of the birds to be found in Penn- 

 sylvania, or that occasionally pass through 

 it. Twenty-eight as a beginning I send 

 for your opinion. They are, I hope, in- 



