Alabama, ip 13. 



JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 



1780-1851. 



T HOUGH of French parentage, and during his early years 

 educated in France, Audubon was born in Louisiana, and 

 always called the United States of America "his own beloved 

 country," and returned to it when about eighteen. He married 

 in 1808, Lucy Bakewell, the daughter of an English neighbor. He 

 took his wife to Louisville, Ky., where he opened a store "which 

 went on prosperously when I attended to it," he writes later, "but 

 birds were birds then as now, and my thoughts were turning 

 toward them as the objects of my greatest delight. I shot, I drew, 

 I looked on nature only; my days were happy beyond human con- 

 ception, and beyond this I really cared not." 



Leaving Louisville and many kind friends behind them they 

 went to Henderson, Ky. "Like my family the village was quite 

 small. The latter consisted of six or eight houses ; the former of 

 my wife, myself and a small child. Few as the houses were we 

 fortunately found one empty. It was a log cabin. * * * 

 The woods were amply stocked with game, the rivers with fish, 

 and now and then the hoarded sweets of the industrious bees were 

 brought from some hollow tree to our table." 



In spite of strenuous endeavor to keep his wandering ten- 

 dencies under control and to earn support for his family, his vari- 

 ous undertakings failed, partly through his own lack of business 

 capacity, but still more through the dishonesty of those in whom 

 he implicitly trusted. At last "I parted with every particle of 

 property I had to my creditors, keeping only the clothes I wore 

 on that day, my original drawings and my gun." "Nothing was 

 left to me but my humble talents. Were those talents to remain 

 dormant under such exigencies? Was I to see my beloved Lucy 

 and children suffer and want bread? Was I to repine because I 

 had acted like an honest man? Was I inclined to cut my throat 

 in foolish despair? No! I had talents, and to them I instantly 



