[Addressed] Mrs F. Roziers
Mercht
St Genevieve
u.L.
Friendly relations with his former partner in trade were occasionally renewed by the naturalist in after life. At one of their last meetings, in 1842, Rozier, who had then returned from France, visited Audubon at his home on the Hudson, and both were entertained in New York by their mutual friend, Nicholas Berthoud.
Ferdinand Rozier, with whom we now part company, lived to enjoy abundant prosperity as a trader and merchant at Ste. Geneviève. Born in Nantes on November 9, 1777,[210] at the age of twenty-five he entered the French navy, at a time when Napoleon was contesting with England the supremacy of the sea. He made numerous voyages, and we hear of him at the Cape of Good Hope, the Island of France or Mauritius, at Cadiz, Teneriffe, and at the Island of Bartholomew. Eventually, on April 8, 1804, he embarked on the cutter Experiment, with Captain Upton in charge, bound for the United States, where he visited a number of American ports, including Philadelphia and Norfolk. In the following year he returned to France in the frigate President, Captain Gallic Lebrosse, and entered the harbor of Nantes on March 1, 1805.[211] In the spring of that year John James Audubon, as we have seen, had also returned to that city, and plans were eventually laid for their commercial aggrandizement in the New World which both had so lately visited. To what extent Audubon's dreams failed of realization may be gathered from the following chapters.
Having settled finally at Ste. Geneviève, Rozier, at thirty-six, married Constance Roy, a girl of eighteen, who bore him ten children, four of whom, all octogenarians, were living in 1905. Ferdinand Rozier's thrift and industry soon brought him substantial rewards. In his earlier days he is said to have made six journeys to Philadelphia on horseback to purchase merchandise, and these trading expeditions were uniformly successful. His trade extended over the whole of Upper Louisiana, and he lived to see the great growth of Missouri as a sovereign state, along with the development of the fabulous mineral wealth of the district.[212]
Rozier's old store at Ste. Geneviève, for long a landmark in that community and considered a pretentious building in its day, was undoubtedly built after the date of Audubon's visit. The front was devoted to the service of customers and a large shed or stock room was placed at the rear, while the family lived in the main section, which was entered by a door not shown in our illustration.[213] When this building was demolished to make way for modern changes, the wooden pins used in joining the frame were treasured by many as souvenirs of pioneer times.
Ferdinand Rozier, who outlived Audubon by thirteen years, died at Ste. Geneviève on January 1, 1864, at the age of eighty-seven years. If he were one of those who thought that Audubon was wasting his time in his ardent zeal for natural history, it should not surprise us, for their ideals were in conflict, and the naturalist's way of working was certainly not conducive to success in trade.
FERDINAND ROZIER
IN HIS EIGHTY-FIFTH YEAR (1862)