AUnTTEnFTTMriLY m AMERICA 311 



up the Hudson River to Fort Washington Park, and re- 

 establish it there as a permanent memorial to the natu- 

 ralist ; it was also noticed that the public interest was en- 

 hanced by the fact that the father of telegraphy, Samuel 

 F. B. Morse, had worked upon his invention while Au- 

 dubon's guest, and that the first message to be received 

 from Philadelphia came over a wire which entered his 

 room at the northwest corner of the building. 



An early engraving ^^ represents the naturalist's 

 house essentially as it appeared during his lifetime, sur- 

 rounded by goodly forest trees of oak and chestnut, but 

 these, when standing at all, are now reduced to gaunt 

 and scarred remnants. A later print ^* shows the 

 three Audubon houses, the river, and between it and the 

 lawn "that eye-sore of a railroad," ^* which was built not 

 long after Audubon settled upon his estate. The orig- 

 inal house was sold before 1862,^^ and about eight years 

 later its new owner occupied it, after having given it a 

 mansard roof and made numerous changes which were 

 sanctioned by an era of bad taste. The naturalist's house 

 overlooked the river and commanded a grand view from 

 its high veranda on the front, while Victor's, which later 

 adjoined it to the north, owing probably to the en- 

 croachments of the railroad, was built to face the hill- 

 slope opposite ; a top studio, at a corner of its roof, is an 

 addition of a later purchaser.^" 



Adjoining Victor's house on the north was that of his 



^ See Mrs. Horace St. John, Audubon, the Naturalist of the New 

 World (Bibl. No. 71), New York, 1856. 



^ See Valentine's Manual of the City of New York, New York, 1865. 



*'0n October 30, 1847, Bachman wrote John and Victor Audubon that 

 he proposed to visit them in the following May, when he would leave his 

 two daughters with them awhile, "to hear you and Victor grumble about 

 that eye-sore of a railroad, and to enjoy your good company, and your 

 fish and shrimps." 



^To Mr. Jesse Benedict. 



"■Mr. Charles F. Stone, whose sister was an artist. 



