162 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Sept. S3, 1888. 



Adaresss aJl- wmrmmicatiom to the Fewest and Stream Puh. Co. 



JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 



BY CHARLES LANIIAJT. 



WHENEVER I recall tlie character, experiences and 

 labors of John James Audubon, I mentally ex- 

 claim, -'He was a man without a peer, and worthy of the 

 liighest admii'ation, as a man, an author, an artist and a 

 Clu-istian." During my residence m New York as a mer- 

 chant's clerk, there were no wi-itings that I more fre- 

 quently borrowed from tlie Mercantile Library than those 

 of the gi-eat naturalist; and notlringwas further from my 

 thoughts in those days than that it would ever be my 



E)rivilege to come into his royal presence. That privi- 

 ege was mine, however, in the year 1847, when, by invi- 

 tation of one of his sons, I made a number of visits to 

 Mr. Auduboii's residence on the outskirts of the city, 

 from which time I enjoyed his friendship until the close 

 of his long and useful life. 



The siuToundings and associations of that memorable 

 home, as I remendjer them, were all that could have been 

 desired by its occupant. The dwelling was large and 

 commodious and surroimded with a cheerful conglomera- 

 tion of forest trees in whose shadows reposed a number of 

 red deer, while a variety of other animals were domiciled 

 in the vicinity of the mansion. Birds of several vai'ieties 

 were also chirping and singing in the branches of the 

 trees, as if conscious of theu- special privileges on that 

 particular domain. 



Within the dwelling everything was comfortable and 

 elegant and without any pretension, although the chief 

 attraction was the room or study where the host carried 

 on his intellectual labors with pen and pencil. It was 

 filled with pictures and books connected with the studies 

 of a naturalist, as well as ^vith a great variety of speci- 

 mens of natiu-al history and the various imj)lements that 

 had been used in the capture of birds and aidmals, in all 

 sections of the Union. And as to the fandly, it consisted 

 of Ms wife, two sons and a daughter-in-law and two or 

 three grandchildren, and between them all there seemed 

 to be a feeling of sympathy and love which was simply 

 delightful to witness by a youth who was then battling 

 alone with the turmoils of life in a great city. 



At the time alluded to, the plans were ciilminating in 

 Mr. Audubon's mind for a new expedition in the far 

 Southwest, for the fm-ther prosecution of his labors as a 

 naturalist. His manner of depicting what he expected to 

 see and hoped to accomplish fired me ^vith a desire to 

 join liim, not as a student of science, but as a traveling 

 secretary. My offer was accepted, and for about two 

 weeks I was probably the happiest human being in 

 Gotham. In the meantime, however, Mr. Audubon's 

 sons came to the conclusion that their father was too old 

 to venture upon a new expedition in the far West, and in 

 spite of his hostility to being interfered with in his de- 

 sires, he finally yielded his opinions, and the expedition 

 was not carried out. This blow at my own ambitious 

 hopes was hard to bear-, and I have sujjposed that it was 

 for the purpose of administering balm to my wovm^ded 

 spirits that Mr. Audubon presented to me at that time the 

 letter press volumes of his great work on "The Birds of 

 America," which has ever since been a leading attraction 

 in my library. Up to that time the five volumes in ques- 

 tion had never gone, by gift or jjurchase, into the pos- 

 session of any man without being accompanied by the 

 hundreds of colored plates intended to illustrate the vol- 

 umes. 



At the time that Mi: Audu.bon was making the jjrepara- 

 tions alluded to above, he was in the 67th year of Ids age, 

 and apparently in perfect health. As I sat by his side on 

 one occasion, and listened to his stories about the wilder- 

 ness and its feathered denizens, I remember the fancy 

 crossed my mind that he had the eyes and courage of the 

 eagle, the' tender feeling of the dove, the contentment of 

 the partridge, the strong and comely form of the swan, 

 the dignified bearing of the turkey, the innocent confi- 

 dence of the wren, the frolicsome spirit of the mocking 

 bird, a voice as replete with j^leasant memories as that of 

 the whip-poor-will and a love of the w^ilderness, allied to 

 that of the loon. Aside from the foregoing fancy, it may 

 safely be asserted that the feathered tribes won the af- 

 fection and respect of tlieir gi-eat representative wlxUe he 

 was yet a mere boy; and tlien the task which nature gave 

 him was fostered by an intelligent and affectionate father. 

 That parent was an Admiral 'n the French Navy, who 

 became a citizen of Louisiana, where his son was bom on 

 May 4, 1780. Although destined by Providence to lead a 

 life of continuous adventure, yet the initial points of his 

 career were neither conspicuous nor of special signifi- 

 cance. When about 24 years of age he was sent to Paris 

 to acquire a knowledge of art, and although he had the 

 honor of studying with the painter David, his teachings 

 could not make the incipient naturalist forgetful of the 

 woods and the birds of his native land. On his return to 

 th« United States, his father presented him with a farm 

 in the valley of the Schuylkill in Pennsylvania, where 

 he settled in 1798. In 1808 he had the good sense to take 

 unto liimself a \^dfe, wliose name was Lucy BakeweU, 

 and who proved to be a noble helpmeet for forty-three 

 years. Not long after his marriage he sold his farm and 

 removed to Kentucky, wliere he divided his time between 

 the towns of Louisville and Hendersonville. For about 

 two years he tried his foi-tune as a merchant, but was not 

 successful. Finding that his heart was "in the High- 

 lands" as well as in the Lowlands, with the bkds that he 

 so dearly loved, he began to prosecute with special avidity 

 his studies in natm'al historv. He explored the Southern 

 and Western States, studying the habits of birds and 

 makhig portraits of them, imtil 1824, ^vhen he revisited 

 PhiladelpMa and where he conceived the idea of an ex- 

 tensive publication o!' his researches. And here, by way 

 of illustrating his persex'erance as a naturalist, I am con- 

 strained to mention thcfollowiiig incidents on the author- 

 ity of one who knew the naturalist personally: Fkst, that 

 he once remarked to a friend that, with his wife and sons, 

 he had chased a wren for fifteen hundred miles, and fin- 

 ally obtained it at a cost of $1,000; and, second, that while 

 once dinmg witli a friend in Roxlmry, Mass. , he chanced 

 to hear the song of a bird he had long been trying to cap- 

 ture, when he excused himself, seized Ins gvm and started 

 after his game, which he did not secm-e imtil he had 

 reached Cape Cod, and that after a tramp of neaady two 



Believing that he could better accomplish his pur- 

 pose in Great Britain than in the Quaker Citv , he went to 

 England in 1826, leaving his wife in Louisiana, and hav- 

 ing completed his arrangements, his work was eventually 

 published in Edinbm-gh and London. The success which 

 at once attended the enterprise was Tinprecedented, and of 

 the 300 subscribers at $1,000 each whom he obtained, the 

 majority came from France and England. This patron- 

 age came from the lugher classes everywhere, and in- 

 cluded the names of kings, queens, and of the nobility, as 

 well as of many of the leading librarians of Great Britain 

 and the continent of Europe. It was a bold venture for 

 so young a man to make, and fadure would have been 

 most disastrous; but a good Providence was on his side 

 and a firm support. 



Prior to the publication of his work, and when the pros- 

 pects were gloomy, some of Ins friends endeavored to dis- 

 suade Mm from trjing so important an experiment; but 

 his reply was that his heart waa fully nerved and that his 

 reliance was upon that Power upon whom all men should 

 depend, and he felt that he would succeed. When suc- 

 cess was fully assured, he expressed his heartfelt grati- 

 tude to the good Being who had guided Ms way and pre- 

 pared him for a hapi)y and peaceful old age in the bosom 

 of his family. He returned to America in 1829, revisited 

 England in 1831, and in 1889 he settled himself on the 

 Hudson near New York city, where, after a mental ill- 

 ness, he died in perfect peace on the 27th of January, 

 1851. 



Among the names that Mr. Audubon was wont to men- 

 tion with kindness when talMng about his ti-avels was 

 that of C. W. Webber. Their acquaintance took place 

 when the two were traveling together on a canal boat in 

 Pennsylvania. Mr. Webber's admiration for the natural- 

 ist was most enthusiastic, and an opportunity he had 

 for securing a good berth for the man he admu-ed he 

 recalled as an important event in his life. For his act of 

 pohteness, however, he was amply rewarded, for he not 

 only enjoyed the conversation of Mr. Audubon, but took 

 long walks with him along the towpath of the canal, find- 

 ing out that even as a pedestrian he was not a match for 

 his companion, then in the sixtieth year of his age. "Ah," 

 ■wrote Webber in 1852, "the grandeur of that man's Mfe! 

 Though it had filled my own with poetic yearmngs in my 

 youth, yet they have lost notMng in fire and earnest 

 upward through my maturer age!" 



And here, for the benefit of those who may never have 

 seen the gi-eat work wMch placed Mr. Audubon in the 

 front rank among the naturalists of the world, I would 

 mention the following particulars: The work consisted of 

 ten volumes, five of them of great size, i. e., double ele- 

 phant octavos, bearing the title of "The Birds of Amer- 

 ica," and containing 448 colored engravings with the birds 

 represented as large as life; while the remaining five 

 volumes, bearing the title of "Ormthological Biogra- 

 phies," wei'e made up of the letter pres6,describing the char- 

 acteristics of not less than 1,065 species of American 

 birds, interspersed, at regular intervals, with desultory 

 chapters or episodes, describing many of the personal 

 adventures of the indefatigable author and artist and 

 man of science. To me, these particular chapters have a 

 freshness, interest and simplicity wMch are unsurpassed, 

 and bring us into the closest communion vrith all that is 

 cliarming and fascinating in the scenery and natvtral his- 

 tory of the Umted States. It was the literary part of the 

 gi-eat work in question which I pondered with so much 

 avidity in my more youthful days, and so the reader can 

 imagine my dehght when the author presented to me the 

 precious volumes. In the Introduction to that work, as I 

 remember, he mentions the fact that it always made him 

 sad to deprive the beautiful birds of life, but of course 

 this was a continual necessity. And he also mentions in 

 the same place this curious incident: On one occasion, be- 

 fore leaving Kentucky on a visit to Pennsylvania, he 

 packed up in a box two hujidred of Ms drawings of buds 

 and left them with a friend; and after an absence of 

 months retm-ned to find that they had been partly de- 

 stroyed by vermin. "When I retrrrned," to use his own 

 language, "after having enjoyed the pleasures of home 

 for a few days, I inquu-ed after my box and what I was 

 ideased to call my treasure. The box was produced and 

 opened, but reader— feel for me — a pair of Norway rats 

 had taken possession of the whole and had reared a fam- 

 ily among the gnawed bits of paper wMch but a few 

 months before represented nearly a thousand inhabitants 

 of the air. The burning heat which immediately ran 

 through my brain was too great to be endured without 

 affecting the whole of my nervous system. I slept not 

 for several mghts, and the days passed like days of ob- 

 hvioh until the animal powers being recalled into action, 

 through the strength of my constitution, I took up my 

 gun, my notebook and my pencils, and went forth into 

 the woods as gailv as if nothing had happened." 



That the conversation of a man hke Mr. Audubon was 

 replete with the most interesting information need not be 

 asserted. It was in no sense conventional but as fresh 

 and dehghtful as the scenes he had witnessed, and the ad- 

 ventures he had experienced in his multitudinous wander- 

 mgs. He was pre-eminently a simple-hearted child of 

 natirre, and hence the influence of what he uttered and 

 put upon paper will be pereimial. His descriptions had 

 the effect of a continual panorama, and in fancy I was 

 by his side when he sailed down the Ohio in a skiff pro- 

 pelled by two negroes and accompanied by his yoimg 

 wife, and when he was frightened by the mysterious 

 howling of a Methodist camp meeting, which he mistook 

 for an encampment of hostUe Indians, and when explor- 

 ing the wilds of the LeMgh and Upper Susquehanna, risk- 

 ing his life among the Indians and Regulators of the Missis- 

 sippi Valley, battling with the floods of the great river, 

 hunting for bears and other large ammals, quailing imder 

 the influence of repeated earthquakes, hunting with and 

 enjoying the hospitalities of Daniel Boone, and camping 

 out in the lonely regions bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. 

 It was while enjoying a little leisure in Louisvdle, Ky. , 

 that he first met his brother naturalist, Alexander 

 Wilson. They compared notes, and although Audubon 

 did not care, or could not afford, to subscribe for Wilson's 

 forthcoming work, he offered him the use of many of his 

 own drawings, but the friendship between the two men 

 was not especially cordial. 



On various occasions during Ms wanderings he tried to 

 secm-e a little needed money for his daily support, by 

 drawing or pamting portraits, in which he was successful. 

 When haibored in Natchez, Teimessee, a friend came to 

 him and asked for a loan of money with wMch to buy a 

 pair of shoes; he had not the money in hand, but he went 



to a shoemaker and negotiated for a pair of shoes for 

 himself and friend and paid for them by painting the 

 portrait of the eeathetic cobbler. During one of his visits 

 to New Orleans, and when in want of money, he copied 

 a picture of the death of Montgomery, widch he valued 

 at tMee hundred dollars and wliich his friends took in 

 hand for a raffle, and when ad. the tickets were sold ex- 

 cepting one, Audubon thought he would expedite the 

 business in hand and pm-chased the remaining ticket 

 himself, paying for it in gold, when the picture feU to his 

 lot as well as the three himdred dollars in money. After 

 a trip that he had made through Western New York and 

 to Niagara, wMch ho did not look upon from Goat Island 

 because he could not pay for passing over the bridge, 

 he revisited Cincinnati, where he had to borrow money 

 from an old acquaintance and went down the Mississippi 

 in a flat boat;; reached New Orleans during the prevalence 

 of the yellow fever, and found it far more desolate than 

 any spot he had ever seen in the wilderness; and on 

 reacMng the place, not far away, where Ms wife had 

 been employing herself as a teacher, he not only foimd 

 her in perfect health, but receiving an aimual income of 

 tliree thousand dollars. And it was with the money 

 accumulated by tMs noble wife that he was enabled to visit 

 Great Britain and engineer for the pubhcation of his long 

 contemplated work oh the Birds of America. His success, 

 a3 already stated , was at once most decided, and a large mmi- 

 ber of the greatest men in England, Scotland and France, 

 gave Mm a helping hand, and his praises were proclaimed 

 in print by such men as Francis Jeffrey, Jolm Wilson, 

 Will iiam Roscoe.Walter Scott, Sydney Smith, BasU Hall and 

 Baron Cuvier. The cost of bringing out his work was not 

 less than one hundred thousand dellars; so that with his 

 tMee hundred subscribers Ms profits were very satisfac- 

 tory. As we tMnk of tMs prospeiity, and then'recall the 

 fact that the same man had been compelled to paint a 

 porlxait for a paii- of shoes, and had been prevented from 

 f uUy studying Niagara because he could not pay for cross- 

 mg the bridge to Goat Island, we may indeed begin to ap- 

 preciate the vicissitudes of our humanity. But with 

 Audubon it was impossible for any change of fortune to 

 make Mm forget his manhood. As ix)rtrayed in his 

 journals the reverses he met with were remarkable. An 

 estate which was left to him in France by his father was 

 taken from him, also the sum of seventeen thousand 

 dollars which had been left for safe keeping with a man 

 m Richmond, Va. At one time he was so poor that he 

 could not buy the blank books necessary for his journals; 

 but his wonderful courage and perseverance brought him 

 out of all his troubles in. the end, 



Mr. Audubon's intercourse with the great men of Eu- 

 rope was generally agreeable, but there were some ex- 

 ceptions. For example, when, with first-class letters, he 

 ca lied upon Baron Rothschild, he was treated with marked 

 indifference, and although the notorious Jew subscribed 

 for the "Birds of America," he complained about the 

 price, as the work was "only about birds." The human 

 cormorant could not rise above his natural instincts. 

 Another man who manifested an unwonted meanness was 

 the librarian of an institution m Paris. When about to 

 obey the order of his superiors to subscribe for the "Birds," 

 he said to Mr. Audubon that it was customary to ask for 

 a discotmt on such costly pubhcations, whereupon the 

 naturahst manifested his disgust and refused to let the 

 librarian record Ms name, and departed. While it was 

 true that IVIr. Audubon's European subscribers out- 

 numbered those in his native land, his personal admirers 

 and helpers in the United States were very numerous, 

 and among those who were glad to proclaim his praises 

 were Fennimore Cooper, Thomas Sully, Edward Everett, 

 Andrew Jackson, Washington Irving and Daniel 

 Webster. The latter was one of the earliest 

 subscribers for the "Birds of America;" and while the 

 author was wont to express Ms gratitude for such a 

 patron, I happen to Imow that Mr. Webster's admiration 

 for the great naturalist was unbounded and most affec- 

 tionately expressed at the time of Ms death, which only 

 preceded that of the statesman by about one year and 

 three months. 



Iklr. Audubon visited Marshfield a number of times by 

 special invitation, and on one occasion when there he was 

 presented by Mr. Webster with nearly a wagon load of 

 miBcellaneous birds, which the latter had ordered to be 

 killed by his hunters all along the coast, and among them 

 was the identical Canada goose which figures so beauti- 

 fully in the "Birds of America." Mr. Webster told me 

 that the natiu-alist studied the characteristics of that bird 

 for an entire day, and that he spent tMee days in making 

 the portrait. 



Next to those of his native land he seemed to love the 

 friends he had known in Scotland: and among his great- 

 est pleasm-es when in that country was to visit the places 

 sanctified by the gemus of Burns and Scott and Wilson. 



In this effort to depict the leading characteristics of Mr. 

 Audubon, I must not forget his devotion as a husband. 

 Of course, in the great majority of his wanderings it was 

 impossible for hiiia to have the companionship of his de- 

 voted and accomplished helpmeet; but when he revisited 

 Scotland and England in 1830, he took her with him and 

 caused her to participate in all the honors conferred upon 

 himself. It was in Edinburgh that he wrote the first 

 volume of his "Bird BiograpMes," and wMle it was pass- 

 ing through the press, a duplicate copy of the manu- 

 script, to be sent to America, was written out by Mrs. 

 Audubon, which fact, together with her industry as a 

 teacher in Louisiana, proved her to be a remarkable 

 woman. That he fully appreciated the manifold merits 

 of his wife was proven by the loving manner in wMch 

 he alluded to her and regretted her absence in his journals, 

 and he evidently had her in his mind when he recorded 

 the foUowmg tribute to her sex: "Women ai-e always 

 keenest in sight and perception, in patience and fortitude 

 and love, in faith and sorrow, and, as I believe, in every- 

 thing else which adorns our race." And from all that I 

 have gathered, the children of this happy pair were in aU 

 pai-ticulars -worthy of their parentage. There were two of 

 them, John and Victor Audubon, both men of ability, and 

 thev did not little to help their father in his explorations 

 and m bringing out his pubhcations, the latest of wMch 

 was devoted to the quadrupeds of the United States. One 

 of these sons had a special fondness for landscape paint- 

 ing, and produced a number of fine pictures; among them 

 a view of London, with the dome of St. Paid rising above 

 a fog cloud, which was a great success. 



In the closing volume of Ms "Ornithological Biography," 

 Mr. Audubon gives us the following glimpse of th« 

 working of Ms mind; "Poverty at times walked hand ia 



