JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 



1780-1851 



♦&♦- 



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 neigh- 

 bor. 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 endeavors to keep his wandering tendencies 

 under control and to earn support for his family, his various under- 

 takings 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 origi- 

 nal drawings, and my gun." "Nothing was left to me but my humble 

 talents. Were those talents to remain dormant under such exi- 

 gencies? Was I to see my beloyed 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 ! 



