Volume I Part 3 (1/2)
This beautiful estate in Montgomery Co., Pa., lies in a lovely part of the country. The house, on a gentle eminence, almost a natural terrace, overlooks, towards the west, the rapid waters of Perkiomen Creek, which just below empties into the Schuylkill river, across which to the south is the historic ground of Valley Forge. The property has remained in the Wetherill family nearly ever since Audubon sold it to Samuel Wetherill in 1813. The present owner[20]
delights to treasure every trace of the bird lover, and not only makes no changes in anything that he can in the least degree a.s.sociate with him, but has added many photographs and engravings of Audubon which adorn his walls.
The house, of the usual type of those days, with a hall pa.s.sing through the centre and rooms on either side, was built of rubble-stone by Roland Evans in 1762, and in 1774 was sold to Admiral Audubon, who in the year following built an addition, also of rubble-stone. This addition is lower than the main house, which consists of two full stories and an attic with dormer windows, where, it is said, Audubon kept his collections. The same Franklin stove is in the parlor which stood there giving out its warmth and cheer when the young man came in from the hunting and skating expeditions on which he loved to dwell.
The dense woods which once covered the ground are largely cut down, but sufficient forest growth remains to give the needed shade and beauty; the hemlocks in particular are noticeable, so large and of such perfect form.
Going down a foot-path to Perkiomen Creek, a few steps lead to the old mill which gave the place its name. Built of stone and shaded by cottonwood trees, the stream rus.h.i.+ng past as in days long gone, the mill-wheel still revolves, though little work is done there now.
When I saw Mill Grove[21] the spring flowers were abundant; the soft, pale blossom of the May-apple (_Podophyllum peltatum_) held its head above the blue of many violets, the fingers of the potentilla with their yellow stars crept in and out among the tangled gra.s.s and early undergrowth; the trilliums, both red and white, were in profusion; in the shade the wood anemones, with their sh.e.l.l pink cups grew everywhere, while in damp spots by the brook yet remained a few adder's-tongues, and under the hemlocks in the clefts of the rocks the delicate foliage of the Dutchmen's breeches (_Dicentra cucullaria_) with a few late blossoms; all these and many more which I do not now recall, Audubon has pictured with the birds found in the same regions, as his imperishable tribute to the home he loved--Mill-Grove Farm on the Perkiomen Creek.
Fatland Ford, to the south of Mill Grove, is a far larger and grander mansion than that of the modest Quaker Evans; as one approaches, the white columns of the imposing entrance are seen for some distance before entering the avenue which leads to the front of the mansion.
Like Mill Grove it stands on a natural terrace, and has an extensive outlook over the Schuylkill and Valley Forge. This house was built by James Vaux in 1760. He was a member of the Society of Friends and an Englishman, but in sympathy with the colonists. One end of Sullivan's Bridge was not far from the house; the spot where it once stood is now marked by the remains of a red-sandstone monument.[22] Was.h.i.+ngton spent a night in the mansion house with Mr. Vaux, and left only twelve hours in advance of the arrival of Howe, who lodged there the following night.[23] The old walled garden still remains, and the stable with accommodation for many horses. A little withdrawn from all these and on the edge of a wood are ”the graves of a household,” not neglected, as is so often the case, but preserved and cared for by those who own Fatland Farm[24] as well as Mill Grove.
Dear as Mill Grove was to Audubon, he left it with his young bride the day following their wedding, which took place at Fatland Ford on April 8, 1808, and departed for Louisville, Ky., where he and Rozier, his partner, had previously done some business. Though they had both lost money they liked the place, which reason seemed quite sufficient to decide them to return and lose more money, as they promptly did. They remained at Louisville till 1810, when they moved to Henderson, where Rozier did what business was done, and Audubon drew, fished, hunted, and rambled in the woods to his heart's content, but his purse's depletion. He describes this life in the episode ”Fis.h.i.+ng in the Ohio,” and in these rus.h.i.+ng times such an Arcadian existence seems impossible. Small wonder that his wife's relatives, with their English thrift, lost patience with him, could not believe he was aught but idle, because he did not work their way. I doubt not many would think, as they did, that he wasted his days, when in truth he was laying up stores of knowledge which later in life brought him a rich harvest.
Waiting times are always long, longest to those who do not understand the silent inner growth which goes on and on, yet makes no outward sign for months and even years, as in the case of Audubon.
Henderson was then a tiny place, and gains being small if any, Rozier and Audubon, in December, 1810, started for St. Genevieve, spent their winter in camp, and reached their destination when the ice broke up.
On April 11, 1811, they dissolved partners.h.i.+p, and wrote each as they felt, Audubon saying: ”Rozier cared only for money and liked St.
Genevieve;” Rozier writing: ”Audubon had no taste for commerce, and was continually in the forest.”
Once more, however, he went to St. Genevieve to try to get money Rozier owed him, and returned to Henderson on foot, still unpaid, in February or March of 1812. He had gone with a party of Osage Indians, but his journey back was made alone. He writes in his journal, simply with date of April, 1812:--
”Bidding Rozier good-bye, I whistled to my dog, crossed the Mississippi and went off alone and on foot, bent on reaching Shawanee Town as soon as possible; but little had I foreseen the task before me, for soon as I had left the river lands and reached the prairies, I found them covered with water, like large lakes; still nothing would have made me retrace my steps, and the thoughts of my Lucy and my boy made me care little what my journey might be. Unfortunately I had no shoes, and my moccasins constantly slipping made the wading extremely irksome; notwithstanding, I walked forty-five miles and swam the Muddy River. I only saw two cabins that day, but I had great pleasure in viewing herds of Deer crossing the prairie, like myself ankle deep in water. Their beautiful movements, their tails spread to the breeze, were perceivable for many miles. A mound covered with trees through which a light shone, gave me an appet.i.te, and I made for it. I was welcomed kindly by the woman of the house, and while the lads inspected my fine double-barrelled gun, the daughters bustled about, ground coffee, fried venison, boiled some eggs, and made me feel at once at home.
”Such hospitality is from the heart, and when the squatter came in, his welcome was not less genuine than that of his family. Night fell; I slept soundly on some bearskins, but long before day was ready to march. My hostess was on the alert; after some breakfast she gave me a small loaf and some venison in a clean rag, and as no money would be received, I gave the lads a flask of gunpowder, a valuable article in those days to a squatter.
”My way lay through woods, and many small crossroads now puzzled me, but I walked on, and must have travelled another forty-five miles. I met a party of Osage Indians encamped, and asked in French to stay with them. They understood me, and before long I had my supper of boiled bear's-fat and pecan-nuts, of which I ate heartily, then lay down with my feet to the fire, and slept so soundly that when I awoke my astonishment was great to find all the Indians had gone hunting, and only left two dogs to keep the camp free from wolves.
”I walked off gayly, my dog full of life, but met no one till four o'clock when I pa.s.sed the first salt well, and thirty minutes more brought me to Shawanee Town. As I entered the inn I was welcomed by several whom I knew, who had come to purchase salt. I felt no fatigue, ate heartily, slept soundly without being rocked, and having come forty miles had only forty-seven more to walk to reach my home.
Early next morning I pursued my way; the ferry boat took me from Illinois to Kentucky, and as night came I found myself with my wife beside me, my child on my knee.”
The time from now till 1819 was the most disastrous period of Audubon's life, as regarded his finances. With his brother-in-law, Thomas W. Bakewell, he engaged in various ventures in which, whatever others did, he lost money at every turn. The financial affairs of Kentucky were, it is true, not on a very sound basis, but Audubon frankly acknowledges the fault in many cases was his own. Thomas W.
Bakewell was often in New Orleans, where they had a mercantile establishment, and Audubon spent not only days, but weeks and months, at his favorite pursuits. On his journeys to Philadelphia to procure goods he wandered miles in all directions from the main route; when in Henderson he worked, at times, very hard in the mill, for, indeed, he never did anything except intensely; but the cry of the wild geese overhead, the sound of the chattering squirrel, the song of the thrush, the flash of the humming-bird with its jewelled throat, were each and all enough to take him from work he hated as he never hated anything else.
When first in Henderson he bought land, and evidently had some idea of remaining there permanently; for, ”on March 16, 1816, he and Mr.
Bakewell took a ninety-five years' lease of a part of the river front between First and Second Sts., intending to erect a grist and saw mill, which mill was completed in 1817, and yet stands, though now incorporated in the factory of Mr. David Clark. The weather-boarding whip-sawed out of yellow poplar is still intact on three sides, the joists are of unhewn logs, and the foundation walls of pieces of flat broken rock are four and a half feet thick. For those days it was built on a large scale, and did the sawing for the entire country.”[25]
It has been said that the inside walls had many drawings of birds on them, but this, while quite likely, has never been proved; what was proved conclusively is that, from his woodcutters, whose labors were performed on a tract of forest land of about 1200 acres, which Audubon purchased from the government, to those who were his partners, by far the greater number had the advantage of him. The New Orleans venture has a similar record; money left him by his father was lost by the failure of the merchant who held it until Audubon could prove his right to it, and finally he left Henderson absolutely penniless. He writes: ”Without a dollar in the world, bereft of all revenues beyond my own personal talents and acquirements, I left my dear log house, my delightful garden and orchards with that heaviest of burdens, a heavy heart, and turned my face toward Louisville. This was the saddest of all my journeys,--the only time in my life when the Wild Turkeys that so often crossed my path, and the thousands of lesser birds that enlivened the woods and the prairies, all looked like enemies, and I turned my eyes from them, as if I could have wished that they had never existed.”
From Louisville Audubon went almost at once to s.h.i.+ppingport, where he was kindly received by his friends Nicholas Berthoud, who was also his brother-in-law, and the Tarascon family. Here he was joined by his wife and two sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse, and again I quote from Audubon's own words: ”As we were straitened to the very utmost, I undertook to draw portraits at the low price of five dollars per head, in black chalk. I drew a few gratis, and succeeded so well that ere many days had elapsed I had an abundance of work; and being industrious both by nature and habit I produced a great number of those black-chalk sketches.”[26] This carried him on for some months, but the curse, or blessing, of the ”wandering foot” was his, and as soon as money matters were a little ahead, off he went again to the forests. It was during these years, that is from 1811 to 1819, that many months were pa.s.sed hunting with the Indians, the Osage tribe being the one whose language Audubon spoke. Late in life he wrote: ”Of all the Indian tribes I know, the Osage are by far the superior.” With them he delighted to track the birds and quadrupeds as only an Indian or one of like gifts, can; from them he learned much woodcraft; with them he strengthened his already iron const.i.tution; and in fearlessness, endurance, patience, and marvellously keen vision, no Indian surpa.s.sed him.
He had a wonderful gift of making and retaining friends, and even in these days of poverty and depression he never seemed too poor to help others; and certainly from others he received much kindness, which he never ceased to remember and acknowledge. Through one of these friends--I believe a member of the Tarascon family--he was offered a position in the Museum at Cincinnati. Without delay, or any written agreement, Audubon and his family were again (1818) in new surroundings, and the work being congenial, he entered heartily into it with Mr. Robert Best. The promised salary was large, but being never paid Audubon began drawing cla.s.ses to support his modest household. In Cincinnati he first met Mr. Daniel Mallory (whose second daughter afterwards married Victor G. Audubon) and Captain Samuel c.u.mmings. This latter gentleman had many tastes similar to Audubon's, and later went with him to New Orleans.
[Ill.u.s.tration: John J. Audubon FROM THE MINIATURE BY F. CRUIKSHANK, PUBLISHED BY ROBERT HAVELL, January 12, 1835.]
The life at Cincinnati was one of strict economy. Mrs. Audubon was a woman of great ability and many resources, and with one less gifted her unpractical husband would have fared far worse than he did. To quote again: ”Our living here [Cincinnati] is extremely moderate; the markets are well supplied and cheap, beef only two and a half cents a pound, and I am able to provide a good deal myself; Partridges are frequently in the streets, and I can shoot Wild Turkeys within a mile or so; Squirrels and Woodc.o.c.k are very abundant in the season, and fish always easily caught.”
Even with these advantages, Audubon, receiving no money[27] from Dr.
Drake, president of the Museum, decided on going to New Orleans. He had now a great number of drawings and the idea of publis.h.i.+ng these had suggested itself both to him and his wife. To perfect his collection he planned going through many of the Southern States, then pus.h.i.+ng farther west, and thence returning to Cincinnati. On Oct. 12, 1820, he left Cincinnati with Captain Samuel c.u.mmings for New Orleans, but with a long pause at Natchez, did not reach that city before mid-winter, where he remained with varying success until the summer of 1821, when he took a position as tutor in the family of Mrs. Charles Percy of Bayou Sara. Here, in the beloved Louisiana whose praises he never wearied of singing, whose magnolia woods were more to him than palaces, whose swamps were storehouses of treasures, he stayed till autumn, when, all fear of yellow fever being over, he sent for his wife and sons. Many new drawings had been made in this year of separation from them, and these were by far the greater part of the furniture in the little house in Dauphine St., to which he took his family on their arrival in December, 1821.
The former life of drawing portraits, giving lessons, painting birds, and wandering through the country, began again, though there was less of this last, Audubon realizing that he _must_ make money. He had had to use strong persuasions to induce Mrs. Audubon to join him in New Orleans. She had relatives in Cincinnati, as well as many friends, and several pupils brought her a small income. Who, recalling her early married life, can wonder that she hesitated before leaving this home for the vicissitudes of an unknown city? She and her husband were devotedly attached to each other, but she thought more of the uncertainty for her sons than for herself. They were now boys of twelve and nine years old, and their mother, whose own education was far beyond the average, realized how unwise a thing for them the constant change was. Audubon was most anxious also that his ”Kentucky lads,” as he often called them, should be given every advantage, but he had the rare quality of being able to work equally well in any surroundings, in doors or out, and he failed to understand why others could not, just as he failed to see why his wife should ever doubt the desirability of going anywhere, at any time, under any conditions. He thus writes to her in a letter, dated New Orleans, May 3, 1821: ”Thou art not, it seems, as daring as I am about leaving one place to go to another, without the means. I am sorry for that. I never will fear want as long as I am well; and if G.o.d will grant me health with the little talents I have received from Nature, I would dare go to England or anywhere, without one cent, one single letter of introduction to any one.”