[Addressed] Messs Audubon & Rozier
Merchs
Louisville
Kentucky—
[Endorsed] Recd. May 5th. 1810
Lucy Green Bakewell, Audubon's wife, was three years younger than her husband, having been born at Burton-on-Trent, England, in 1788. Her family were descended from John Bakewell of "Castle Donnington," in Leicestershire; Robert Bakewell, the geologist, who came to the naturalist's defense many years later, and who lived until 1843, was a nephew of her grandfather, Joseph Bakewell of Derby. Left an orphan at an early age, Lucy's father, William Bakewell, was brought up by an uncle, Thomas Woodhouse, a rich bachelor of Crith, Derbyshire, who eventually left him a fortune.
When William Bakewell succeeded to his uncle's estate and manor, he lived the life of a country gentleman, devoting himself mainly to shooting and to the study of chemistry and natural philosophy, while he enjoyed the friendship of such men as Joseph Priestley and Erasmus Darwin. His advocacy of Priestley's republican and liberal religious doctrines is said to have cost him the honorary office of justice of the peace in his community and to have determined his emigration to America. His first visit to America was made in the summer of 1798, when, with his brother Benjamin,[176] he started an establishment for brewing English ale at New Haven; through his chemical knowledge and skill he is said to have reproduced to perfection the famous Burton ales. William Bakewell brought his family to the United States in 1802, and when a disastrous fire destroyed his business at New Haven, he took up the large farm of "Fatland Ford" in 1804, as already related ([p. 108]). In that retired spot he devoted much time to his library and laboratory, while living a life of easy independence. If abrupt in manners and inclined to severity in discipline, he was generous, kind-hearted and an ardent republican. Mrs. Audubon's mother, who felt keenly the separation from her own people, died in September, 1804, a few months after reaching "Fatland Ford," and in the following year William Bakewell was married to Rebecca Smith. This lady seems to have taken a strong dislike to Audubon, for when her death was announced in 1821,[177] he referred to her as "my constant enemy ... God forgive her faults."
At this time Audubon studied nature for the pure love of it, without the faintest expectation that his labors in natural history would ever be of any service to the world. But in the year 1810 occurred an event, of seemingly small moment at the time, which nevertheless left a distinct mark upon his career, as will be now related.
CHAPTER XIV
A MEETING OF RIVALS, AND A SKETCH OF ANOTHER PIONEER
Alexander Wilson and his American Ornithology—His canvassing tour of 1810—His retort to a Solomon of the Bench—Descriptions of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Louisville—Meeting with Audubon—Journey to New Orleans—Youth in Scotland—Weaver, itinerant peddler, poet and socialist—Sent to jail for libel—Emigrates to the United States—Finally settles as a school teacher near Philadelphia—His friendships with Bartram and Lawson—Disappointments in love—Early studies of American birds—His drawings, thrift, talents and genius—Publication of his Ornithology—His travels, discouragements and success—His premature death—Conflicting accounts of the visit to Audubon given by the two naturalists—Rivalry between the friends of Wilson, dead, and those of Audubon, living—The controversy which followed—An evasive "Flycatcher"—Singular history of the Mississippi Kite plate.
On January 30, 1810, a man of rather coarse features, with a head of sandy hair, and possessed of manners that could be winning or aggressive according to his mood, might have been seen leaving Philadelphia afoot, for he had planned to keep his expenses down to a dollar a day and traveling by coach or on horseback suited neither his purse nor the objects of his mission. His clothing was coarse; his luggage, with the exception of a fowling-piece and two red-backed volumes of quarto size, was of the lightest description. But, could we have peered between the covers of those books, our curiosity would have been whetted, for they were filled with colored plates of American birds, the first-fruits of their bearer's untrained eye and hand; the text, moreover, was printed in a style which would have done honor to any country.
This man was Alexander Wilson, who, like Audubon, was a pioneer in the study of the birds of his adopted land, but who was twenty years his predecessor in point of publication. The books which he then carried were part of the first edition of his now famous American Ornithology, the second volume of which had appeared in Philadelphia at the beginning of that year. Though not destined to be completed until after his death, this work was to become one of the scientific and literary treasures of the nation, but it is not likely that one in ten thousand had then ever heard of him, whether as poet or as ornithologist, or cared anything about his work or his mission.
Wilson at that moment was starting on his last long journey through the West and South, in search of new birds. He also carried in his pocket a subscription list, and therefore belonged to that class of visitor which is seldom welcomed with rapture. At Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Wilson's first important stopping-place, and at that time the capital of the State, Governor Snyder put down his name for $120, the price of the completed work. This seemed a good omen, but, at Hanover, in the same state, an incident occurred which might have discouraged a less determined man; the interview has become historical, and we shall give Wilson's own relation of it:[178]