342 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
He complimented me on my drawings of birds and flowers. 
Showing him a portrait of my Best Friend, I asked him if he 
would like one of himself. He said “Yes, and I will exert my- 
self to gain as many more customers as I can.” 
According to a story current at Meadville long after 
the event Audubon made the acquaintance of Mr. Bene- 
dict, a merchant, lately come from New Haven, whose 
attractive daughter, named Jennett,’® was then one and 
twenty; his family lived at the village tavern, called the 
“Torbett House,” in which Mr. Augustus Colson had 
astore. It was Mr. Colson, to whom Audubon probably 
refers, who responded generously to his appeal for work, 
and called in a number of his young friends as possible 
patrons. Among them was Miss Jennett Benedict, and 
the naturalist, attracted by her agreeable manners and 
pleasing appearance, asked permission to make a por- 
trait-sketch, saying that he would pay for the privilege 
by presenting her with a copy. This was evidently good 
business enterprise, for, according to the story, a grain 
bin in the Colson store was soon converted into a studio, 
and Audubon was rewarded by a number of sitters. 
Here is his account from the record just quoted: 
Next day I entered the artist’s room, by crazy steps of the 
store-garret ; four windows faced each other at right angles; in 
a corner was a cat nursing, among rags for a paper-mill; hogs- 
**Miss Jennett Benedict in 1836 became Mrs. Butts; the crayon por- 
trait which Audubon made at this time was carefully treasured by her 
daughter, the late Mrs. Frederick A. Sterling, of Cleveland, Ohio, to whose 
kindness I am indebted for the privilege of reproducing it. This original 
drawing, which is presumably a fair specimen of Audubon’s itinerant 
portraiture, was made on a sheet of buff, water-marked paper, 1414 by 
1014 inches in dimensions; it was outlined in pencil, and carefully finished 
in crayon-point; its legend “J. J. Audubon-1824,” was inserted in pencil, 
in a very fine hand at the lower margin of the sketch. The Colson 
store was at the corner of Water Street and south of Cherry Alley. For 
an account of this incident I am indebted to Mrs. Sterling, and to an 
article in the Tribune Republican, of Meadville, for February 7, 1907. 
