Many stories, and no doubt much idle gossip, concerning Audubon's life and habits, were current at Henderson long after he left the village. It was said that he would often go into the woods in his pursuit of birds and remain from home for weeks at a time; that he was once known to have followed a hawk for three days in succession and in practically a straight course, swimming creeks when necessary, until it finally fell to his gun. When steamboats made their first appearance on the Ohio, they naturally excited the greatest interest, and a favorite pastime of many of the men and boys was diving from the side of a boat into the river. On one of these occasions Audubon is said to have made his appearance in the crowd of sightseers and to have astonished everyone by plunging from the bow and emerging from beneath the stern of the vessel after swimming under her entire length. According to traditional accounts, Mrs. Audubon, who was also an expert swimmer, would enter the river clad in a regular bathing costume and cross with ease to the Indiana shore.
In spite of the hard times Audubon managed to keep out of serious business troubles until he entered into another partnership with Thomas Bakewell, his brother-in-law. Their project in this second association was to erect a steam lumber and grist mill at Henderson, which of all mortal follies the naturalist considered in the retrospect to have been one of the worst. It is recorded that on the sixteenth day of March, 1817, John James Audubon and Thomas W. Bakewell, under the designation of "Audubon and Bakewell," applied to the trustees of the village for a ninety-nine year lease of a section of land on the river front. Their petition was granted, upon a consideration of $20 per annum, and the partners began to build their mill on the property and completed it within that year. Thomas W. Pears,[222] a former fellow-clerk of both Audubon and Bakewell in New York, early joined the enterprise, which was regarded at the time as one of considerable magnitude. Their mill, which stood for ninety-five years, became famous in the annals of the Ohio Valley.[223] Said the historian of Henderson County, writing in 1879:
The weather boarding, whip-sawed out of yellow poplar, is still intact on three sides. The joists are of unhewn logs, many of them over a foot in diameter, and raggedly rough. The foundation walls are built of flat, broken rock and are four and a half feet thick. Mr. Audubon operated the mill on a large scale for those times. His grist-mill was a great convenience, and furnished a ready market for all of the surplus wheat raised in the surrounding country. His saw-mill also was a wonderful convenience, doing the sawing for the entire county.
AUDUBON'S MILL AT HENDERSON, KENTUCKY, SINCE DESTROYED, AS SEEN FROM THE BANK OF THE OHIO RIVER.
After a photograph of 1894, published by courtesy of Dr. R. W. Shufeldt.
Mr. and Mrs. Pears, who had no liking for Henderson, early withdrew and sold their interest in the mill[224] to Audubon and Bakewell, thus adding to their financial embarrassment. The engines, which seem to have given no end of trouble, were constructed by David Prentice, an intelligent Scotch mechanic; since his first work after coming to this country was to erect a steam threshing mill at "Fatland Ford," his services were probably secured by William Bakewell, who afterwards helped to establish him at Philadelphia. While at Henderson he is said to have fitted a small engine and paddlewheels to a keel boat, which was christened the Pike, and to have taken it up the river to Pittsburgh. Prentice seems to have entered the partnership and to have retired with Bakewell.
In order to extend the sphere of their operations, Audubon is said to have purchased at this time a tract of 1,200 acres of government land,[225] and to have engaged a band of stalwart Yankees to fell and deliver the timber. According to one account, they were a party of emigrants who had come to Henderson with their families and encamped on the river bank. For a time all went well, but one day when they failed to deliver their usual supply of logs, it was found that they had decamped and fled down the river towards the Mississippi, taking on their flatboat Audubon's draft oxen and in fact all the plunder that they could lift. Nothing was ever recovered and but one of the fugitives was ever seen again; this man boarded a river boat on which the naturalist happened to be traveling, and it is said that upon being recognized he jumped into the river and swam to the shore like a frightened deer.