On landing at New York [August 1803] I caught the yellow fever by walking to the bank at Greenwich to get the money to which my father's letter of credit entitled me. The kind man who commanded the ship that brought me from France, whose name was a common one, John Smith, took particular care of me, removed me to Morristown, N.J., and placed me under the care of two Quaker ladies who kept a boarding-house. To their skillful and untiring ministrations I may safely say I owe the prolongation of my life. Letters were forwarded by them to my father's agent, Miers Fisher of Philadelphia, of whom I have more to say hereafter. He came for me in his carriage and removed me to his villa, at a short distance from Philadelphia and on the road toward Trenton. There I would have found myself quite comfortable had not incidents taken place which are so connected with the change in my life as to call immediate attention to them.
Miers Fisher had been my father's trusted agent for about eighteen years, and the old gentlemen entertained great mutual friendship; indeed it would seem that Mr. Fisher was actually desirious that I should become a member of his family, and this was evinced within a few days by the manner in which the good Quaker presented me to a daughter of no mean appearance, but toward whom I happened to take an unconquerable dislike. Then he was opposed to music of all descriptions, as well as to dancing, could not bear me to carry a gun, or fishing-rod, and, indeed, condemned most of my amusements. All these things were difficulties toward accomplishing a plan which, for aught I know to the contrary, had been premeditated between him and my father, and rankled the heart of the kindly, if somewhat strict Quaker. They troubled me much also; at times I wished myself anywhere but under the roof of Miers Fisher, and at least I reminded him that it was his duty to install me on the estate to which my father had sent me.
One morning, therefore, I was told that the carriage was ready to carry me there, and toward my future home he and I went. You are too well acquainted with the position of Mill Grove for me to allude to that now; suffice it to say that we reached the former abode of my father about sunset. I was presented to our tenant, William Thomas, who also was a Quaker, and took possession under certain restrictions, which amounted to my not receiving more than enough money per quarter than was considered sufficient for the expenditure of a young gentleman.
Miers Fisher left me the next morning, and after him went my blessings, for I thought his departure a true deliverance; yet this was only because our tastes and educations were so different, for he certainly was a good and learned man."
John James Audubon, "Myself" in Audubon and His Journals (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897), pp. 15-17.
Lydia Fisher was 16 years old 9 February 1804. She eventually married Benjamin Warner.
4 December 1789
"Miers Fisher had negotiated the purchase of Mill Grove for Jean Audubon [John James Audubon's father] in 1789. Twenty-three hundred English pounds in gold and silver-roughly $200,000 today-bought 284 acres of fair Pennsylvania farmland and woods with a two-story dormered fieldstone mansion set high on a steep lawn, stone barns and outbuildings and working water-powered flour and sawmills down the lawn beside the broad Perkiomen."
Richard Rhodes, John James Audubon (2004).
5 October 1803
Even though John James Audubon has been at Ury for over a month now, upon waking up each morning he still immediately goes out to the southeast field beyond the tree line to see what the buffalo are doing. Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam indeed.
Stephen Lauf, The Discovery of Piranesi's Final Project (quondam.com: 2022-23), 8003c.htm
There did exist a kind of "conspiracy theory" that John James Audubon was the escaped Dauphin, and there is a strong possibility that Hélène Gregoroffsky Fisher was indeed an illegitimate imperial Grand Duchess.
Stephen Lauf, The Discovery of Piranesi's Final Project (quondam.com: 2022-23), 8004b.htm
13 March 2007
...and speaking of random tangents
wild turkey sighting; 2007.03.13 12:45; Ury
driving around the block on the way to market...
"Look, there's a big bird walking across the road. Is that a turkey?"
The bird is walking very slow. Is it wounded? We slowly drive by a few feet away.
"I think it's very old."
"It's probably just going back into the woods."
Within the various biographies of John James Audubon you'll find ongoing discrepancies regarding his whereabouts during his first several months in the United States. The discrepancies stem mostly from the biographers not knowing where Ury actually was.
For the record, Audubon arrived from France at New York City sometime August 1803. The first thing he did was go to a bank in Greenwich [Village] where Audubon's father had money waiting for his son. Within a day or two Audubon became very ill. The ship's captain had Audubon taken care of by two Quaker women at Morristown, New Jersey (25 miles west of New York City). Miers Fisher, the agent of Audubon's father, went to collect the young Audubon once he was well again and brought him back to Ury. Audubon stayed at Ury perhaps as much as a few months, but then insisted he be taken to Mill Grove, his father's farm not far from Norristown, Pennsylvania.
And from there on Audubon's life is like one seemingly random tangent after another.
Back to France, back to Mill Grove, Pittsburgh, PA, raft down the Ohio River, Louisville, KY, Henderson, KY, then somewhere along the Mississippi where the Ohio River enters, then down to New Orleans, then north on the Mississippi again, then back to New Orleans, then back to Philadelphia, then back to New York, then Liverpool, England, then Manchester, then London...(this is where I stopped reading one of the biographies, and I may have messed up a little on the sequence of places). And this was just the first 15 years or so since Audubon first came to the US.
I hope that wild turkey made it safely back into the woods. Are wild turkeys among the Birds of America?
2 May 2013
Hiked one of the trails that I know the least, hence currently my favorite trail. It's the horse trail between Verree Road and the run that comes down from Tabor Avenue. Part of the trail is actually part of the oldest section of Susquehanna Road, but I doubt anyone knows that except me anymore. It may well be the last stretch of road before the very young John James Audubon arrived at his first American homestead, Ury Farm.
Along the trail I spotted my first deer path. I didn't know there even were such things until two days ago when a man I met along my walk around Fox Chase Farm told me about a deer path going through the patch of woods we were standing next to. I told him about my various deer sightings right around there and he looked kind of jealous. Then I asked him if he knew anything about birds because I'd like to know what the birds are that I often see flitting and darting and diving over the pasture. He said he didn't know, so I told him I'm calling them meadow larks because of the shape of their wings (and that Fleet Foxes song).
Just as I was done the trail, a Chelsea Handler look-a-like on a 'blonde' horse came slow trotting down the paved path. She said "Hi" first so I asked her, "What color do you call your horse?" "It's palomino." "Do they ever call it blonde?" "No, just palomino. It gets browner in summer, and the mane and tail, when washed, are white." "How old is he?" "Nine." "Is that old? young?" "It's fairly young. Like a teenager." "Ah, then 'Palomino' kinda fits." "Actually, he's a bit of a brat, so 'Brat' would fit better."
Coincidentally, started reading Jonathan Franzen's Farther Away last night--bird watching on a very remote South Pacific Island, Robinson Crusoe, and David Foster Wallace's suicide. Thinking about Franzen's writing style while I was walking back along the creek made me wish I could somehow have a written transcript of all the thoughts that go through my mind while I go on my walks.
30 June 2017
Pine to Verree and back 13:59
These are, no doubt, literally places where John James Audubon first explored the American landscape.
Today's Fox Chase Farm has been a farm since circa 1684, and Ury Farm was a catty-corner neighbor, hence the two farms were not at all dissimilar in appearance.
Fox Chase Farm 14:32
21 September 2023 Thursday
2023.09.21 16:21 My first walk in I don't know how long.
The horse trail I took part of my walk on actually has a name--Shady Lane. Virtually no one else knows that, but you'll find the trail labeled as such on old Philadelphia Ward maps of like 100 years ago. A further west portion of Shady Lane is an actively trafficked residential street, while the horse trail Shady Lane is still in its eighteenth-century condition (so to speak). I'm highly confident the young John James Audubon got to know Shady Lane quite well.
4 October 2022 Tuesday
Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Ury (The Library of Congress: watercolor, pre 1812).
The tall, center-right tree was actually twin trees that still existed in the backyard when my parents moved here in 1981. My father soon thereafter had one of the twins cut down, and my mother had the remaining twin cut down circa 1998. The diameter of the oldest twin was at least four feet.
Ury has a very real and colorful history, for example, Ury is where the young John James Audubon spent the first half year, 1803/04, of his United States life, and yes, Benjamin Henry Latrobe designed Miers Fisher's renovation of Ury. Unfortunately, Ury also has a very popular yet fabricated history, such as, the oldest part of Ury was build by settling Swedes in the 1650s and Gustav V, King of Sweden, stayed at Ury in 1926. I suppose there were no depths to which the Crawford sisters would not stoop when endeavoring to increase the value of their property.
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