XLI Mill Grove and Fatlands, Near Philadelphia
The Homes of John J. Audubon and of His Bride, Mary Bakewell
About two hundred years ago, there lived in France a poor fisherman named Audubon, who had nineteen daughters and two sons. One of the sons was sent away to make his fortune when he was twelve years of age. His entire patrimony was a shirt, a suit of clothes, a cane, and a blessing. For five years he was a sailor before the mast. Then he bought a boat. He prospered and bought other vessels. After many years he had large wealth, and was trading to the distant quarters of the earth.
When he was an old man he paid a visit to America. In two widely separated places, attracted by the country, he bought land. One estate was on Perkiomen Creek, near Philadelphia; the other was in Louisiana. In Louisiana he spent much of his time; and there, on May 4, 1780,2 his son, John James Audubon, was born.
Commodore Audubon wanted his son to be a seaman, and he took him to France that he might be educated for the navy. But the boy’s tastes were in another direction altogether. One of the teachers provided for him was an artist, who gave him lessons in drawing that were intended as a part of his training for the profession the father had chosen for him. But the boy put it to a use of his own. On his holidays he used to take a lunch into the country, and would return loaded down with all kinds of natural history specimens. These he would preserve in a cabinet of his own devising, and drawings of many of them would be made and treasured.
Commodore Audubon was not pleased with his son’s habits, and he thought he would give him something to do that would distract his mind. The estate in Pennsylvania needed a superintendent. So he sent the would-be naturalist to America, with instructions to look after the estate.
But the wild woods about Philadelphia offered so many opportunities for tramping and nature investigation that the estate was neglected. The house on the estate, Mill Grove, which is still standing, is near the mouth of the Perkiomen. Along this pleasing stream he could ramble for hours, with his gun or his fishing rod or his collecting instruments. Before long the attic room which he occupied was a treasure house of birds and animals and natural-history specimens. He was his own taxidermist. He would do his work seated at a window that looks toward the Valley Forge country, where Washington spent the winter of 1777-78 with his faithful soldiers. The marks of his work are still to be seen on the old boards beneath the window. These boards came from the sawmill on the estate which gave the house its name.
Here in this attic room the young naturalist dreamed of making careful, accurate drawings of all the birds of America. He knew that this would be a difficult matter, but he was not deterred by thought of hardship and poverty.
While he was dreaming of what he would do for the world, something was happening in London that was to have an effect on his life. An official named Bakewell refused to be silent about a matter that the king felt should be forgotten. Bakewell was a conscientious man, and he did not feel that silence would be proper. The king rebuked him, and he resigned his office. At once he made up his mind to leave England and make a home in America, taking with him his wife and daughter.
After many investigations, he found an estate near Philadelphia that pleased him—Fatlands, on the Schuylkill, near the Perkiomen, so named because every year the latter stream overflows and deposits rich sediment on the surrounding lands. The mansion house at Fatlands was built in 1774, and there Washington as well as the British commander had been entertained by the Quaker owner who felt that he could not show partiality. Here the English immigrant made his home.
Of course Audubon heard of the coming of the strangers to the house across the road, not half a mile from his own quarters. But he did not go to call on them. He was French and they were English; he felt sure they would be undesirable acquaintances, and that he had better keep to the woods and follow his own pursuits, without reference to others.
Then came a day when he was having a delightful stroll through the woods. He was carrying specimens of many kinds. A stranger, also a hunter, encountered him and made a remark about his burden that touched a responsive chord. Soon the two were on good terms. “You must come and see me,” the stranger said. The invitation was accepted with alacrity. Then came the question, “Where do you live?” To his surprise, Audubon heard that this pleasing man was his new neighbor at Fatlands.
Deciding that an Englishman was not so bad, after all, he made it convenient to call very soon. Then when he saw Mary Bakewell, the daughter of the house, he was sure he liked the English. She showed great sympathy for his pursuits, and he liked to talk with her about them. Before long she decided to help him in his great life work, the American ornithology.
The marriage was postponed because of the death of Mrs. Bakewell, who pined away, homesick for her native England. But the time came when, on April 8, 1808, the two nature lovers became husband and wife. Then they began the long wanderings in the West and the South, the fruit of which was what has been called one of the most wonderful ornithological treatises ever made, Audubon’s “Birds of America.”
Mr. and Mrs. Audubon floated down the Ohio River, spent a season in Kentucky and Missouri, had narrow escapes from the Indians, and finally found their way to Louisiana. There for a time the wife supported herself by teaching at the home of a planter. Friends and acquaintances thought the husband was a madman to continue his quest of birds when his family was in straitened circumstances. But Mrs. Audubon believed in him, urged him to go to Europe and study painting in oils, that he might be better equipped for the preparation of his bird plates. She secured a good situation as teacher at Bayou Sara, and was soon enjoying an income of three thousand dollars a year.
Finally, with some of his own savings, as well as some of his wife’s funds, he went to England, where he was well received. Plans were made to publish the bird plates, with descriptive matter, at one thousand dollars per set. He had to have one hundred advance subscribers. These he secured by personal solicitation.
At last the work was issued. Cuvier called it “the most magnificent work that art ever raised to ornithology.”
Many years later, Audubon, after the death of his wife, returned to the scenes of his early life as a naturalist. “Here is where I met my dear Mary,” he said, with glistening eyes, as he looked into one of the rooms of the old mansion.
Mill Grove was built in 1762. Five years after Audubon’s marriage the estate was bought by Samuel Wetherill, the grandfather of the present owner, W. H. Wetherill.
Fatlands, which is one of the most beautiful old houses in the vicinity of Philadelphia, was built in 1774. During the Revolution it was occupied by a Quaker named Vaux, who entertained many officers of both armies. It is related that one day General Howe, the British commander, was entertained at breakfast, while Washington was in the house for tea the same evening.
The house was rebuilt in 1843, on the old foundations, according to the original plan.