Under a Wild Sky (51 page)

NOTES

John James Audubon had a limited education. He also spoke and wrote in a language he did not learn until he was a young man. But he nonetheless left a lengthy paper trail. Letters, journals, real estate transactions, legal pleadings, shop ledgers, and other Audubon documents survive—including his extensive published works. These, along with similar materials relating to Alexander Wilson, have been the primary sources for my research.

Wherever possible, I relied on original documents (or facsimiles of them). Many of these, of course, have been included or edited in previously copyrighted works. These, too, I have consulted and made use of, and in the interest of fairness I have attempted to cite both the physical location of original materials and any published reference as seems appropriate.

For a variety of reasons—notably Audubon's own unreliable accounts of himself, as well as the sanitized versions offered by his heirs—some sources are better than others. Lucy's biography, adapted from Audubon's journals and edited by Robert Buchanan, contains a wealth of presumably authentic detail but cannot be trusted as a single authority on substantive issues. The same is true of the journals bowdlerized and published by Audubon's granddaughter, Maria. They depict an Audubon often at variance with the real person.

Audubon's own words also required careful evaluation. His letters and two of the journals that escaped recrafting by Lucy and Maria—one from 1820–1821 and the other from 1826—were invaluable. But many of his other writings, especially in
Ornithological Biography
, demanded a skeptical eye. The “facts” of Audubon's life were not always as he presented them. To the extent that I could manage it, I relied on multiple sources—and common sense—in assembling a composite picture of Audubon that I hope gets as close to the truth as possible.

I depended heavily on two biographies of Audubon for the general outline and chronology of Audubon's life. These were
Audubon the Naturalist
, the seminal, two-volume biography published in 1917 by Francis Hobart Herrick; and
John James Audubon
, from 1964, by the foremost Audubon scholar, Alice Ford. Likewise, I owe much to Clark
Hunter's
The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson
, from 1983; and to Robert Cantwell's
Alexander Wilson: Naturalist and Pioneer
, from 1961.

Owing to the large volume of correspondence held at the Houghton Library at Harvard and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale, I have used the following shorthand to indicate those locations: (Houghton) and (Beinecke). A substantial selection of these letters was edited by Howard Corning and published in a limited, two-volume edition in 1930 by the Club of Odd Volumes.

1. PHILADELPHIA

    
3
   
On a fine spring afternoon
Audubon,
Ornithological Biography
, vol. I, page X, and Witmer, “The Old Turnpike.”

    
3
   
The stage rumbled over a wooden bridge
Weigley et al.,
Philadelphia: A 300-year History
, page 231.

    
3
   
He was an imposing figure
Burstein,
The Passions of Andrew Jackson
, page 154. Audubon's height and build can be guessed at given that he once served as a body double for a portrait of Andrew Jackson—whom Burstein describes as being “about six feet high, slender in form, long and straight in limb.” However, this may be well wide of the truth. In one of the journals edited by Audubon's granddaughter Maria, Audubon describes himself flatteringly as “about five feet ten inches, erect, and with muscles of steel.” This, too, seems perhaps a little larger than life. It turns out that Audubon had at least one passport. It was discovered by Francis James Dallett and published in
The Princeton University Library Chronicle
in 1959. According to the passport, Audubon was five feet, eight and one half inches tall—that last half inch suggesting a rather accurate measurement. Intriguingly, this passport was issued to Audubon in the spring of 1830, after he told Lucy he had grown an inch taller during his first long trip to Great Britain.

    
3
   
—his wedding anniversary
Ford,
John James Audubon
, page 73.

    
4
   
A waxing moon hung low Poulson's Daily Advertiser
, April 5, 1824.

    
4
   
In one dispute, Audubon had lost
Ford,
John James Audubon
, pages 103–5.

    
5
   
By 1823
, Audubon felt his time
Ibid., page 138.

    
5
   
Two daughters had died
Ibid., pages 93, 111.

    
5
   
He may have envisioned some kind of book
Audubon,
Ornithological Biography
, vol I, page X. Audubon repeatedly claimed that he never thought of publishing his drawings before his visit to Philadelphia in the spring of 1824. However, journal entries some years earlier indicate otherwise, and it is reasonable to conclude that his purpose in going to Philadelphia was to publish the drawings.

    
5
   
He left New Orleans
Audubon,
Ornithological Biography
, vol. III, pages 371–75. Audubon's journey north with Victor is recounted in the episode titled “A Tough Walk for a Youth.”

    
7
   
Rooms were cramped but cheap
Lathrop,
Early American Inns and Taverns.

    
7
   
He also felt his curling locks
Ford,
John James Audubon
, page 141.

    
7
   
Mease was a prominent physician
Wilson (ed.),
1825 Philadelphia Directory and Strangers Guide.

    
8
   
Awed by Audubon's paintings
Herrick,
Audubon the Naturalist
, vol. I, pages 327–28.

    
8
   
Only twenty-one years old
Stroud,
The Emperor of Nature
, pages 34–45.

    
8
   
Bonaparte had been welcomed
Ibid., pages 46–48.

    
8
   
The academy, formed only eleven years earlier
Phillips, “The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,”
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.

    
9
   
In January 1824, Bonaparte submitted Minutes of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1824.

    
9
   
Bonaparte had wealth and a title
Ford,
John James Audubon
, page 142.

    
9
   
When Mease took Audubon
Herrick,
Audubon the Naturalist
, vol. I, pages 329–30.

    
9
   
Bonaparte may have allowed himself to hope
Stroud,
The Emperor of Nature
, page 49. From the moment of his arrival in the United States, Bonaparte was determined to “correct” American ornithological studies, principally Alexander Wilson's.

  
10
   
It is unclear at which meeting Minutes of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1824.
Audubon was formally nominated for membership at the meeting on July 27. Three members—Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, Reuben Haines, and Isaiah Lukens—proposed him for membership. Neither George Ord nor Charles-Lucien Bonaparte was in attendance that evening, which argues that Audubon's visit must have occurred prior to his nomination. Assuming that all five members—Bonaparte, Ord, Lesueur, Haines, and Lukens would have been present, the meetings Audubon could have gone to would have been May 11, June 29, or July 20.

  
10
   
In his brief time in the city
Herrick,
Audubon the Naturalist
, vol. I, page 328.

  
10
   
With Bonaparte as his patron
Ibid., page 330.

  
11
   
Audubon was on safe ground
Ford,
John James Audubon
, page 142.

  
11
   
Beginning with Thomas Jefferson
Waldstreicher (ed.),
Notes on the State of Virginia
, page 127.

  
11
   
But Audubon threatened the legacy of
Ford,
John James Audubon
, pages 143–45.

  
12
   
It was almost sure to cost him
Hunter,
The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson
, page 80.

  
12
   
When he died suddenly in 1813
Cantwell,
Alexander Wilson
, page 258.

  
12
   
At the Academy of Natural Sciences
Porter,
The Eagle's Nest
, pages 41–51.

  
12
   
He may have alluded to his later claim
Audubon,
Ornithological Biography
, vol. I, pages 438–40. Audubon wrote of his encounter with Wilson in an episode titled “Louisville in Kentucky.”

  
12
   
All of this—the sketchy story
Ford,
John James Audubon
, page 143.

  
12
   
They walked down a sidewalk
Phillips, “The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,”
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.
A drawing of the academy building and grounds as they appeared in 1824, owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, is published in this article.

  
13
   
Although the members of the academy
Ford,
John James Audubon
, pages 143–48.

  
13
   
The son of a rich ship chandler
Rhoads, “George Ord,”
Cassinia: Proceedings of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club.

  
13
   
His only serious attempt at field research
Porter, “Following Bartram's ‘Track.'”

  
13
   
What Ord had that Audubon didn't
Rhoads, “George Ord,”
Cassinia: Proceedings of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club.

  
13
   
Ord had been a close friend
Alexander Wilson's will, dated August 16, 1813, American Philosophical Society.

  
13
   
He'd completed Wilson's unfinished
Ford,
John James Audubon
, page 143.

  
13
   
Ord dismissed Audubon's drawings
Herrick,
Audubon the Naturalist
, vol. I, page 329.

  
13
   
In the weeks following
Ford,
John James Audubon
, page 144.

  
13
   
Ord was delighted
Ibid., page 146.

  
14
   
Bonaparte hinted at a future partnership
Herrick,
Audubon the Naturalist
, vol. 1, pages 329–30; and Ford,
John James Audubon
, page 144. The interactions between Audubon, Bonaparte, and Ord during Audubon's 1824 visit to Philadelphia aren't precisely known. But over the course of the years following their first meetings, it became apparent that Ord's hostility toward Audubon was deep and instantaneous. Bonaparte and Audubon shared an on-again, off-again friendship in which occasional offers of assistance from one to the other never materialized into a full collaboration.

  
14
   
But he was already engaged in Minutes of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1824.

  
14
   
Jacques-Louis David, Audubon's supposed teacher
Stroud,
The Emperor of Nature
, page 27.

  
14
   
Bonaparte's father had negotiated
Ibid., page 6.

  
14
   
He took Audubon to see
Herrick,
Audubon the Naturalist
, pages 330–31.

  
15
   
“
You may buy them,” Lawson said
Quoted in Ford,
John James Audubon
, page 145.