AUDUBON'S LETTERPRESS AND ITS RIVALS
Settlement in London—Starts on canvassing tour with
his wife—Change of plans—In Edinburgh—Discovery
of MacGillivray—His hand in the _Ornithological
Biography_—Rival editions of Wilson and Bonaparte—Brown's
extraordinary _Atlas_—Reception of the _Biography_—Joseph
Bartholomew Kidd and the Ornithological Gallery—In London
again 437
ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME I
Audubon. After a photograph of a cast of the intaglio
cut by John C. King in 1844. Embossed medallion Cover
Audubon. After the engraving by C. Turner, A.R.A., of
the miniature on ivory painted by Frederick Cruikshank
about 1831; "London. Published Jan. 12, 1835, for
the Proprietor [supposed to have been the engraver,
but may have been Audubon or Havell], by Robert
Havell, Printseller, 77, Oxford Street." Photogravure
Frontispiece
PAGE Statue of Audubon by Edward Virginius Valentine in
Audubon Park, New Orleans Facing 14
The Audubon Monument in Trinity Cemetery, New York, on
Children's Day, June, 1915 Facing 14
Les Cayes, Haiti: the wharf and postoffice Facing 40
Les Cayes, Haiti: the market and Church of Sacré Cœur Facing 40
First page of the bill rendered by Dr. Sanson, of
Les Cayes, Santo Domingo, to Jean Audubon for medical
services from December 29, 1783, to October 19, 1785 Facing 54
Second page of the Sanson bill, bearing, in the entry
for April 26, 1785, the only record known to exist of
the date of Audubon's birth Facing 55
Third page of the Sanson bill, signed as accepted by Jean
Audubon, October 12, 1786, and receipted by the doctor,
when paid, June 7, 1787 Facing 59
Audubon's signature at various periods. From early
drawings, legal documents and letters Facing 63
Lieutenant Jean Audubon and Anne Moynet Audubon. After
portraits painted between 1801 and 1806, now at Couëron
Facing 78
Jean Audubon. After a portrait painted by the American
artist Polk, at Philadelphia, about 1789 Facing 78
Jean Audubon's signature. From a report to the Directory
of his Department, when acting as Civil Commissioner,
January to September, 1793 79
Certificate of Service which Lieutenant Audubon received
upon his discharge from the French Navy, February 26,
1801 84
"Mill Grove" in 1835 (about). After a water-color
painting by Charles Wetherill Facing 102
"Mill Grove," Audubon, Pennsylvania, as it appears to-day
Facing 102
"Mill Grove" farmhouse, west front, as it appears to-day
Facing 110
"Fatland Ford," Audubon, Pennsylvania, the girlhood home
of Lucy Bakewell Audubon Facing 110
Early drawings of French birds, 1805, hitherto
unpublished: the male Reed Bunting ("Sedge Sparrow"),
and the male Redstart Facing 128
Receipt given by Captain Sammis of the _Polly_ to Audubon
and Ferdinand Rozier for their passage money from Nantes
to New York, May 28, 1806 134
"La Gerbetière," Jean Audubon's country villa at Couëron,
France, and the naturalist's boyhood home Facing 136
"La Gerbetière" and Couëron, as seen from the highest
point in the commune, windmill towers on the ridge
overlooking Port Launay, on the Loire Facing 142
"La Gerbetière," as seen when approached from Couëron
village by the road to Port Launay Facing 142
Port Launay on the Loire Facing 142
Beginning of the "Articles of Association" of John James
Audubon and Ferdinand Rozier, signed at Nantes, March
23, 1806 Facing 146
First page of a power of attorney granted by Jean
Audubon, Anne Moynet Audubon and Claude François Rozier
to John James Audubon and Ferdinand Rozier, Nantes, April
4, 1806 Facing 152
Signatures of Jean Audubon, Anne Moynet Audubon, Dr.
Chapelain and Dr. Charles d'Orbigny to a power of
attorney granted to John James Audubon and Ferdinand
Rozier, Couëron, November 20, 1806 Facing 153
Early drawings of French birds, 1805, hitherto
unpublished: the European Crow, with detail of head of
the Rook, and the White Wagtail Facing 174
Early drawing in crayon point of the groundhog, 1805,
hitherto unpublished Facing 182
Water-color drawing of a young raccoon, 1841 Facing 182
Alexander Wilson Facing 212
William Bartram Facing 212
The "twin" Mississippi Kites of Wilson and Audubon, the
similarity of which inspired charges of misappropriation
against Audubon Facing 228
Audubon's signature to the release given to Ferdinand
Rozier on the dissolution of their partnership in 1811 242
Ferdinand Rozier in his eighty-fifth year (1862) Facing 246
Rozier's old store at Ste. Geneviève, Kentucky Facing 246
Letter of Audubon to Ferdinand Rozier, signed "Audubon &
Bakewell," and dated October 19, 1813, during the first
partnership under this style Facing 246
Audubon's Mill at Henderson, Kentucky, since destroyed,
as seen from the bank of the Ohio River Facing 254
An old street in the Couëron of today Facing 264
"Les Tourterelles," Couëron, final home of Anne Moynet
Audubon, and the resting-place of exact records of the
naturalist's birth and early life Facing 264
Early drawings of American birds, 1808-9, hitherto
unpublished: the Belted Kingfisher and the Wild Pigeon
Facing 292
Bayou Sara Landing, West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana,
at the junction of Bayou Sara and the Mississippi River
Facing 314
Scene on Bayou Sara Creek, Audubon's hunting ground in
1821 Facing 314
Road leading from Bayou Sara Landing to the village of
St. Francisville, West Feliciana Parish Facing 318
"Oakley," the James Pirrie plantation house near St.
Francisville, where Audubon made some of his famous
drawings while acting as a tutor in 1821 Facing 318
An early letter of Audubon to Edward Harris, written at
Philadelphia, July 14, 1824 332
Note of Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchell, written hurriedly in
pencil, recommending Audubon to his friend, Dr. Barnes,
August 4, 1824 337
Crayon portrait of Miss Jennett Benedict, an example of
Audubon's itinerant portraiture. After the original drawn
by Audubon at Meadville, Pennsylvania, in 1824 Facing 342
Miss Eliza Pirrie, Audubon's pupil at "Oakley" in 1821.
After an oil portrait Facing 342
Early drawing of the "Frog-eater," Cooper's Hawk, 1810,
hitherto unpublished Facing 348
Pencil sketch of a "Shark, 7 feet long, off Cuba,"
from Audubon's Journal of his voyage to England in 1826
Facing 348
First page of Audubon's Journal of his voyage from New
Orleans to Liverpool in 1826 Facing 349
Cock Turkey, _The Birds of America_, Plate I. After the
original engraving by W. H. Lizars, retouched by Robert
Havell. Color Facing 358
Title page of the original edition of _The Birds of
America_, Volume II, 1831-1834 381
The Prothonotary Warbler plates, _The Birds of America_,
Plate XI, bearing the legends of the engravers, W. H.
Lizars and Robert Havell, Jr., but identical in every
other detail of engraving Facing 384
Reverse of panels of Robert Havell's advertising folder
reproduced on facing insert 386
Outside engraved panels of an advertising folder issued
by Robert Havell about 1834. After the only original copy
known to exist 386
Inside engraved panels of Robert Havell's advertising
folder, showing the interior of the "Zoölogical Gallery,"
77 Oxford Street Facing 387
Reverse of panels of Robert Havell's advertising folder,
reproduced on facing insert 387
Title page of Audubon's Prospectus of _The Birds of
America_ for 1831 391
English Pheasants surprised by a Spanish Dog. After a
painting by Audubon in the American Museum of Natural
History Facing 394
Letter of William Swainson to Audubon, May, 1828 402
Audubon. After an oil portrait, hitherto unpublished,
painted about 1826 by W. H. Holmes Facing 412
Part of letter of Charles Lucien Bonaparte to Audubon,
January 10, 1829 417
Mrs. Dickie's "Boarding Residence," 26 George Street,
Edinburgh, where Audubon painted and wrote in 1826-27,
and in 1830-31 Facing 438
The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. After an
old print Facing 438
Title page of the _Ornithological Biography_, Volume I 441
CHRONOLOGY
_1785_
_April 26._—Fougère, Jean Rabin, or Jean Jacques Fougère
Audubon, born at Les Cayes, Santo Domingo, now Haiti.
_1789_
Fougère, at four years, and Muguet, his sister by adoption,
at two, are taken by their father to the United States, and
thence to France.
_1794_
_March 7 (17 ventose, an 2)._—Fougère, when nine years old,
and Muguet at six, are legally adopted as the children of Jean
Audubon and Anne Moynet, his wife.
_1800_
_October 23 (1 brumaire, an 9)._—Baptized, Jean Jacques
Fougère, at Nantes, when in his sixteenth year.
_1802-1803_
Studies drawing for a brief period under Jacques Louis David,
at Paris.
_1803_
First return to America, at eighteen, to learn English and
enter trade: settles at "Mill Grove" farm, near Philadelphia,
where he spends a year and begins his studies of American
birds.
_1804_
_December 15._—Half-interest in "Mill Grove" acquired by
Francis Dacosta, who begins to exploit its lead mine; he also
acts as guardian to young Audubon, who becomes engaged to Lucy
Green Bakewell; quarrel with Dacosta follows.
_1805_
_January 12-15_ (?).—Walks to New York, where Benjamin
Bakewell supplies him with passage money to France.
_January 18_ (about).—Sails on the _Hope_ for Nantes, and
arrives about March 18.
A year spent at "La Gerbetière," in Couëron, where he hunts
birds with D'Orbigny and makes many drawings, and at Nantes,
where plans are made for his return, with Ferdinand Rozier,
to America.
_1806_
Enters the French navy at this time, or earlier, but soon
withdraws.
_March 23._—A business partnership is arranged with Ferdinand
Rozier, and Articles of Association are signed at Nantes.
_April 12._—Sails with Rozier on the _Polly_, Captain Sammis,
and lands in New York on May 26.
They settle at "Mill Grove" farm, where they remain less than
four months, meanwhile making unsuccessful attempts to operate
the lead mine on the property.
_September 15._—Remaining half interest in "Mill Grove" farm
and mine acquired by Francis Dacosta & Company, conditionally,
the Audubons and Roziers holding a mortgage.
_1806-1807_
Serves as clerk in Benjamin Bakewell's commission house in
New York, but continues his studies and drawings of birds,
and works for Dr. Mitchell's Museum.
_1807_
With Rozier decides to embark in trade in Kentucky.
_August 1._—They purchase their first stock of goods in New
York.
_August 31._—Starts with Rozier for Louisville, where they
open a pioneer store.
Their business suffers from the Embargo Act.
_1808_
_June 12._—Married to Lucy Bakewell at "Fatland Ford," her
father's farm near Philadelphia, and returns with his bride
to Louisville.
_1809_
_June 12._—Victor Gifford Audubon born at Gwathway's hotel,
the "Indian Queen," in Louisville.
_1810_
_March._—Alexander Wilson, pioneer ornithologist, visits
Audubon at Louisville.
Moves down river with Rozier to Redbanks (Henderson),
Kentucky.
_December._—Moves with Rozier again, and is held up by
ice at the mouth of the Ohio and at the Great Bend of the
Mississippi, where they spend the winter.
_1811_
Reaches Sainte Geneviève, Upper Louisiana (Missouri), in early
spring.
_April 6._—Dissolves partnership with Rozier, and returns to
Henderson afoot.
Joins in a commission business with his brother-in-law, Thomas
W. Bakewell.
_December._—Meets Vincent Nolte when returning to Louisville
from the East, and descends the Ohio in his flatboat.
_1812_
The _annus mirabilis_ in Kentucky, marked by a series of
earthquakes, which begins December 16, 1811, and furnishes
material for "Episodes."
Commission house of Audubon and Bakewell is opened by the
latter in New Orleans, but is quickly suppressed by the war,
which breaks out in June.
_Spring._—Starts a retail store, on his own account, at
Henderson.
_November 30._—John Woodhouse Audubon, born at "Meadow Brook"
farm, Dr. Adam Rankin's home near Henderson.
_1812-1813_
Storekeeping at Henderson, where he purchases four town lots
and settles down.
_1816_
_March 16._—Enters into another partnership with Bakewell;
planning to build a steam grist- and sawmill at Henderson,
they lease land on the river front.
_1817_
Thomas W. Pears joins the partnership, and the steam mill,
which later became famous, is erected. (After long disuse or
conversion to other purposes, "Audubon's Mill" was finally
burned to the ground on March 18, 1913.)
_1818_
_Summer._—Receives a visit from Constantine Samuel Rafinesque,
who becomes the subject of certain practical jokes, at
zoölogy's future expense, and figures in a later "Episode."
_1819_
After repeated change of partners, the mill enterprise fails,
and Audubon goes to Louisville jail for debt; declares himself
a bankrupt, and saves only his clothes, his drawings and
gun. Resorts to doing crayon portraits at Shippingport and
Louisville, where he is immediately successful.
_1819-1820_
At Cincinnati, to fill an appointment as taxidermist in the
Western Museum, just founded by Dr. Daniel Drake; settles
with his family and works three or four months, at a salary of
$125 a month; then returns to portraits, and starts a drawing
school.
_1820_
Decides to publish his "Ornithology," and all his activities
are now directed to this end.
_October 12._—Leaves his family, and with Joseph R. Mason,
as pupil-assistant, starts without funds on a long expedition
down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, to New Orleans, hoping
to visit Arkansas, and intending to explore the country for
birds, while living by his talents: from this time keeps a
regular journal and works systematically.
_1821_
_January 7._—Enters New Orleans with young Mason without
enough money to pay for a night's lodging.
_February 17._—Sends his wife 20 drawings, including the
famous Turkey Hen, Great-footed Hawk, and White-headed Eagle.
Obtains a few drawing pupils; is recommended by John Vanderlyn
and Governor Robertson, but lives from hand to mouth until
June 16, when Audubon and Mason leave for Shippingport;
a fellow passenger, Mrs. James Pirrie, of West Feliciana,
offers Audubon a position as tutor to her daughter, and with
Mason he settles on her plantation at St. Francisville, Bayou
Sara, where he remains nearly five months; some of his finest
drawings are made at this time.
_October 21._—Leaves abruptly and returns with Mason to New
Orleans, where he again becomes a drawing teacher, and resumes
his studies of birds with even greater avidity.
_December._—Is joined by his family, and winter finds them in
dire straits.
_1822_
_March 16._—To Natchez with Mason, paying their passage by
doing portraits of the captain and his wife; while on the way
finds that many of his drawings have been seriously damaged
by gunpowder; teaches French, drawing and dancing at Natchez,
and Washington, Mississippi.
_July 23._—Parts with Mason, after giving him his gun, paper
and chalks, with which to work his way north.
_September._—Mrs. Audubon, who was acting as governess in a
family at New Orleans, joins him at Natchez, where she obtains
a similar position.
Receives his first lessons in the use of oils from John Stein,
itinerant portrait painter, in Natchez, at close of this year.
_1823_
_January._—Mrs. Audubon is engaged by the Percys, of West
Feliciana parish, Louisiana, and starts a private school
at "Beechwoods," belonging to their plantation, in St.
Francisville, where she remains five years.
_March._—Audubon leaves Natchez with John Stein and Victor on
a painting tour of the South, but meeting with little success,
they disband at New Orleans; visits his wife, and spends part
of summer in teaching her pupils music and drawing.
Adrift again; both he and Victor are taken ill with fever at
Natchez, but when nursed back to health by Mrs. Audubon, they
return with her to "Beechwoods."
_September 30._—Determined to visit Philadelphia in the
interests of his "Ornithology," he sends on his drawings and
goes to New Orleans for references.
_October 3._—Starts with Victor for Louisville, walking part
of the way.
_1823-1824_
Winter spent at Shippingport, where Victor becomes a clerk to
his uncle, Nicholas A. Berthoud.
Paints portraits, panels on river boats, and even street
signs, to earn a living.
_1824_
To Philadelphia, to find patrons or a publisher; thwarted; is
advised to take his drawings to Europe, where the engraving
could be done in superior style; befriended by Charles L.
Bonaparte, Edward Harris, Richard Harlan, Mr. Fairman, and
Thomas Sully, who gives him free tuition in oils.
_August 1._—Starts for New York, with letters to Gilbert
Stuart, Washington Allston, and Samuel L. Mitchell; is kindly
received and made a member of the Lyceum of Natural History.
_August 15._—To Albany, Rochester, Buffalo, Niagara Falls,
Meadville, and Pittsburgh, taking deck passage on boats,
tramping, and paying his way by crayon portraits.
_September._—Leaves Pittsburgh on exploring tour of Lakes
Ontario and Champlain for birds; decides on his future course.
_October 24._—Returns to Pittsburgh, and descends the
Ohio in a skiff; is stranded without a cent at Cincinnati;
visits Victor at Shippingport, and reaches his wife in St.
Francisville, Bayou Sara, November 24.
_1825-1826_
Teaches at St. Francisville, and gives dancing lessons at
Woodville, Mississippi, to raise funds to go to Europe.
_1826_
_May 17._—Sails with his drawings on the cotton schooner
_Delos_, bound for Liverpool, where he lands, a total
stranger, on July 21.
In less than a week is invited to exhibit his drawings at
the Royal Institution, and is at once proclaimed as a great
American genius.
Exhibits at Manchester, but with less success.
Plans to publish his drawings, to be called _The Birds of
America_, in parts of five plates each, at 2 guineas a part,
all to be engraved on copper, to the size of life, and colored
after his originals. The number of parts was at first fixed
at 80, and the period of publication at 14 years; eventually
there were 87 parts, of 435 plates, representing over a
thousand individual birds as well as thousands of American
trees, shrubs, flowers, insects and other animals of the
entire continent; the cost in England was £174, which was
raised by the duties to $1,000 in America.
Paints animal pictures to pay his way, and opens a
subscription book.
_October 26._—Reaches Edinburgh, where his pictures attract
the attention of the ablest scientific and literary characters
of the day, and he is patronized by the aristocracy.
_November, early._—William Home Lizars begins the engraving
of his first plates at Edinburgh, and on the 28th, shows him
the proof of the Turkey Cock.
Honors come to him rapidly, and he is soon elected to
membership in the leading societies of science and the arts
in Great Britain, France and the United States.
_1827_
_February 3._—Exhibits the first number of his engraved plates
at the Royal Institution of Edinburgh.
_March 17._—Issues his "Prospectus," when two numbers of his
_Birds_ are ready.
_April 5._—Starts for London with numerous letters to
distinguished characters and obtains subscriptions on the way.
_May 21._—Reaches London, and exhibits his plates before
the Linnæan and Royal Societies, which later elect him to
fellowship.
Lizars throws up the work after engraving ten plates, and
it is transferred to London, where, in the hands of Robert
Havell, Junior, it is new born and brought to successful
completion eleven years later.
_Summer._—Affairs at a crisis; resorts to painting and
canvasses the larger cities.
_December._—Five parts, or twenty-five plates, of _The Birds
of America_ completed.
_1828_
_March._—Visits Cambridge and Oxford Universities; though
well received, is disappointed at the number of subscribers
secured, especially at Oxford.
_September 1._—To Paris with William Swainson; remains eight
weeks, and obtains 13 subscribers; his work is eulogized by
Cuvier before the Academy of Natural Sciences, and he receives
the personal subscription, as well as private commissions,
from the Duke of Orleans, afterwards known as Louis Philippe.
_1829_
_April 1._—Sails from Portsmouth on his first return to
America from England, for New York, where he lands on May 1.
_Summer._—Drawing birds at Great Egg Harbor, New Jersey.
_September._—To Mauch Chunk, and paints for six weeks at a
lumberman's cottage in the Great Pine Woods.
_October._—Down the Ohio to Louisville, where he meets his two
sons, one of whom he had not seen for five years; thence to
St. Francisville, Bayou Sara, where he joins his wife, from
whom he had been absent nearly three years.
_1830_
_January 1._—Starts with his wife for Europe, first
visiting New Orleans, Louisville, Cincinnati, Baltimore, and
Washington, where he meets the President, Andrew Jackson, and
is befriended by Edward Everett, who becomes one of his first
American subscribers.
_April 1._—Sails with Mrs. Audubon from New York for
Liverpool. Settles in London; takes his seat in the Royal
Society, to which he was elected on the 19th of March; resumes
his painting, and in midsummer starts with his wife on a
canvassing tour of the provincial towns; invites William
Swainson to assist him in editing his letterpress, but a
disagreement follows.
Changes his plans, and settles again in Edinburgh; meets
William MacGillivray, who undertakes to assist him with his
manuscript, and together they begin the first volume of the
_Ornithological Biography_ in October.
_1831-1839_
The _Ornithological Biography_, in five volumes, published at
Edinburgh, and partly reissued in Philadelphia and Boston.
_1831-1834_
In America, exploring the North and South Atlantic coasts for
birds.
_1831_
_March._—First volume of the _Ornithological Biography_
published, representing the text of the first 100
double-elephant folio plates.
_April 15._—Returns with his wife to London.
_May-July._—Visits Paris again in the interests of his
publications.
_August 2._—Starts with his wife on his second journey from
England to America, and lands in New York on September 4.
Plans to visit Florida with two assistants, and obtains
promise of aid from the Government.
_October-November._—At Charleston, South Carolina, where he
meets John Bachman and is taken into his home.
_November 15._—Sails with his assistants in the government
schooner _Agnes_ for St. Augustine.
_1832_
_April 15._—In revenue cutter _Marion_ begins exploration of
the east coast of Florida; proceeds to Key West, and later
returns to Savannah and Charleston.
Rejoins his family at Philadelphia, and goes to Boston; there
meets Dr. George Parkman, and makes many friends.
_August._—Explores the coasts of Maine and New Brunswick, and
ascends the St. John River for birds.
Returns to Boston, and sends his son Victor to England to take
charge of his publications.
_1832-1833_
_Winter._—In Boston, where he is attacked by a severe illness
induced by overwork; quickly recovers and plans expedition to
Labrador.
_1833_
_June 6._—Sails from Eastport for the Labrador with five
assistants, including his son, John Woodhouse Audubon, in the
schooner _Ripley_ chartered at his own expense.
_August 31._—Returns to Eastport laden with spoils, including
few new birds but many drawings.
_September 7._—Reaches New York and plans an expedition to
Florida.
_September 25._—Visits Philadelphia and is arrested for
debt, an echo of his business ventures in Kentucky; obtains
subscribers at Baltimore, and in Washington meets Washington
Irving, who assists him in obtaining government aid; finds
patrons at Richmond and at Columbia, South Carolina.
_October 24._—Reaches Charleston and changes his plans;
with his wife and son passes the winter at the Bachman home,
engaged in hunting, drawing and writing.
_1834_
The number of his American subscribers reaches 62.
_April 16._—Sails with his wife and son on the packet _North
America_ from New York to England with large collections.
Settles again in Edinburgh, and begins second volume of his
_Biography_, which is published in December.
_1835_
Many drawings, papers and books lost by fire in New York.
Part of summer, autumn and winter in Edinburgh, where the
third volume of his _Ornithological Biography_ is issued in
December.
_1836_
Audubon's two sons, who have become his assistants, tour the
Continent for five months, traveling and painting.
_August 2._—Sails from Portsmouth on his third journey from
England to the United States; lands in New York on Sept. 6
and canvasses the city.
_September 13._—Hurries to Philadelphia to obtain access to
the Nuttall-Townsend collection of birds, recently brought
from the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Coast; is rebuffed,
and bitter rivalries ensue; Edward Harris offers to buy the
collection outright for his benefit.
_September 20._—Starts on a canvassing tour to Boston, where
he meets many prominent characters, and obtains a letter of
commendation from Daniel Webster, who writes his name in his
subscription book. Visits Salem, where subscribers are also
obtained; meets Thomas M. Brewer, and Thomas Nuttall, who
offers him his new birds brought from the West.
_October 10._—Is visited by Washington Irving, who gives him
letters to President Van Buren and recommends his work to
national patronage.
_October 15._—Returns to Philadelphia, where attempts
to obtain permission to describe the new birds in the
Nuttall-Townsend collection are renewed; he is finally
permitted to purchase duplicates and describe the new forms
under certain conditions.
_November 10._—To Washington, to present his credentials,
and is promised government aid for the projected journey to
Florida and Texas.
_1836-1837_
_Winter._—Spent with Bachman at Charleston, in waiting for his
promised vessel; makes drawings of Nuttall's and Townsend's
birds, and plans for a work on the _Quadrupeds of North
America_.
_1837_
_Spring._—Starts overland with Edward Harris and John W.
Audubon for New Orleans; there meets the revenue cutter
_Campbell_, and in her and her tender, the _Crusader_, the
party proceeds as far as Galveston, Texas; visits President
Sam Houston.
_May 18._—Leaves for New Orleans, and on June 8 reaches
Charleston. John Woodhouse Audubon is married to Bachman's
eldest daughter, Maria Rebecca.
To Washington, and meets President Martin Van Buren.
_July 16._—Sails with his son and daughter-in-law on the
packet _England_ from New York; reaches Liverpool on August
2d, and on the 7th is in London.
The panic of this year causes loss of many subscribers, but
Audubon decides to extend _The Birds of America_ to 87 parts,
in order to admit every new American bird discovered up to
that time.
_1838_
_June 20._—Eighty-seventh part of _The Birds of America_
published, thus completing the fourth volume and concluding
the work, which was begun at Edinburgh in the autumn of 1826.
_Summer._—By way of a holiday celebration tours the Highlands
of Scotland with his family and William MacGillivray.
_Autumn._—To Edinburgh, where, with the assistance of
MacGillivray, the fourth volume of his _Biography_ is issued
in November.
_1839_
_May._—Fifth and concluding volume of the _Ornithological
Biography_ is published at Edinburgh. _A Synopsis of the
Birds of North America_, which immediately follows, brings
his European life and labors to a close.
_Late summer._—Returns with his family to New York, and
settles at 86 White Street. Victor, who preceded his father
to America, is married to Mary Eliza Bachman.
Projects at once a small or "miniature" edition of his
_Ornithology_, and begins work on the _Quadrupeds_.
Collaboration of Bachman in this project is later secured.
_1840-1844_
First octavo edition of _The Birds of America_ is published
at Philadelphia, in seven volumes, with lithographic, colored
plates and meets with unprecedented success; issued to
subscribers in 100 parts, of five plates each with text, at
one dollar a part.
_1840_
_June._—Begins a correspondence with young Spencer F. Baird,
which leads to an intimate friendship of great mutual benefit,
Baird discovering new birds and sending him many specimens.
_1841_
Purchases land on the Hudson, in Carmansville, at the present
157th Street, and begins to build a house.
_July 29._—Writes to Spencer F. Baird that he was then as
anxious about the publication of the _Quadrupeds_ as he ever
was about procuring birds.
_1842_
_April._—Occupies his estate, now included in the realty
section of upper New York City called Audubon Park, which he
deeded to his wife and named for her "Minnie's Land."
_September 12._—Starts on a canvassing tour of Canada, going
as far north as Quebec, and returns well pleased with his
success, after spending a month and traveling 1,500 miles.
Plans for his western journey nearly completed.
_1843_
_March 11._—At fifty-eight, sets out with four companions
for the region of the Upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers,
but is unable to attain his long desired goal, the Rocky
Mountains.
_November._—Returns with many new birds and mammals.
_1845-1846_
_The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America_, in collaboration
with the Rev. John Bachman, issued to subscribers in 30 parts
of five plates each, without letterpress, making two volumes,
imperial folio, at $300.00.
John W. Audubon, traveling in Texas, to collect materials for
his father's work.
_1845_
Engrossed with drawings of the _Quadrupeds_, in which he
receives efficient aid from his sons.
_July 19._—Copper plates of _The Birds of America_ injured by
fire in New York.
_December 24._—Bachman, his collaborator, issues ultimatum
through Harris, but work on the _Quadrupeds_, which had come
to a stand, is resumed.
_1846-1847_
John W. Audubon in England, painting subjects for the
illustration of the _Quadrupeds of North America_.
_1846-1854_
_The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America_, in collaboration
with John Bachman, published in three volumes, octavo,
text only, by J. J. and V. G. Audubon; volume i (1847) only
appeared during the naturalist's lifetime.
_1847_
Audubon's powers begin to weaken and rapidly fail.
_1848_
_February 8._—John W. Audubon joins a California company
organized by Colonel James Watson Webb, and starts for the
gold fields, but his party meets disaster in the valley of
the Rio Grande; he leads a remnant to their destination and
returns in the following year.
_1851_
_January 27._—Jean Jacques Fougère Audubon dies at "Minnie's
Land," before completing his sixty-sixth year.
AUDUBON
THE
NATURALIST
_Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice_....
SHAKESPEARE, _Othello_ to his biographers.
_Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless
against truth._
HUXLEY.
_What a curious, interesting book, a biographer, well
acquainted with my life, could write; it is still more
wonderful and extraordinary than that of my father._
AUDUBON, in letter to his wife,
March 12, 1828.
AUDUBON THE NATURALIST
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Audubon's growing fame—Experience in Paris in 1828—Cuvier's
patronage—Audubon's publications—His critics—His talents and
accomplishments—His Americanism and honesty of purpose—His
foibles and faults—Appreciations and monuments—The Audubon
Societies—Biographies and autobiography—Robert Buchanan and
the true history of his _Life of Audubon_.
It is more than three-quarters of a century since Audubon's masterpiece,
_The Birds of America_, was completed, and two generations have occupied
the stage since the "American Woodsman" quietly passed away at his home
on the Hudson River. These generations have seen greater changes in
the development and application of natural science and in the spread
of scientific knowledge among men than all those which preceded them.
Theories of nature come and go but the truth abides, and Audubon's "book
of Nature," represented by his four massive volumes of hand-engraved
and hand-colored plates, still remains "the most magnificent monument
which has yet been raised to ornithology," as Cuvier said of the parts
which met his astonished gaze in 1828; while his graphic sketches of
American life and scenery and his vivid portraits of birds, drawn with
the pen, can be read with as much pleasure as when the last volume of
his _Ornithological Biography_ left the press in 1839. This appears the
more remarkable when we reflect that Audubon's greatest working period,
from 1820 to 1840, belonged essentially to the eighteenth century, for
the real transition to the nineteenth century did not begin in England
before 1837; then came the dawn of the newer day that was to witness
those momentous changes in communication and travel, in education,
democracy and ideas, which characterize life in the modern world.
When Audubon left London for Paris on September 1, 1828, it took him
four days by coach, boat and diligence to reach the French capital, a
journey which in normal times is now made in less than eight hours. Mail
then left the Continent for England on but four days in the week, and
to post a single letter cost twenty-four sous. Writing at Edinburgh a
little earlier (December 21, 1826), Audubon recorded that on that day he
had received from De Witt Clinton and Thomas Sully, in America, letters
in answer to his own, in forty-two days, and added that it seemed
absolutely impossible that the distance could be covered so rapidly.
This was indeed remarkable, since the first vessel to cross the Atlantic
wholly under its own steam, in 1838, required seventeen days to make
the passage from New York to Queenstown.
"Walking in Paris," said Audubon in 1828, "is disagreeable in the
extreme; the streets are paved, but with scarcely a sidewalk, and a
large gutter filled with dirty black water runs through the middle of
each, and people go about without any kind of order, in the center,
or near the houses." The Paris of that day contained but one-fourth
the number of its present population. Having reaped the fruits of the
Revolution, it was enjoying peace under the Restoration; moreover,
it was taking a leading part in the advancement of natural science,
of which Cuvier was the acknowledged dean. It was but a year before
the death of blind and aged Lamarck, neglected and forgotten then,
but destined after the lapse of three-quarters of a century to have a
monument raised to his memory by contributions from every part of Europe
and America, and to be recognized as the first great evolutionist of
the modern school.
Audubon had not seen his ancestral capital for upwards of thirty years,
not since as a young man he was sent from his father's home near Nantes
to study drawing in the studio of David, at the Louvre. Though in the
land of his fathers and speaking his native tongue, his visit was tinged
with disappointment. At the age of forty-three he was engaged in an
enterprise which stands unique in the annals of science and literature.
But fifty plates, or ten numbers, of his incomparable series had been
engraved, and this work had then but thirty subscribers. That he was
bound to sink or swim he knew full well. On August 30 he wrote: "My
subscribers are yet far from enough to pay my expenses, and my purse
suffers severely from want of greater patronage." This want he had hoped
to satisfy in France, but after an experience of eight weeks, and an
expenditure, as he records, of forty pounds, he was obliged to leave
Paris with only thirteen additional names on his list. Yet among the
latter, it should be noticed, were those of George Cuvier, the Duke
of Orleans and King Charles X, while six copies had been ordered by
the Minister of the Interior for distribution among the more important
libraries of Paris. Moreover, he had won the friendship and encomiums
of Cuvier, which later proved of the greatest value. The savants who
gathered about him at the meeting of the Royal Academy of Sciences, over
which Cuvier presided, exclaimed, "Beautiful! Very beautiful! What a
work!", but "What a price!", and acknowledged that only in England could
he find the necessary support. Audubon concluded that he was fortunate
in having taken his drawings to London to be engraved, for the smaller
cost of copper on that side of the Channel was an item which could not
be overlooked. Little did he dream that commercial greed for the baser
metal would send most of his great plates to the melting pot half a
century later. No doubt he was right also in concluding that had he
followed certain advisers in first taking his publication to France, it
would have perished "like a flower in October." It should be added that
King Charles' subscription expired with his fall two years later, while
that of Cuvier ended with his death in 1832.
Audubon was one of those rare spirits whose posthumous fame has grown
with the years. He did one thing in particular, that of making known
to the world the birds of his adopted land, and did it so well that
his name will be held in everlasting remembrance. His great folios are
now the property of the rich or of those fortunate institutions which
have either received them by gift or were enrolled among his original
subscribers, and wherever found they are treasured as the greatest of
show books. The sale of a perfect copy of the _Birds_ at the present day
is something of an event, for it commands from $3,000 to $5,000, or from
three to five times its original cost. All of Audubon's publications
have not only become rare but have increased greatly in price; they
are what dealers call a good investment, an experience which probably
no other large, illustrated, scientific or semi-scientific works have
enjoyed to a like degree.
As has been said of Prince Henry the Navigator, though in different
words, John James Audubon was one of those who by a simple-hearted
life of talent, devotion and enthusiasm have freed themselves from the
law of death. Audubon was a man of many sides, and his fame is due to
a rare combination of those talents and powers which were needed to
accomplish the work that he finally set out to do. His personality was
most winning, his individuality strong, and his long life, bent for
the most part to attain definite ends, was checkered, adventurous and
romantic beyond the common lot of men.
Few men outside of public life have been praised more lavishly than
Audubon during his active career. Though he had but few open enemies,
those few, as if conscious of the fact, seemed to assail him the more
harshly and persistently. In reading all that has been said about this
strenuous worker both before and since his death, one is continually
struck by the perverse or contrary opinions that are often expressed. He
was not this and he was not that, but he was simply Audubon, and there
has been no one else who has at all closely resembled him or with whom
he can be profitably compared. One charges that he did not write the
books which bear his name. Another complains that he was no philosopher,
and was not a man of science at heart; that he was vain, elegant,
inclined to be selfish, inconsequential, and that he reverenced the
great; that he shot birds for sport; that he was a plagiarist; that he
was the king of nature fakirs and a charlatan; that he never propounded
or answered a scientific question; and, finally, that though at times
he wrote a graphic and charming style and showed occasional glimpses
of prophetic insight, he cannot be trusted; besides, he might have been
greatly indebted to unacknowledged aid received from others.
These or similar charges were brought against Audubon during his
lifetime, as they have been made against many another who has emerged
quickly from obscurity into world-wide renown. Many attacks upon his
character were assiduously repelled by his friends, though seldom
noticed publicly by himself; as if conscious of his own integrity, he
was content to await the verdict of time, and time in America has not
been recreant to his trust. Some of these charges it may be necessary
to examine at length, if found to be justified in any degree, while
others may be brushed aside as unworthy of even passing consideration.
Evidence of every sort is now ample, as it seems, to enable us to do
justice to all concerned, to penetrate the veil that has hidden much of
the real Audubon from the world, and to place the worker and the man in
the fuller light of day.
The reader who follows this history may expect to find certain blemishes
in Audubon's character, for the most admirable of men have possessed
faults, whether conscious of them or not. The lights in any picture
would lose all value were the shadows wholly withdrawn. If we blinded
ourselves to every fault and foible of such a man, we might produce a
sketch more pleasing to certain readers, but it would lack the vitality
which truth alone can supply. The more carefully his character is
studied, however, as Macaulay said of Addison, the more it will appear,
in the language of the old anatomists, "sound in the noble parts, free
from all taint of perfidy, of cowardice, of cruelty, of ingratitude, of
envy."
In this attempt to present a true and unbiased estimate of Audubon in
relation to his time, we have the advantage of dealing with a well
rounded and completed life, not with a broken or truncated one. He
impressed many of his contemporaries in both Europe and America with
the force of his contagious enthusiasm and prolific genius, and their
opinions have been recorded with remarkable generosity. On the other
hand, "if a life be delayed till interest and envy are at an end,"
said an excellent authority,[1] "we may hope for impartiality, but must
expect little intelligence," because the minute details of daily life
are commonly so volatile and evanescent as to "soon escape the memory,
and are rarely transmitted by tradition." Such details, which often
reveal character while they add color and life to the narrative, have
been amply supplied, as the reader will find, by Audubon himself, not
only in his journals and private letters already published but in the
numerous documents of every sort that are now brought to light.
If "the true man is to be revealed, if we are to know him as he was,
and especially if we are to know the influences that molded him and
so profoundly affected him for good or evil, we must begin at the
beginning and follow him through his struggles, his temptations, his
triumphs." It might be better to start "in the cradle," or even forty
years before he was born, for, as modern biology teaches us, nature
is stronger than nurture and race counts for much. Certainly this man
can never be understood if removed from the environment which time and
circumstance gave him; he needs the historical background, furnished in
part by his contemporaries, some of whom were rivals with whom he had
often to struggle to make his way. In recounting this history, in many
cases hitherto unwritten, we must recognize the proverbial difficulty
of tracing human motives to their proper source, and endeavor to form
no harsh judgments without ample basis in documentary or other evidence.
No more ardent and loyal American than John James Audubon ever lived.
His adopted country, which he would fain have believed to have been
that of his actual birth, was ever his chief passion and pride, and
for him the only abode of sweet content. Few have seen more of it, of
its diversified races, climates and coasts, its grand mountains, its
noble lakes and rivers, its virgin forests and interminable prairies,
with all the marvelous stores of animal and plant life which were first
truly revealed to the pioneer woodsman, artist and naturalist. None has
been more eager to hand down to posterity, ere it be too late, a true
transcript of its wild and untameable nature while, as he would say,
still fresh from the Creator's own hand. Audubon's beneficent influence
during his long enforced residence abroad, as a representative of
American energy and capacity, can hardly be measured, while in his own
land few were more potent in bringing the nation to a consciousness of
its unique individuality and power.
Audubon, as has been said, saw nature vividly colored by his own
enthusiasm, and he never looked at her "through the spectacles of
books." His writings, however unpolished or written with whatever
degree of speed, have the peculiar quality of awakening enthusiasm in
the reader, who, like the youth poring over _Robinson Crusoe_, feels
within him a new ardor, in this instance, for hunting and studying birds
and for leading a life of adventure in the wilderness. It would be as
unjust to judge of Audubon's rare abilities as a descriptive writer
from the letters, journal jottings and miscellaneous extracts given
in this work, as to weigh his accomplishments as an artist from his
itinerary portraits or his early sketches of animals in crayon point
and pastel. Those cruder products of his pen and brush, however, as
the reader will find, possess a high degree of interest from the light
which they throw on the development of his character and art, as well
as from their personal and historical associations. His best and only
finished literary work, the _Ornithological Biography_, in five large
volumes, with the revisions and additions which later appeared, abound
in animated pictures of primitive nature and pioneer life in America as
well as vivid portraits of the birds and other characteristic animals.
A good illustration of Audubon's habit of blending his own experiences
with his biographies of birds is found in the introduction to his
account of the Common Gannet:
On the morning of the 14th of June 1833, the white sails of
the Ripley were spread before a propitious breeze, and onward
she might be seen gaily wending her way towards the shores
of Labrador. We had well explored the Magdalene Islands, and
were anxious to visit the Great Gannet Rock, where, according
to our pilot, the birds from which it derives its name bred.
For several days I had observed numerous files proceeding
northward, and marked their mode of flight while thus
travelling. As our bark dashed through the heaving billows, my
anxiety to reach the desired spot increased. At length, about
ten o'clock, we discerned at a distance a white speck, which
our pilot assured us was the celebrated rock of our wishes.
After a while I could distinctly see its top from the deck,
and thought that it was still covered with snow several feet
deep. As we approached it, I imagined that the atmosphere
around was filled with flakes, but on my turning to the pilot,
who smiled at my simplicity, I was assured that nothing was
in sight but the Gannets and their island home. I rubbed my
eyes, took up my glass, and saw that the strange dimness of
the air before us was caused by the innumerable birds, whose
white bodies and black-tipped pinions produced a blended tint
of light-grey. When we had advanced to within half a mile,
this magnificent veil of floating Gannets was easily seen,
now shooting upwards, as if intent on reaching the sky, then
descending as if to join the feathered masses below, and again
diverging toward either side and sweeping over the surface of
the ocean. The Ripley now partially furled her sails, and lay
to, when all on board were eager to scale the abrupt side of
the mountain isle, and satisfy their curiosity.[2]
Audubon's accounts of the birds are copious, interesting and generally
accurate, considering the time and circumstances in which they were
produced. When at his best, his pictures were marvels of fidelity and
close observation, and in some of his studies of mammals, like that of
the raccoon (see p. 182), in which seemingly every hair is carefully
rendered, we are reminded of the work of the old Dutch masters and of
Albrecht Dürer; notwithstanding such attention to microscopic detail,
there is no flatness, but the values of light and shade are perfectly
rendered. In his historical survey of American ornithology, Elliott
Coues was fully justified in designating the years 1824-1853 as
representing the "Audubonian Epoch," and the time from 1834 to its close
as the "Audubonian Period." "The splendid genius of the man, surmounting
every difficulty and discouragement of the author, had found and claimed
its own.... Audubon and his work were one; he lived in his work, and in
his work will live forever."[3]
There is no doubt that Audubon regarded an honest man as the
quintessence of God's works, and though he sometimes set down statements
which do not square with known facts, this was often the result
of lax habits, or of saying what was uppermost in his mind without
retrospection or analysis. When memory failed or when more piquancy and
color were needed, he may have been too apt to resort to varnish, but
for everything written on the spot his mind was as truth-telling as his
pictures. In considering the good intent of the man, his extraordinary
capacity for taking pains, and his vast accomplishments, criticism
on this score seems rather captious. On the other hand, when it came
to dealing with his own early life, that was a subject upon which he
reserved the right to speak according to his judgment, and in a way
which will be considered later.
Audubon left England to settle his family finally in America in the
autumn of 1839, when he was fifty-four years old, and since he lived but
twelve years longer, probably few are now living who retain more than a
childish memory of his appearance in advanced age. Many Londoners will
recall an odd character, an aged print dealer who used to sit alone,
like a hoary spider in its web, in his little shop in Great Russell
Street, close to the British Museum, and another of similar type, who
may still haunt a better known landmark, the old "naturalist's shop"
in Oxford Street, not far from Tottenham Court Road and but a minute's
walk from the spot where most of Audubon's _Birds_ were engraved. Both
had seen the naturalist walk the streets of London and had known him in
business relations. He occasionally strolled into the old naturalist's
shop, which has been occupied by father and son for nearly a century.
The son, then a young clerk, is now (1913) the crabbed veteran who still
waits on customers but never waits long; should you hazard a question
before making a purchase, he will roar like the captain of a ship and
leave you to your own devices; but show him money and the change in
his demeanor is wonderful; his hearing improves, his tone softens,
and he may recount for you what he remembers of times long past, which
is not much. Audubon in the thirties seemed to him like an aged man,
an impression quite natural to a youth. He also remembered seeing
Charles Waterton, Audubon's declared enemy and supercilious critic,
William Swainson, his one-time friend, and William MacGillivray, his
eminent assistant; that they were great rivals expressed the sum of
his reflections. He recalled the time when Oxford Street was filled,
as he expressed it, with horses and donkeys, and of course knew well
the old Zoölogical Gallery, No. 79 Newman Street, in which for a time
Robert Havell & Son conducted a shop in connection with their printing
and engraving establishment. The latter, when moved by Robert Havell,
Jr., to No. 77 Oxford Street, was nearly opposite the old Pantheon,
which still lingers, and not far from the corner of Wrisley Street, the
present site of Messrs. Waring & Gillow's large store.
We already possess several biographies of Audubon, and many of his
letters of a personal or scientific interest and most of his extant
journals, though but a fraction of those which originally existed,
have been published. "America, my Country," has not forgotten
him. Mount Audubon rises on the northerly bound of Colorado as an
everlasting reminder of the last and grandest of all his journeys,
that to the Missouri River in 1843. American counties and towns,[4]
as well as parks and streets in American cities, bear his name. At
least four of his beloved birds have been dedicated to him. In 1885,
thirty-four years after his death, the New York Academy of Sciences
began a popular movement through which a beautiful cross in marble
was raised in 1893 above his grave in Trinity Cemetery.[5] The "one
hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary"[6] of the naturalist's birth was
celebrated in New York in 1905, and at the American Museum of Natural
History an admirable marble bust of Audubon was unveiled on a notable
occasion, December 29, 1906, when similar honors were paid to Louis
Agassiz, Spencer Fullerton Baird, Edward Drinker Cope, James Dwight
Dana, Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Henry, Joseph Leidy, John Torrey, and
Alexander von Humboldt. On November 26, 1910, a statue of Audubon,
after an admirable design by the veteran sculptor, Edward Virginius
Valentine, of Richmond, Virginia, was unveiled in Audubon Park, New
Orleans, where the naturalist, with pencil in hand, is represented in
the act of transferring to paper the likeness of a favorite subject. He
also occupies a niche in the Hall of Fame at New York University.
[Illustration: STATUE OF AUDUBON BY EDWARD VIRGINIUS VALENTINE IN
AUDUBON PARK, NEW ORLEANS.
Published by courtesy of Mr. Stanley Clisby Arthur.]
[Illustration: THE AUDUBON MONUMENT IN TRINITY CEMETERY, NEW YORK,
ON CHILDREN'S DAY, JUNE, 1915.
Published by courtesy of the Corporation of Trinity Parish, New
York City.]
In recent times Audubon's name has become a household word through the
medium of the most effective instrument which has yet been devised for
the conservation of animal life in this or any country, the National
Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and
Animals. This has become the coördinating center for the spread and
control of a great national movement that received its first impulse
in 1886.[7] Launched anew ten years later, it has advanced with ever
increasing momentum, until now it is the governing head of twenty-nine
distinct State societies, as well as eighty-five affiliated clubs and
similar organizations. In 1916 it counted a life membership of 356,
with 3,024 sustaining members, and realized a total income of over
$100,000. It should be added that during the past six years over 2,900
Junior Audubon Clubs have been formed in the schools, through which
nearly 600,000 children have been instructed in the principles of the
Audubon Society. Well may it be that this admirable organization, with
its successful efforts for remedial legislation in state and nation;
its initiative, with the aid of the National Government, in establishing
Federal reservations or sanctuaries for the perpetuation of wild life;
its educational activities through the extension of its influence to
the pupils of the public schools; and its watch and ward over all the
varied interests of its cause, will keep the name of Audubon greener to
all future time than the most cherished of his works.
Of Audubon's works the public now sees but little and knows even less,
all without exception having been long out of print. His admirable
plates of birds and mammals have been widely copied and still serve for
the illustration of popular books, but most of his publications were
projected on too large and expensive a scale for general circulation,
having been first sold to subscribers only and often at great cost. No
complete reprint, revision or abridgment of his principal volumes has
been made for half a century (see Bibliography, Appendix V). No complete
bibliography of Audubon has ever been prepared, and none will remain
completed long, for it is hard to imagine a time when comment on his
life, his drawings, and his adventures will altogether cease.
In May, 1834, William MacGillivray, who was assisting him in the
technical parts of the _Ornithological Biography_, suggested that
Audubon write a biography of himself, and predicted a wide popularity
for such a work. Audubon entertained the idea but was then too deeply
immersed in _The Birds of America_ to give it much attention; yet in
1835 he wrote out a short sketch, entitled _Myself_, addressing it in
the fashion of that day to his two sons, and then laid it aside. Mrs.
Audubon evidently had access to this manuscript when the life of her
husband, to be referred to later, was in course of preparation, and
thus it has furnished, directly or indirectly, nearly all that has been
published concerning the naturalist's early life. This fragment, which
extends to about thirty printed pages, was characterized by Audubon as
a "very imperfect (but perfectly correct) account of my early life,"
and though written with an eye to its possible publication, which was
clearly sanctioned, it was evidently never revised. The manuscript
was long lost but eventually was "found in an old book which had been
in a barn on Staten Island for years"; it was first published by the
naturalist's granddaughter, Miss Maria R. Audubon, in 1893, and again in
1898. As will later appear, this account is inaccurate in many important
particulars.
Audubon expressed the intention of extending his personal history, which
he promised to delineate with a faithfulness equal to that bestowed on
the birds, but the task was never resumed. Yet more than most writers
have done, he wove the incidents of his own career into the pages of
his principal works, and this strong personal flavor added much to their
charm. Unfortunately, in giving such personal or historical details he
is most vulnerable to a critic, who insists first upon accuracy, for
errors of various sorts and confused and conflicting statements are far
too common.
Of the more formal biographies of Audubon, the first to appear was a
slender volume entitled _Audubon: the Naturalist of the New World_,
by Mrs. Horace Stebbing Roscoe St. John, published in England in
1856.[8] In the same year this work was expanded and reissued by the
publishers who at that time had charge of the sale of Audubon's works
in America.[9] The American publishers explained in their edition that
inasmuch as "the fair authoress in preparing her interesting sketch of
Audubon ... appears not to have been aware of the publication of his
second great work, the _Quadrupeds of North America_ (which had not been
advertised, we believe, in Europe) they have taken the liberty of giving
some account of it and making numerous extracts from its pages."[10]
Perhaps the most interesting or valuable things in this little volume
at the present day are the woodcut on the title page showing Audubon's
house on the Hudson as it then appeared, surrounded by tall trees, and,
inserted on a flyleaf, a list of all of Audubon's published works and
the prices at which they could be procured in New York just prior to
the Civil War (see Note, Vol. II, p. 204).
In 1868 there appeared in England a work of combined and confused
authorship, commonly referred to as "Buchanan's _Life of Audubon_," the
"sub-editor," as he called himself, having since become better known
as an original, skilled and prolific writer of verse, drama, fiction
and literary criticism. At that time Robert Buchanan was twenty-six
years old, and had published five volumes of poems in rapid succession,
some of which had been received with favor by the public. A second
and third edition of this _Life_ followed in 1869. Finally the work
was resurrected and again sent to press, unrevised, in 1912, when
it appeared in "Everyman's Library," at a shilling a copy, with an
introduction which had served as a review of the work in 1869.
A recent biographer of Alexander Wilson speaks of Buchanan as
"commissioned by Mrs. Audubon to write her husband's life," but the
lady herself, as well as Buchanan, has told a different story. It seems
that in about the year 1866, Mrs. Audubon prepared, "with the aid of
a friend," an extended memoir of her husband, which was offered to an
American publisher but without success. The "friend," at whose home
Mrs. Audubon was then living, was the Rev. Charles Coffin Adams,[11]
rector of St. Mary's Church, Manhattanville, now 135th, Street, New
York. The Adams manuscript, which consisted chiefly of a transcript
from the naturalist's journals, then in possession of his wife, was
completed presumably in 1867. In the summer of that year it was placed
in the hands of the London publishers, Messrs. Sampson Low, Son, &
Marston, who without any authority turned it over to one of their
hard-pressed, pot-boiling retainers, Robert Buchanan, poet and young man
of genius. Buchanan boiled down the original manuscript, as he said,
to one-fifth of its original compass, cutting out what he regarded as
prolix or unnecessary and connecting "the whole with some sort of a
running narrative."[12] Mrs. Audubon was unable to recover her property
from either publishers or editor or to obtain any satisfaction for its
unwarranted use. Whatever defects the Adams memoir may have possessed,
this is much to be regretted, since, as her granddaughter has said, Mrs.
Audubon had at her command many valuable documents, the originals of
which have since been destroyed.
Buchanan, like Audubon, had been reared in comparative luxury, "the
spoiled darling of a loving mother." After the failure of his father
in various newspaper enterprises about four years before this time,
he had gone up to London with but few shillings in his pocket and had
begun life there literally in a garret. The reflection that Audubon
had fought a similar but much harder battle in that same London thirty
years before, and won, should possibly have awakened in him a somewhat
friendlier spirit than was then displayed. It must be admitted,
however, that Buchanan produced a very readable story, although there
was not a word in his whole book which showed any real sympathy with
Audubon's lifelong pursuits, any knowledge of ornithology, or any
interest in natural science. Though expressing unbounded admiration for
the naturalist, his foibles and faults seem to have hidden from this
biographer the true value of his distinguished services. In respect to
a knowledge of natural history it should be added that Buchanan laid
no claims, and of Audubon's accomplishments in this field comparatively
little was said, the book, like the Adams' manuscript from which it was
drawn, being mainly composed of extracts from the naturalist's private
journals and "Episodes," as he called his descriptive papers. It was
here that Audubon made the strongest appeal to this literary editor,
who concluded his preface with the following words of praise: "Some of
his reminiscences of adventure ... seem to me to be quite as good, in
vividness of presentment and careful colouring, as anything I have ever
read."
Buchanan dilated on Audubon's pride, vanity and self-conceit, faults
which may have belonged to his youth but which were never mentioned by
his intimate friends and contemporaries except under conditions which
reflected rather unfavorably upon themselves. Complaints on this score
were spread broadcast by reviewers of this work, seventeen years after
the naturalist's death and with the suddenness of a new discovery. They
were undoubtedly based on the unconscious and allowable egotisms of
such personal records as Audubon habitually made for the members of his
family when time and distance kept them asunder. Vanity and selfishness
could have formed no essential parts of a character that merited the
eulogy which follows:
Audubon was a man of genius, with the courage of a lion and
the simplicity of a child. One scarcely knows which to admire
most—the mighty determination which enabled him to carry
out his great work in the face of difficulties so huge, or
the gentle and guileless sweetness with which he throughout
shared his thoughts and aspirations with his wife and
children. He was more like a child at the mother's knee, than
a husband at the hearth—so free was the prattle, so thorough
the confidence. Mrs. Audubon appears to have been a wife in
every respect worthy of such a man; willing to sacrifice her
personal comfort at any moment for the furtherance of his
great schemes; ever ready to kiss and counsel when such were
most needed; never failing for a moment in her faith that
Audubon was destined to be one of the great workers of the
earth.[13]
No one will deny, however, that Buchanan was right in saying that in
order to get a man like Audubon understood, all domestic partiality, the
bane of much biography, must be put aside; but it is equally important
to make such allowances as the manifold circumstances of time and place
demand, and to be a reasoner rather than a fancier. This work abounds in
errors, but it is not clear to what extent they were due to carelessness
on Buchanan's part.
It was certainly a mistake to attribute Buchanan's attitude to
partiality for Alexander Wilson, who, like himself, was a Scotchman. It
was a case of temperament only, for gloom and poverty had embittered
his life. As his sister-in-law and biographer[14] said of him, "he
was doomed to much ignoble pot-boiling.... He had few friends and many
enemies," and "had received from the world many cruel blows," while "no
man needed kindness so much and received so little." Perhaps the best
key to the sad history of this able writer was given by himself when
he said: "It is my vice that I must love a thing wholly, or dislike
it wholly." His wife, we are told, was much like himself, and "like a
couple of babies they muddled through life, tasting of some of its joys,
but oftener of its sorrows." Undoubtedly Robert Buchanan was a genuine
lover of truth and beauty; he has written numerous sketches of birds and
outdoor scenes, but with no suggestion of nature as serving any other
purpose than that of supplying a poet with bright and pleasing images.
It was with the purpose of correcting the false impressions created
by animadversions in Buchanan's _Life_ that Mrs. Audubon, with the aid
of her friend, James Grant Wilson, revised this work and published it
in America under her name as editor, in 1869. The changes then made
in Buchanan's text, however, were of a minor character and most of its
errors remained uncorrected. The naturalist's granddaughter, Miss Maria
R. Audubon, was inspired in part by similar feelings in preparing,
with the aid of Dr. Elliott Coues, her larger and excellent work in two
volumes, entitled _Audubon and His Journals_, which appeared in 1898.
To her all admirers of Audubon owe a debt of gratitude for giving to the
world for the first time a large part of his extant journals, as well
as many new facts bearing upon his life and character. Other briefer
biographies of Audubon which have appeared have been taken so completely
from the preceding works, and have repeated and extended their errors
to such an extent, as to call for little or no comment either here or
in the pages which follow.
Through the discovery in France of new documentary evidence in
surprising abundance we are obliged to draw conclusions contrary to
those which have hitherto been accepted, and the new light thus obtained
enables us to form a more accurate and just judgment of Audubon the man,
and of his work.
CHAPTER II
JEAN AUDUBON AND HIS FAMILY
Extraordinary career of the naturalist's father—Wounded at
fourteen and prisoner of war for five years in England—Service
in the French merchant marine and navy—Voyages to Newfoundland
and Santo Domingo—His marriage in France—His sea fights,
capture and imprisonment in New York—His command at the Battle
of Yorktown—Service in America and encounters with British
privateers.
Few names of purely Gallic origin are today better known in America, or
touch a more sympathetic chord of human interest, than that of Audubon,
and few, we might also add, are so rare. John James Audubon first made
his family name known to all the world, and though he left numerous
descendants, it has become well nigh extinct in America, and is far
from common in France. The great Paris directory frequently contains no
entry under this head; Nantes knows his name no longer, and it is rare
in the marshes of La Vendée, where at some remote period it may have
originated.
The lists of the army of five thousand which Rochambeau's fleet brought
to our aid in the American War of Independence show but a single variant
of this euphonious patronym, in Pierre Audibon,[15] a soldier in the
regiment of Touraine, who was born at Montigny in 1756; but in the
fleet of the Count de Grasse which coöperated with our land-forces at
the Battle of Yorktown, on October 19, 1781, a ship was commanded by an
officer with whom we are more intimately concerned. This was Captain
Jean Audubon, who was later to become the father of America's pioneer
woodsman, ornithologist and animal painter.
By birth a Vendean, at the age of thirty-seven Jean Audubon had plowed
the seas of half the world, and in the course of his checkered career,
as sailor, soldier, West Indian planter and merchant, had met enough
adventure to furnish the materials for a whole series of dime novels.
Short of stature, with auburn hair and a fiery temper, he was then as
stubborn and fearless an opponent as one could meet on the high seas,
and one of the gamest fighting cocks of the French merchant marine. How
much Jean Audubon's son owed to his French Creole mother will never be
known, but to this self-taught, thoroughly capable, and enterprising
sailor we can surely trace his restless activity, his versatile mind
and mercurial temper, as well as an inherent capacity for taking pains,
which father and son possessed to a marked degree.
The true story of Jean Audubon's career has never been told, but even
at this late day it will be found an interesting human document; and
what is more to our purpose, it throws into sharp outline much that
has hitherto remained obscure in the life of his remarkable son. The
first Audubon to leave any imprint, however faint, upon the history of
his time, this honest, matter-of-fact sailor, would have been the last
to wish to appear in the garb of fiction, and we shall base our story
solely upon the unimpeachable testimony of public and private records,
which researches in France had happily brought to light before the
beginning of the war in 1914.[16]
Jean Audubon came by his sailor's instincts and fighting prowess
naturally, for his father, Pierre Audubon of Les Sables d'Olonne, was
a seaman by trade. Like his son he captained his own vessel, and for
years made long voyages between French ports in both the old and the new
worlds. Pierre Audubon, the paternal grandfather of John James Audubon,
and the first of that name of whom we have found any record,[17]
lived at Les Sables d'Olonne, where with Marie Anne Martin, his wife,
he reared a considerable family in the first half of the eighteenth
century.
Les Sables, at the time of which we speak, was a small fishing and
trading port on the Bay of Biscay, fifty miles to the southwest of
Nantes, but is now become a city of over twenty thousand people. Lying
on the westerly verge of the Marais, or salt marshes and lakes of La
Vendée, the inhabitants of the district, and more particularly of the
_Bocage_, or plantations, to the north and northeast, were noted from
an early day for their conservatism, as shown in a firm adherence to
ancient law and custom, as well as for their unswerving loyalty to the
old nobility and to the clergy. Like their Breton neighbors on the other
side of the Loire, the Vendeans were honest, industrious, and faithful
to their civic obligations; they were also independent, resourceful,
and knew no fear. When the neighboring city of Nantes planted trees of
liberty and displayed the National colors in 1789, the Vendeans were
stirred to indignation and later to arms, while the Chouans on the
right bank of the river were quick to follow their example; in short,
the rebels of La Vendée raised such a storm that for months the very
existence of the infant Republic was threatened. This spirit of revolt
to the newer order, the _Chouanerie_, as it came to be called, was
stamped out for the time, but a few smoldering embers always remained,
ready to burst into flame at the slightest provocation; recrudescent
symptoms of this tendency had to be suppressed even as late as 1830,
when Charles X, the last Bourbon king, lost his crown. Pierre Audubon's
family, no doubt, shared many characteristics of their Vendean and
Breton neighbors, but as the sequel will show, one at least did not
approve of their political course, for he took up arms against them,
and presumably against many of his own kith and kin.
Jean Audubon was born at Les Sables on October 11, 1744, and was
christened on the same day, his godfather being Claude Jean Audubon,
in all probability an uncle after whom he was named, and his godmother,
Catharine Martin, presumably an aunt. Twenty-one children, according to
the naturalist, blessed the union of Pierre Audubon and his wife, and
were reared to maturity. Whether this statement is strictly accurate,
or what became of so large a family cannot now be ascertained.[18]
Pierre Audubon was engaged by the French Government to transport the
necessities of war to Cape Breton Island in 1757, when the world-wide
struggle between France and Great Britain for supremacy in the New
World was at hand. The French were determined at all hazards to hold
their great fortress of Louisburg, which had been taken by the English
but again restored to the French not many years before. This was the
strongest and most costly fortress on the American continent, as well as
a great center for the valuable trade in salted fish. By a coincidence,
or possibly out of compliment to his wife, Pierre's ship bore the name
of _La Marianne_, and when he sailed from his home port of Les Sables
d'Olonne on April 15, 1757, he took with him his own son, Jean, as
cabin-boy, when the lad was but thirteen years old. In the following
May Great Britain threw down the gauntlet to France, and the terrific
seven years' struggle began. The great fortress of Louisburg fell in
the following year to the English fleet, and was left a heap of ruins.
His father's ship, the _Mary Ann_, was involved, and young Jean Audubon,
who thus began his fighting career at fourteen, was wounded in the left
leg and made a prisoner. With many of his compatriots he was taken to
England, landing on November 14, 1758, where he remained in captivity
for five years; he was released but a short time before the treaty of
peace was signed at Paris, February 10, 1763. Apart from her interests
in the West Indies, France was stripped at this time of all her vast
possessions in America, save only the two little islands of Saint Pierre
and Miquelon.
Whether Pierre Audubon shared the fate of his son we are unable to say,
for at this point he drops out of our records and we do not hear of him
again. It is certain that he never made another voyage with Jean, who
returned to his native town with his passion for the sea unabated, and
at nineteen reëntered the merchant marine as a novice. His next voyage,
on the ship _La Caille_, Captain Pigeon, was to execute a governmental
commission at the Island of Miquelon. Five golden years of his youth had
been spent in captivity; if productive of nothing else they had given
him a knowledge of the English tongue, but they had also engendered
bitter hatred of the English race, a feeling which his son confessed to
have shared in his youthful days.[19]
The period from 1766 to 1768 was occupied in four voyages to
Newfoundland, probably in the interest of the codfish trade, first as
sailor before the mast in _Le Printemps_, and then as lieutenant in a
ship called also _La Marianne_, with alternate sailings from, and to, La
Rochelle and Les Sables d'Olonne. On his third voyage to Newfoundland,
which was made in 1767, when he was twenty-three years old, Jean Audubon
ranked as lieutenant of his vessel, but in the summer of 1768 he shipped
again from Les Sables as sailor before the mast for a short trading
cruise on the coast of France; in this instance the vessel, called _Le
Propre_, was captained by Pierre Martin, who was possibly an uncle. At
this juncture Jean Audubon enlisted in the French navy (service for
the State) as a common sailor, and made two voyages on governmental
business from the port of Rochefort, serving altogether nearly nine
months (1768-9). After the termination of this last engagement nothing
is heard of Jean for over a year, when in 1770 he makes his first
appearance at Nantes, the city that was to know him in many capacities
for nearly half a century. There he reëntered the merchant marine, and
on November 1, 1770, began a series of eight voyages, lasting as many
years, to the island of Santo Domingo, the western section of which was
then in possession of France.
Since much of the mystery which hitherto has shrouded the early life of
John James Audubon is involved in the West Indian period of his father's
career, we shall now trace this history in considerable detail.
The great export trade of French Santo Domingo in those days was in
brown and white sugar, then known as the "Muscovado" and "clayed" sorts,
which for the year 1789 amounted to over 141,000,000 pounds, valued
at more than 122,000,000 francs; and in coffee, which in the same
year totaled nearly 77,000,000 pounds, estimated to be worth nearly
52,000,000 francs.[20] While all such estimates were no doubt very
crude, they serve to illustrate the richness of the prize that attracted
Frenchmen by hundreds to the colony, an island that to many seemed a
paradise in prospect, but which proved to be a purgatory in disguise.
Jean Audubon's voyages were all made in the interest of this valuable
trade. Since they commonly lasted from six months to nearly a year,
they became doubly hazardous to a French sailor after the outbreak of
the American Revolution, for if he escaped his Scylla, the inveterate
pirate, he might expect to encounter an equally formidable Charybdis
in an English privateer. Though the northwestern corner of Santo
Domingo was the center of their forays, Jean never lost a ship to
the buccaneers, and though sometimes caught by the English, he never
surrendered. He made three successive voyages from 1770 to 1772 in _La
Dauphine_, commanded by Jean Pallueau, first as lieutenant and later as
captain of the second grade, but on his last five voyages to the West
Indies he captained his own ships, known as _Le Marquis de Lévy_ (1774),
_Les Bons Amis_ (1775-6), and _Le Comte d'Artois_ (1777-8).
Captain Audubon was married on August 24, 1772, at Paimbœuf, to Anne
Moynet,[21] a widow of some property, who had been born at Nantes in
1735 and was thus nine years his senior. Her married name was Ricordel.
She possessed several houses at Paimbœuf, and acquired one in 1777,
which was rented to the Administration at the time of the Revolution
(see Vol. I, p. 80), as well as a dwelling at Nantes, where she lived
while her roving sailor of a husband was in Santo Domingo or the United
States. Madame Audubon was a woman of simple tastes, devoted to culture,
and, as we shall see, possessed of a kind heart.
When Captain Audubon left Les Cayes, Santo Domingo, on his last trading
voyage, in the spring of 1779, bound for Nantes with a valuable cargo,
his ship, _Le Comte d'Artois_, was attacked by four British corsairs
and two galleys. With the odds overwhelmingly against him, he fought
until his crew were nearly all killed or disabled, and after an abortive
attempt to blow up his vessel, tried to escape in his shallop. For the
second time he was made a prisoner by the English, who in this instance
took him to New York, then in the possession of British troops. He was
landed in that city on May 12, 1779, and was held there as a prisoner
of war for thirteen months. If our inference be correct, he finally
owed his release to the efforts of the French Ambassador, Monsieur
de la Luzerne, the same, we believe, who had been a Governor of Santo
Domingo, and who in 1790 became its Minister of Marine. As will be seen
presently, this diplomat again exerted himself in Captain Audubon's
behalf.
It is interesting to find that on this occasion Jean Audubon was
fighting not only for his life, but for his property. His vessel, _Le
Comte d'Artois_, was very heavily armed. Though of only 250 tons, she
carried no less than ten cannon, four of which were mounted on gun
carriages, and ten bronze pivot guns, which might imply that she was
originally designed as a privateer. The ship was not destroyed when her
captain was made prisoner, but was taken by the English to Portsmouth,
New Hampshire (?), and burned there before December 15 of the following
year.[22] Before starting on this disastrous voyage Captain Audubon had
sold the vessel and his interest in her cargo to the Messrs. Lacroix,
Formon de Boisclair and Jacques, with whom later he had extensive
dealings in slaves; but he was not paid, and though an indemnity seems
to have come from the British Government, he was never able to obtain
a satisfactory settlement of the Formon claim.[23]
Jean Audubon's release from captivity in New York, in June, 1780,
probably marks the period of his first intimate acquaintance with the
United States. We know only that he did not return immediately to either
Santo Domingo or France, but became an enthusiast for the American
cause, and sought the earliest opportunity to avenge his wrongs at the
hands of the British. He did not have long to wait, for through the
exertions of the Ambassador de la Luzerne, he was placed in command
of the corvette _Queen Charlotte_. With her, in October, 1781, he
joined the fleet of the Count de Grasse before Yorktown,[24] where he
soon witnessed the surrender of Cornwallis and the humiliation of his
enemies. After this turning point of the war Captain Audubon remained
in the United States, and in April, 1782, commanded a merchantman
called _L'Annette_,[25] in which he was also personally interested, and
delivered a cargo of Virginia tobacco at the port of Nantes. Shortly
after his return to America in the same year he was placed in command
of an American armed vessel _The Queen_ and sent on another mission
to France. Near the Chaussée des Saints he was attacked by a British
privateer, but after a stubborn fight at close quarters he sank his
enemy and entered the port of Brest. Nothing is said of the taking of
prisoners on such occasions, and there were doubtless few survivors
among the defeated crew. This command Jean Audubon held until peace was
concluded between Great Britain and her former colonies in America,
probably until the close of 1783. The hostile army was disbanded in
the spring of that year, the treaty of peace was made definitive in
September, and on November 25, 1783, the last British troopers left the
city of New York.
CHAPTER III
JEAN AUDUBON AS SANTO DOMINGO PLANTER AND MERCHANT
Captain Audubon at Les Cayes—As planter, sugar refiner,
general merchant and slave dealer, amasses a fortune—His
return to France with his children—History of the Santo
Domingo revolt—Baron de Wimpffen's experience—Revolution
of the whites—Opposition of the abolitionists—Effect of
the Declaration of Rights on the mulattoes—The General
Assembly drafts a new constitution—First blood drawn between
revolutionists and loyalists at Port-au-Prince—Ogé's futile
attempt to liberate the mulattoes—Les Cayes first touched by
revolution in 1790, four years after the death of Audubon's
mother—Emancipation of the mulattoes—Resistance of the
whites—General revolt of blacks against whites and the ruin
of the colony.
After the American struggle for liberty had been finally won, Captain
Audubon resigned his commission held in the United States and returned
to his home at Nantes, but town or country could not hold him long.
Lured by the prospects of great wealth which Santo Domingo offered to
the merchant of those days, and having learned by long experience in her
ports the devious methods by which fortunes were attained, he decided
to give up the sea and embark in colonial trade. For six years, from
1783 to 1789, he lived almost continuously in the West Indies, and
as merchant, planter, and dealer in slaves amassed a large fortune.
Meanwhile his wife, who had seen little of him since their marriage in
1772, remained at Nantes.
Captain Audubon traveled through the United States early in 1789, and
again late in that year when on his way to France, probably in the
first instance returning to Santo Domingo by way of the Ohio and the
Mississippi. Symptoms of unrest were already prevalent in the northern
provinces of the island but had caused no serious alarm in the south.
Jean Audubon's aim seems to have been to collect debts due him in the
United States and to leave the capital invested there. At all events it
was on this occasion that he purchased the farm of "Mill Grove," near
Philadelphia, the history of which will be given a little later (see
Chapter VII). He had no intention, however, of living in Pennsylvania,
for he immediately leased this estate to its former owner and hurried
away.
July 14, 1789, found the elder Audubon enlisted as a soldier in
the National Guards at Les Cayes. These colonial troops, which were
originally militia organizations modeled after similar bodies in France,
were reorganized at this time to meet any possible emergencies. Affairs
in the southern provinces of Santo Domingo had followed, up to this
moment, their normal course, and Jean Audubon, who could have learned
nothing of what had transpired at home, decided to entrust his various
interests to the hands of agents and return to France. This was probably
in late August or early September, 1789, as we know that he first
returned to the United States and visited Richmond, Virginia, at the
close of that year.[26] Strangely enough, on the twentieth day of the
former month the National Assembly at Paris had voted the celebrated
Declaration of Rights, which was destined to upturn the whole social
system of Santo Domingo and to convert that island into a purgatory
of the direst anarchy, strife, and bloodshed which the world had ever
known, or at least remembered; but fully six weeks must have elapsed
before news of this grave decision could have reached the colony.
At this time Jean Audubon was no doubt regarded as a very rich man, and
though he happened to leave Les Cayes at a critical moment, little could
he have dreamed of the disaster that awaited him there as well as in
his beloved France. His personal affairs during this eventful period,
involving as they necessarily do the early life of his distinguished
son, have hitherto been shrouded in the dark and sinister history of
that ever smiling but ever turbulent island. Now, however, the veil
of mist that has settled over the page can be penetrated at the most
important points. In this and subsequent chapters we shall follow the
life of father and son through the course of events which has been thus
briefly summarized.
To return to the earlier threads of our narrative, at about the close
of 1783, Captain Audubon was engaged by the Coirond brothers, colonial
merchants at Nantes, to take charge of their foreign trade, which
centered chiefly at Les Cayes,[27] Santo Domingo, then a most thriving
and populous town, as it is today the largest seaport on the southern
coast of the Republic of Haiti. Their ships brought sugar, coffee,
cotton and other West Indian products to France, and laden with fabrics,
wines and every luxury known to the colonists of that day, returned to
Les Cayes, as well as to Saint Louis, an important port a little farther
to the east, where these merchants also possessed warehouses and stores.
In a short time Jean Audubon had acquired an independent business of his
own, both as a planter and merchant. He made his home at Les Cayes, but
extended his enterprises to Saint Louis and possibly to other points.
From this time onward he commonly described himself as _négotiant_,[28]
or merchant, and his son, when writing to his father from America,
addressed him in this way. His business letters and other documents of
the period refer to his house at Les Cayes, his plantations of cane and
his sugar refinery, his exportation of colonial wares, his purchases
of French goods, particularly at Nantes, and to his trade in black
slaves which eventually assumed large proportions. How important his
sugar plantations may have been is not known, but a tax-receipt shows
that at one time he possessed forty-two slaves.[29] The naturalist said
that his father acquired a plantation on the Ile à Vaches, an island of
considerable importance at the southern bound of the roadstead of Les
Cayes and nine miles from the town, but we have found no other reference
to it.
Great numbers of negroes must have passed through Jean Audubon's hands,
as shown by his bills of sale, which strangely reflect the customs of a
much later and sadder day on the North American continent (see Appendix
I, Documents Nos. 4-6). In one of these bills, dated at Les Cayes,
September 16, 1785, Jean is credited with one-half the net proceeds of
the sale of forty negroes, bought originally of M. Th. Johnston for the
sum of 60,000 francs, and sold by Jean Audubon and Messrs. La Croix,
Formon & Jacques for 71,552 francs; after deducting 183 francs for food
and treatment, the net returns became 71,369 francs, and Jean's profits,
on a half-interest basis, 5,684 francs, or about 142 francs per head.
The prices of these slaves, which were sold to planters on the island
when not retained for their own use, ranged from 1,500 to 2,100 francs,
or from $300 to $420, at the present rate of exchange. It is interesting
to notice that while these negroes were held for sale, the exact period
of which is not stated, they received as food eighty bunches of bananas
and three beef heads; though under the care of a physician, it is not
surprising to find that one of them died. Another bill, bearing date
of August 7, 1785, records the sale to Jean Audubon of ten negroes and
three negresses for a total sum of 26,000 francs; 16,000 francs of this
amount was paid in sugar, but what is particularly interesting now is
the fact that a balance of 2,000 francs was finally cancelled on June
9, 1788, a year or more after Jean Audubon, according to the accepted
accounts, is supposed to have lost his wife and his property and to have
fled from the island. Mme. Anne Moynet Audubon never visited America,
and her husband, as we have seen, left Santo Domingo in 1789, before
the outbreak of the revolution. His property remained substantially
intact until after 1792, and in some years, it is believed, yielded
him in rents 90,000 francs, which at present rates in American money
would be equivalent to $18,000. In giving his certificate of residence
at Nantes in that eventful year, Captain Audubon publicly declared that
he possessed a dwelling, a sugar refinery, and warehouses or stores at
both Les Cayes and Saint Louis. Moreover, his West Indian estate was
not completely settled until 1820, two years after his death.
[Illustration: LES CAYES, HAITI: THE WHARF AND POST OFFICE; AT THE
LEFT IS SEEN A PILE OF LOGWOOD AWAITING SHIPMENT.]
[Illustration: LES CAYES, HAITI: THE MARKET AND CHURCH OF SACRÉ CŒUR.
After photographs made at Les Cayes in June, 1917, and obtained
through the kindness of Mr. Ferdinand Lathrop Mayer, Secretary
of Legation, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.]
Slaves were regarded in Santo Domingo as an indispensable commodity,
as they had been in Virginia and the Carolinas for a century past, and
were still to be for three-quarters of a century to come; the "friends
of the blacks" as the abolitionists were called, were considered by
most planters as the enemies of the whites. Degradation and cruelty,
ever attendant upon a system that drew its chief support from the
self-interest of a class, were all too common in the island, yet there
were many who earnestly strove to soften the lot of their slaves.
Though a born fighter, Jean Audubon was humane, and the evidence, so
far as it goes, shows that his own slaves were treated with kindness
and consideration.
This period in Santo Domingo, particularly from the year 1785 to 1789,
not only is important for our story, but happened to mark a crisis
in French sovereignty in America. It will be necessary, therefore, to
follow certain events in a history which can serve only as a warning
to mankind, for it contains little to satisfy the understanding and
nothing to excite the fancy or gladden the heart. It is to be noticed
first, however, that according to the accepted accounts, John James
Audubon was born of a Spanish creole mother, in Louisiana, in 1780.
Shortly after his birth, his mother is said to have gone to Santo
Domingo, where she perished in a local uprising of the blacks, when Jean
Audubon's plantations and property were totally destroyed; Jean managed
to escape with only his two children, a few faithful slaves, and a
part of his money and valuables, to New Orleans, whence he subsequently
went to France. Investigation of existing records has proved that these
statements are not in accord with the facts, but before entering into
further personal details it will be well to examine those conditions
on the island of Santo Domingo which led many into easy fortune only
to involve them later in a ruin as complete and irretrievable as it was
unforeseen and unnecessary.