Volume 1
Audubon and his journals / by Maria R. Audubon ; with zoological and other notes by Elliott Coues. With 37 illus., including 3 hitherto unpublished bird drawings, and 10 portraits of Audubon.
- John James Audubon
- Date:
- 1898
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Audubon and his journals / by Maria R. Audubon ; with zoological and other notes by Elliott Coues. With 37 illus., including 3 hitherto unpublished bird drawings, and 10 portraits of Audubon. Source: Wellcome Collection.
59/606 page 29
![Victor was born June 12, 1809, at Gwathway’s Hotel of the Indian Queen. We had by this time formed the acquaintance of many persons in and about Louisville; the country was settled by planters and farmers of the most benevolent and hospitable nature; and my young wife, who possessed talents far above par, was regarded as a gem, and received by them all with the great- est pleasure. All the sportsmen and hunters were fond of me, and I became their companion; my fondness for fine horses was well kept up, and I had as good as the country — and the coun- try was Kentucky — could afford. Our most intimate friends were the Tarascons and the Berthouds, at Louisville and Shipping- port. The simplicity and whole-heartedness of those days I cannot describe; man was man, and each, one to another, a brother. I seldom p>assed a day without drawing a bird, or noting something respecting its habits, Rozier meantime attending the counter. I could relate many curious anecdotes about him, but never mind them; he made out to grow rich, and what more could he wish for? In 1810 Alexander Wilson the naturalist — not the American naturalist—called upon me.1 About 1812 your uncle Thomas W. Bakewell sailed from New York or Philadelphia, as a partner of mine, and took with him all the disposable money which I had at that time, and there [New Orleans] opened a mercantile house under the name of “ Audubon & Bakewell.” Merchants crowded to Louisville from all our Eastern cities. None of them were, as I was, intent on the study of birds, but all were deeply impressed with the value of dollars. Louisville did not give us up, but we gave up Louisville. I could not bear to give the attention required by my business, and which, indeed, every business calls for, and, therefore, my business abandoned me. Indeed, I never thought of it beyond the ever-engaging journeys which I was in the habit of taking to Philadelphia or New York to purchase goods; these journeys I greatly enjoyed, 1 This visit passed into history in the published works of each of the great ornithologists, who were never friends. See “ Behind the Veil,” by Dr. Coues in Bulletin of Nuttall Ornithological Club, Oct., 1SS0, p. 200.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24872283_0001_0059.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
