Lucy, M’Amie: A Portrait of Lucy Bakewell Audubon

By Nolanne O’Hair

Lucy Audubon lived and died in the shadow of her husband, the famous American artist and naturalist, John James Audubon. Few people today know her name, or that she made it possible for Audubon to complete much of his work. In Lucy, Mamie, author Nolanne OHair captures the spirit of Lucy Audubon and vividly portrays the era in which she lived.

Timeless and enduring, this fictionalized account explores the life of an indomitable woman who struggles to maintain her family through continual hard times yet always provides the encouragement her talented, idealistic husband so desperately needs. Lucy, Mamie follows Lucys life beginning 1802, when her family moves to America from Derbyshire, England, and to her marriage in 1808 at the age of twenty. It depicts the details of Lucys life as she watches her husband transform from a peculiar artist and naturalist to a world-famous figure.

This portrait not only recounts Lucys struggles and adventures; it unveils her heart and mind, brings her out of her husbands shadow, and gives rich insights into the life and times of a capable, resourceful pioneer woman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 26, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450256667

Nolanne O’Hair

Nolanne O’Hair was an accomplished artist, singer, and published poet. She began writing while attending DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, in the late 1920s. She researched and wrote Lucy Audubon’s story after discovering that nothing had been published about her life, but passed away in 1952 before her book could be published.

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Lucy, M’amie

A Portrait of Lucy Bakewell Audubon

Nolanne O’Hair

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Lucy, M’amie

A Portrait of Lucy Bakewell Audubon

Copyright © 2011 Nolanne O’Hair

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Characters in this work are historical figures, and the major events portrayed did take place. The characters, names, places, incidents and organizations are real. However, some events and dialogue, as well as thoughts and feelings, are products of the author’s imagination.

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publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Cover and map were designed by Laurie Tanguay, LoBo Designs.

Cover imagery was produced from those in the public domain.

ISBN: 978-1-4502-5665-0 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-5667-4 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-5666-7 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 05/11/2011

To

Genevieve

Audubon’s choice of a wife, thus quickly made, marked a turning point in his career, and the curious fact remains that while he might have ransacked the country from Florida to Maine, as he afterwards repeatedly did in his search after birds, and woefully blundered, the woman who by her sterling qualities of mind and heart was the one to recognize and call forth the best that was in him, should have been placed by circumstances close by his door. Whatever the world has ever owed to Audubon is a debt due to Lucy Bakewell, for every leaf of oak that is plaited for his brow, another of lavender should be twined for hers.

*

… for in all probability the world would never have heard of Audubon had it not been for the spur to his ambition and the balance wheel to his character which came through his admirable wife.

Audubon the Naturalist

Francis Hobart Herrick

Each life converges to some centre

Expressed or still

Exists in every human nature

A goal,

Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,

Too fair

For credibility’s temerity

To dare…

Emily Dickinson

Contents

FOREWORD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

Part I

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

Part II

2

3

4

5

Part III

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

Part IV

2

Part V

2

3

Part VI

2

3

4

5

Part VII

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

EPILOGUE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FOREWORD

Nolanne O’Hair became interested in learning about pioneer women in the 1930s. Her interest sprang from the fact that there were pioneer women in the O’Hair family and because she fancied herself as something of a pioneer woman. Her family had moved into a hundred-year-old rustic log cabin on a rural Indiana farm and her summers were spent alone with two children at a primitive lakeside cabin in the remote backwoods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

These experiences inspired her to learn some of the skills pioneer women would have needed, such as spinning yarn from the wool of her own sheep and weaving that into fabrics for clothing and home furnishings. Because of her interest in nature and birds and her treasured books of Audubon’s paintings, Nolanne began wondering what Lucy Audubon, the wife of the famous naturalist and artist John James, was like as a pioneer woman.

When she found that no book was available about Lucy, and that she garnered only a sentence or two in the books about John James Audubon, Nolanne’s journey began. She spent several years researching, traveling from Kentucky to Pennsylvania to Louisiana to collect the information needed to portray the life of this incredible woman as accurately and thoroughly as possible.

In the mid-1940s, Nolanne wrote an historic novel—what she called ‘a portrait’ of Lucy Audubon. Her daughter, Genevieve Nolan O’Hair Kee, spent many months typing the manuscript—on onion skin paper, using a manual typewriter. Unfortunately, Nolanne died in 1955, without the manuscript being published.

The manuscript resurfaced more than fifty years later and upon reading it, our family felt that this timeless story deserved to be published. Lucy Audubon was an endearing, admirable woman—worthy of being remembered in her own right. In addition her story has historic value, as remembering lives and times past enriches our understanding of the present. By capturing what Lucy might have been thinking and feeling as she dealt with the ups and downs of her life with John James, our pioneering grandmother left a legacy that should be shared beyond our immediate family.

The publication of this book is our tribute to Nolanne O’Hair, our grandmother, and mother of Genevieve—and to Lucy Audubon.

Sheila Nolan Kee-Hemstreet

Kathleen Kee Johns

Genevieve Nolan O’Hair Kee

January 2011

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This portrait of Lucy Bakewell Audubon could not have been written had it not been for the assistance of many persons, some of whose names, unfortunately, I do not know. To the following and to those unknown who have given of their time and knowledge to further this work, I give grateful acknowledgment:

Mrs. Ethel Shelton, Curator, The Audubon Museum, Audubon State Park, Henderson, Kentucky; Mrs. LeRoy Burris, Librarian, The Historical Society of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania; Miss Sara Winstead, Librarian, Henderson Public Library, Henderson, Kentucky; Miss Eleanore Cammack, Purdue University Library, Lafayette, Indiana; Miss Aileen Murdock, former Librarian, Greencastle Public Library, Greencastle, Indiana; Members of the Staff, The National Audubon Society, New York, New York; Miss Louise Crawford, Librarian, Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi; Mrs. M. Combie Smith, Indianapolis, Indiana; Norris D. Wright, Norristown, Pennsylvania; Caroline Dale Snedecker, author, Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi; Mrs. Frederick Stilwell, Nantucket, Massachusetts; Miss Grace R. Jones, Ardmore, Pennsylvania; Dr. Raymond R. Pence, DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana; Mrs. C.M. Torgersen, Waveland, Mississippi; Mrs. Walter A. Kee, Wilmington, Delaware.

To Miss Susan Starling Towles, whose fine collection of letters and documents concerning John James Audubon are now in the Henderson Public Library; Mrs. Julia Alves Clore, owner of many scrapbooks of items concerning Audubon and his family which she had collected through many years; the Tyler collection of Audubon books, relics, letters, pictures, et cetera exhibited in the Audubon Museum, Henderson, Kentucky; to these I am especially indebted.

Nolanne O’Hair

~1950

We would like to acknowledge two friends, Sandy Moore and Sharman Richardson, who after reading Lucy M’aime, encouraged us to get it published. We also thank Julie Jackson for her initial editing comments and suggestions. We are grateful to Laurie Tanguay at LoBo Designs, Carlsborg, WA for her help with the cover design and map.

Sheila Nolan Kee-Hemstreet

Kathleen Kee Johns

Genevieve Nolan O’Hair Kee

January 2011

INTRODUCTION

Imagine yourself traveling back in time to the early 1800s, the time of the Audubons. A world without telephones, cell phones or computers; your only connection with distant relatives and friends being handwritten letters that take weeks to arrive. Travel on foot, by horse or wagon to a town just 30 miles away would take an entire day. The primary mode of transporting people and goods for longer distances was by raft and flatboat on the rivers. In 1808 the only way for the Audubons to travel from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Louisville, Kentucky was by human-powered boats for 700 miles on the Ohio River; a trip that took weeks through the wilderness with no tourist services along the way.

Imagine living in a home without electricity, indoor plumbing or the modern conveniences we rely on for personal hygiene, lighting, cooking, cleaning, entertainment and comfortable temperatures. A frontier house for most rural settlers, especially through the mid-1800s, was often one room with a dirt floor. You were lucky if you had multiple rooms and a plank floor as the Audubons did. Most cooking was done by suspending large kettles in the fireplace, which was also used to heat the home; this required tending all day. When the cast-iron stove was invented in the 1820s, the more affluent had an easier way of life. Most frontier homes did not have glass windows; unless you were wealthy, heavy wooden shutters were used instead. Most ordinary settlers/pioneers were subsistence farmers raising a few animals and growing enough crops to feed their families.

During the first half of the 1800s, homes did not have indoor bathrooms with toilets, running water or bathtubs. Baths were taken in tubs hauled onto the kitchen floor and filled with hot water from the fireplace (however, the belief that bathing was not good for you was still prevalent). Although several versions of toilets were developed by the 1850s, chamber pots and outhouses would continue to be used in most frontier/rural homes for decades. Only a few luxury hotels and mansions had toilets and bathtubs, as well as running cold water in the kitchen and laundry. Before the 1850s, individuals had to use and carry water from any available source, such as a spring, lake or river (which might be a source of disease). Most cities had built some form of water and sewer system by the late 1800s, in an effort to counteract disease outbreaks. The first packaged toilet paper was not until 1857. The toothbrush was not mass produced and readily available in the US until after 1885. Toothpaste was developed in the 1800s but was usually a powder that contained soap before 1850.

Lighting in the early 1800s was by oil lamps, candles and fireplaces; kerosene lamps grew popular by the mid-1800s. Kerosene and oil lamps continued to be used throughout the 1800s because these lamps were readily available and both fuels were cheap and reliable. Thomas Edison’s revolutionary incandescent electric light bulb was not developed until 1879; his plan for electric lighting to replace other types of lighting in homes did not take place until the beginning of the 1900s.

Unlike the way we get our news and information today, via TV or computer, individuals living in the 1800s read newspapers and almanacs that were widely available. Beginning in the 1820s, the printing process and machinery were improved; this made it possible to supply a greater number of books, periodicals and newspapers for the masses, while also making it less expensive. This helped foster an important development in the public education systems that began to emerge in cities of the Northeast. Even in major cities of the Midwest, such as Louisville and Cincinnati, children of the middle class could usually get some education from private teachers (such as Lucy) or at academies. However, it took many more years before most children in rural frontier areas would have the same educational opportunities.

Although there were earlier medical colleges in Philadelphia and elsewhere, the Medical College of Ohio was established in Cincinnati (1819) in an attempt to bring improved medical care to the frontier. One of the most feared diseases was smallpox, a highly contagious disease. Smallpox vaccination began in 1800 in the US but its widespread use did not occur until the end of the century. During the 1800s, common infectious diseases such as chickenpox, diphtheria, measles, mumps, scarlet fever, whooping cough, cholera, typhoid fever and tuberculosis were serious illnesses that could result in permanent disability or death.

During the first half of the 1800s, all clothing was sewn by hand; sewing machines were used only on a commercial basis in the last half of the century. Most people owned few clothes and these were in similar styles but different fabrics suitable for ordinary daily wear or festive occasions. Shawls were worn for show and warmth; smaller bonnets were worn for protection not decoration. After the 1820s, men’s clothing became less concerned with elegance, more concerned with practicality such as comfort and fit. Various trouser styles began to be worn rather than knee britches with long stockings.

Lucy, M’amie takes place from 1802 through 1828, a time in our young country’s dramatic history during which many important events occurred that helped frame the character of the United States. When Lucy‘s well-to-do British family moved to the United States in 1802, it was only twenty years after the Revolutionary War and only fifteen years after the ratification of the US Constitution. Thomas Jefferson had just become the third President.

There were many rapid, dramatic changes in every aspect of America’s development as a new nation. The US in the early 1800s was still an unorganized country by European standards. The pioneering spirit of Americans, optimistic and practical, required total dependence on oneself, family and friends in order to survive and pursue one’s dreams. Although there were social classes in America, a middle class was beginning to emerge, differing from the rigid system of Europe. Unlike the Old World, individuals were able to achieve beyond their original station in life. America was truly the land of opportunity, where white settlers could pursue the American Dream.

In the late 1700s the Mississippi River was the western boundary of the US. What we know today as the United States did not exist in 1800. To begin with, there were sixteen states—the original thirteen and three that had more recently joined the Union: Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792) and Tennessee (1796). Eight more states, including Ohio in 1803 and Louisiana in 1812, would join the United States during the timeframe of this book about the Audubons, making twenty-four in all.

In 1803 the US was able to purchase 828,800 acres west of the Mississippi River from France—doubling the size of the United States—for $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase extended from the future state of Louisiana on the Gulf of Mexico, along the western bank of the Mississippi River, north to the British possessions (now Canada) and encompassed 14 future states. It was bordered on the southwest by Spanish possessions and on the northwest by Oregon Country. In 1804, Jefferson commissioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore the newly purchased area, determine the resources available there and the possibilities for settlement, and learn about the inhabitants. Their journals and maps provided tremendously useful information that laid the groundwork for much of the westward expansion that was soon to take place.

American economy expanded and matured quickly after the War of 1812. However, the economy was also unstable at times in the decades after the war due to land speculation excesses, bank and business failures, wide spread unemployment, selfish capitalists, corrupt politicians, etc. There was a financial panic in 1819, with everyone blaming everyone else for the problems (this occurred again in the 1830s through 1840s).

During the 1800s, the majority of American intellectual pursuits centered on applied science and technology in order to research and/or harness the forces of the new homeland. Important strides were made in fields such as medicine and mechanical devices that impacted and improved all aspects of life. However, there was a long time span between the original discoveries/inventions and the actual mass production and common use of products. In addition, common personal and commercial use of new inventions took much longer to reach rural/frontier areas and be used by a large number of people.

Improved transportation systems (roads, canals and steamboats) and new agricultural and manufacturing processes sped up the Industrial Revolution in the Northeast and Midwest, but also created a boom for the South. In 1811, the Fulton-designed steamboat New Orleans was the first to travel up and down the Mississippi and Ohio rivers between New Orleans and Pittsburgh. The trip took days rather than weeks required for other river craft, so it became cheaper and faster to transport goods. Travelers found this to be a far more comfortable mode of transportation.

By the 1820s, the large number of steamboats plying the Mississippi and Ohio rivers played a major role in expansion into previously unsettled midwestern and western areas. Towns soon began to grow up along the riverbanks, bringing prosperity, power and cultural influence to both major and smaller cities. The population began to shift away from the Northeast and South, pushing the frontier farther westward. Beginning in the 1830s, cities began growing rapidly although most of the population continued to live in rural areas.

New Orleans, founded by the French circa 1718, was strategically located near the mouth of the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Established as a trade trans-shipment center, it was not considered profitable and was given to Spain in 1763 as part of the Louisiana Territory. After the Revolutionary War, American frontiersman/settlers began moving west and taking cargo down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, helping to make it a prosperous port city. This was an important reason for our emerging nation to purchase the territory in 1803. Hundreds of steamboats eventually visited New Orleans after 1811, causing further growth and prosperity as a commercial shipping port, more than a well-developed city. By the end of the century, however, the development of canals and railroads began diverting goods and the city’s Golden Age ended.

From the beginning, New Orleans was a city with a unique culture developed from a blend of varied heritage origins. Rather than the traditional Anglo-Saxon heritage of the original colonies, this city remained an outpost of the French and Spanish empires until the territory was purchased. It was a city where Africans—both slave and free— shared their culture and intermingled with European settlers.

Louisville, established in 1779, was located opposite the Falls of the Ohio River. Because boats had to be unloaded before navigating the falls, local businesses prospered and there was a 400% population boom from 1800 to 1810. By 1811 when the steamboat New Orleans docked, Louisville was already an important frontier/riverboat trading place and became a major river port by 1820. Construction of a canal around the falls (1825-30) further stimulated the town’s growth. The commercial, cultural and educational influence of Louisville extended over a vast area of the South and emerging Midwest. The city’s printers furnished newspapers, books and periodicals throughout these areas.

Cincinnati, founded in 1788, also grew into a major city because of its strategic location on the Ohio River, situated between two smaller rivers. Hotels, restaurants and taverns opened to meet the demand from settlers traveling along the Ohio. The city really emerged as a major river port after 1811 when the steamboat New Orleans arrived on a downriver trip from Pittsburgh. Cincinnati was a commercial, educational and cultural center, with ties to the South. Steamboats were manufactured and repaired in the city. Called the Queen City of the West by journalist Horace Greeley, Cincinnati was one of the few US cities admired by author Charles Dickens.

Because everyday life in the time of the Audubons was so radically different from the 21st century, we felt it was important to set the stage so that you, the readers, could better understand what they experienced. We hope we have succeeded in adding to your enjoyment of our grandmother’s book.

Sheila Kee-Hemstreet and Kathleen Kee Johns

Part I

FATLAND FORD

(1802-08)

The month was June. The weather, sun and rain and sun again. And over the hills and through the fields of Fatland Ford, that parcel of Pennsylvania land that lay in the arms of the Schuylkill River and the Perkiomen Creek, a harvest of lush, wild berries was waiting for the picking. Red and black raspberries, for rich jams and jellies; huckleberries that hid in the woods or grew on sunny slopes and bore blue fruit abundantly for many weeks; blackberries, useful for cordials; creeping red strawberries; and delicious dewberries that trailed the moist, fertile ground, the sweetest of all wild fruits.

Picking berries was fun for a while. The Bakewell children, accompanied by a female servant and followed by leaping, yapping dogs, ran from patch to patch, eating more than they put into pails and baskets, shouting to each other and answering the worried calls of the servant whenever they were hidden from her sight. Then the heat of the sun, the stings of insects, the scratching brambles, the fear of bear and snake, turned the pleasant task into a chore and the younger girls complained of weariness. Leaving Thomas, fifteen, and William, six, to gather enough berries to satisfy the cook’s needs, the four girls started the long walk to the house.

The path through the meadow grass had been worn by the hooves of Dishley cattle and Leicestershire sheep. It wandered down the hill to a small stream that eventually flowed into the Perkiomen Creek. It then climbed up again and groped along a low stone wall where its irregularities testified to many pleasant croppings of succulent grasses just over the wall. It meandered through shady wood lots and beside the deep forest and came out finally on the high ground where many paths converged. The girls followed the one that led to the gate in the walled garden, the girls and the dogs.

The boys were glad enough to be left alone to pick the berries. Without the squealing, pestering girls beside them they could fill their pails quickly and go on to other activities more pleasant. They secreted their harvest of berries from marauding squirrels and birds and fled to the creek for a swim.

But they stopped suddenly at the water’s edge. A strange bird was trilling, trilling persistently in a thicket near the boys’ favorite swimming hole. They had never heard a bird with such a shrill yet sweet song. They listened and looked and presently saw the bird. Astonished and delighted, the boys lay in the deep grass watching this strange creature. Then, when he moved into the afternoon sunlight they crawled away, running home to tell the family what they had seen and heard.

They told it teasingly, of course. Girls, especially one’s curious sisters, should be given such tales in small doses. It was Thomas who spoke first as the boys clambered over the wall into the kitchen yard where a servant stood stirring bubbling, fragrant juice in the large kettle over a slow fire. The older girls were stemming berries while Mrs. Bakewell, wrapped in a shawl, even for so warm a day, sat in the shade of one of the house walls. The odor of simmering jam was everywhere.

You girls should have stayed with us, Thomas said, setting his pails on the scrubbed stones that paved the yard.

Why? Eliza asked, without much enthusiasm.

Then you’d have seen a new bird to add to your collection.

William giggled and scrambled up to sit on a sugar barrel. The women looked then from Thomas to William and back to Thomas. What was this? A new tall tale about some adventure they had shared? They were always bringing home stories beyond belief expecting the girls to be wide-eyed and envious.

What kind of a bird, Thomas?

It was Lucy who asked the question—Lucy, the seventeen year old, her mother’s namesake, her mother’s first born. What kind of a bird? This was too much for William. He rolled off the sugar barrel and doubled up on the ground laughing.

"I wouldn’t