256 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
supply of logs, it was found that they had decamped 
and fled down the river towards the Mississippi, taking 
on their flatboat Audubon’s draft oxen and in fact all 
the plunder that they could lift. Nothing was ever 
recovered and but one of the fugitives was ever seen 
again; this man boarded a river boat on which the nat- 
uralist happened to be traveling, and it is said that upon 
being recognized he jumped into the river and swam 
to the shore like a frightened deer. 
When Bakewell finally withdrew, Audubon appears 
to have been left stranded, and the business was taken 
over by a new set of men, including another brother-in- 
law, Nicholas Berthoud, and Benjamin Page of Pitts- 
burgh, who continued it under the name of J. J. Audu- 
bon & Company."* Agents were also secured at various 
points on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Excepting, 
as we must assuredly do, his ever staunch friend, Nicho- 
las Berthoud, Audubon believed that he was “gulled by 
all of these men.” 
In 1818 a new era of building and general prosperity 
seemed to dawn in the valley of the Ohio. A new bank 
was chartered at Henderson, and the woodwork of its 
brick structure was furnished by Audubon’s mill.” 
%In his journal of 1820 Audubon said that after the withdrawal of 
Bakewell, “men with whom I had long been associated offered me a 
partnership. I accepted, and a small ray of light appeared in my busi- 
ness, but a revolution occasioned by a numberless quantity of failures put 
all to an end.” 
“One of J. J. Audubon & Company’s bills is here reproduced from 
Starling, op. cit. 
“To the President and Directors of the Bank of Henderson 
to Henderson steam mill: 
“To three pieces of scantling, 56 feet, 414 c.......... $ 2.52 
“To ten pieces of scantling, 34 feet...........2.0200e 
“To sixty rafters, 714 feet, at 4 C.......eeeee eee eens 28.56 
“To five pieces scantling, 40 feet, at 3 c.............. 1.20 
“To fifteen joists [?], 27814 feet, at 6 C.........000e. 16.71 
“J. J. Audubon & Co.” $48.99 
