Reflections on Lucy Audubon While Experiencing Audubon's Aviary

Great Egret:
New York Historical Society

Do not miss Audubon’s Aviary: Part I of the Complete Flock at the New York Historical Society. Running from Friday, March 8 through Sunday, May 19, this is the first installment of a three-part exhibition that will stretch over three years and feature all of John James Audubon’s 474 original watercolors, along with nearly as many study pieces. These paintings, which the NYHS acquired 150 years ago this spring, were the basis for the hand-colored engravings that made up the double-elephant folio Birds of America. 

“Once-in-a-lifetime” is not an overstatement when describing this exhibition. Although the NYHS has shown these paintings many times, and in many different groupings, never before has it displayed the entire collection as it is doing now. Even more exciting, curator Roberta J. M. Olson decided to organize the birds in the order they were printed and delivered to subscribers. That inspired organization allows visitors a better understanding of Audubon’s business sense – and showmanship. Although Audubon’s subscribers agreed to buy the entire set of prints, which he produced in groups (or fascicles) over twelve years, they could cancel at any time – and some did. Audubon realized that he needed to keep his subscribers engaged and eager for the next fascicle, so each delivery included one large print, one medium, and three small, a mixture of the more spectacular birds along with the more ordinary.

And, that’s how the birds are displayed in the NYHS’s second floor galleries, a space transformed into a painted aviary: birds in flight, birds at rest, birds nesting, birds feeding – birds everywhere. Complementing the paintings are media installations (heard via hand-held devices) that draw correlations between the birds in art and in nature. Down the hall, the history-minded can find some pieces of Auduboniana in a small, comfortable room. Among the documents is a letter Lucy Audubon wrote to Frederic De Peyster, the president of the NYHS in 1863, when she was negotiating the sale of her husband’s paintings and accompanying studies. That letter is a timely reminder of Lucy Audubon’s role in ensuring that her husband’s visual legacy would be preserved and maintained. 

Lucy Audubon, Businesswoman 

History has treated Lucy well. Audubon biographies and surveys of his work routinely portray her as a selfless helpmate whose sacrifices and industry enabled the naturalist to pursue the labors that resulted in his masterpiece, but Lucy Audubon was far more complex than that – and for the most part far more self-absorbed. Her negotiations to sell her husband’s paintings to the NYHS, recorded in correspondence in the Society’s library and in the New York Public Library, reveal an extremely clever and resourceful businesswoman. They also reveal a woman who was determined to ensure her financial independence even if that meant shading the truth or disparaging members of her family. Far from being sentimental about the paintings, or as she called them the “drawings,” Lucy clearly considered her husband’s art as her rightful inheritance, a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder. 

Lucy opened her negotiations with the NYHS in December 1862 when she contacted the librarian George Henry Moore, to test his interest in the drawings. After a sentimental salvo about her husband’s wishes and a well-placed hint that she had other potential buyers, she named her price: $5,000 (approximately$115,000 in today’s buying power). She also offered to sell “the coppers” (the copper plates the engraver used to create the prints) and informed Moore that if she could not find a buyer, she would sell them “by weight as old Copper,” that is, they would be melted down. While that seems an ignominious fate for the plates used to create her husband’s masterpiece, Lucy had learned that the plates deteriorated over time, so they would eventually be useless. In the midst of her letter, Lucy referenced a theme she would repeat in various forms throughout the negotiations: the proceeds from the sale would “relieve the orphan and widow,” a somewhat deceptive phrase that we’ll investigate in more detail further on.

Audubon's Aviary: The Original Watercolors for the Birds of America
Written by Roberta J.M. Olson with a contribution by Marjorie Shelley

Lucy had attempted to sell her husband’s drawings before. In 1854, a few years after Audubon’s death, the New York Times reported on page one that Edward Everett, a Senator from Massachusetts, “presented the Memorial of the widow of Audubon, praying that Congress would purchase the original drawings by her husband of The Birds of America.” That attempt failed. Perhaps Lucy’s sons Victor and John Woodhouse prevailed upon their mother to reconsider, because over the next decade, she does not appear to have made further attempts to sell either the drawings or the coppers. However, after Victor died in 1860 and John Woodhouse in February 1862, Lucy again began seeking a buyer in earnest, and this time, she made her motives quite plain in a letter to her friend and legal advisor, George Burgess: “I only want the mortgage paid off.” 

The mortgage in question was an obligation of $20,000 on the house Audubon had built in 1841 and deeded to Lucy, along with the 14-acre farm, Minnie’s Land. Lucy hadn’t lived in her house since about 1853 when Victor and John W. had built houses for their families adjacent to the original Audubon house. Instead, she leased her house and lived six months of the year with one son and then the next six months with the other. At the same time, she was collecting rent from another house she owned, this one in the north-west corner of the farm, just north of her younger son’s home. Despite that solid income, Lucy was constantly worried about supporting herself and her family; those worries only increased after John W.’s death in 1862, which is when she once again began exploring the possibility of selling the drawings and coppers. 

Lucy Audubon, Breadwinner

Lucy Audubon with her granddaughters Lulu (left)
and Hattie (right)

Before proceeding further with the narrative, we should stop a moment to consider what Lucy meant when she referred to “her family,” as that definition is important for understanding her correspondence related to the drawings. John James and Lucy Audubon had two daughters who died in infancy and two sons who lived to adulthood. The sons each married twice (both of their first wives died of consumption while still in their 20s), and between them had 16 children, 14 of whom survived childhood. Among her grandchildren, Lucy Audubon had a very special relationship with the two eldest, Lucy (Lulu) and Harriet (Hattie), who were John W.’s daughters by his first wife. When their mother died, Lulu was a toddler and Hattie an infant. Claiming that it was her daughter-in-law’s last wish, Lucy raised the two girls as her own children, substituting them for the two daughters she had lost decades earlier. 

While Audubon was alive, the entire family had lived as one unit in the original house, but after his death in 1851, the family began splitting into three distinct units. That split increased when Victor and John built their own houses and then became even more pronounced after John W. died and Lucy focused increasingly on the welfare of her family unit: Lulu, Hattie, and herself. When Lulu married Delancy Williams in 1858 and moved to her husband’s farm, Lucy’s family unit shrank to two. From then on, Lucy (the widow) and Hattie (the orphan) were a modern-day Naomi and Ruth; whithersoever Lucy went, Hattie followed. While both of Hattie’s parents (John W. and his first wife Maria) were indeed dead, describing her as an orphan is a bit misleading, given that in 1863, while the negotiations with the NYHS were ongoing, she was 24 years old and had been earning an income as a music teacher for several years as well as earning additional income playing the organ at the Church of the Intercession. She was – and remained into her 90s – a very independent woman, much like her grandmother. 

Between 1851 and 1854, Lucy and her sons had sold the majority of Minnie’s Land. All that remained for the Audubons were the two houses where Victor and John W. lived, the two houses Lucy owned and was leasing, a rental house that belonged to Victor and his wife Georgianna, and the lots accompanying each of those houses. The transformed farm, now a rural suburban enclave of about a dozen villas, earned a new name: Audubon Park. Although Lucy would claim during her negotiations with the NYHS that she had given her property to her sons “to pay debts compiled by them in unsuccessful businesses” and so that they could build houses and raise money through mortgages, the City Register tells a different story. All of the transfers between Lucy and her sons had dollar values attached; Victor and John W. paid their mother market value for the parcels. Even more distressing is reading correspondence between Victor and John W. (while Victor was on the road selling subscriptions to the Quadrupeds of America) and realizing that their objective with these business deals was raising a substantial sum of money they could invest to provide Lucy with a lifetime annuity.

One other item that Lucy mentioned in her negotiations bears elucidation: her school. George Bird Grinnell, as well as others in the generations following Lucy Audubon, passed along the story that in the difficult years following Audubon’s death, Lucy Audubon ran a school and used the proceeds to support her family. This myth has been repeated as fact in numerous accounts, but under a bit of scrutiny, doesn’t pass the test of logic – unless we understand it within Lucy's definition of family. Numerous references in the Audubon correspondence from the 1840s and '50s confirm that Lucy ran a school for the purpose of educating her grandchildren, who made up the largest number of her students. The others, whose parents paid nominal fees of $5.00 to $10.00 per pupil per quarter, accounted for only a few of the students in Lucy’s classroom. She could not possibly have earned sufficient income from those few pupils to support the large Audubon family (plus the servants she insisted on having) for a month, much less sustain them over several years. And, even if she had charged her sons to teach her grandchildren, what would have been the sense of then using that money to support her sons and their families?

Minnie's Land: Lucy Audubon's house foreground
Victor's and John W's. houses in distance

Here again, we must return to Lucy’s definition of family. As she explained to Mr. McPeters, who duly reported to DePeyster (February 24, 1863), “For her own support, consequently Mrs. Audubon was obliged to undertake the teaching of some of the children of the vicinity, assisted by an orphan Grand daughter.” What was true in 1863 had also been true in the 1850s; the income from the school supported Lucy, Lulu (until she was married), and Hattie. Further, although Lucy told McPeters that she ceased teaching  because “her strength entirely gave way,” she had told Burgess the previous March that despite trying, she had not been able to get any scholars.

Lucy Audubon, Negotiator

By 1862, when John W. died, Lucy’s saleable assets had dwindled significantly. Even so, in March, she replied to a letter George Burgess had sent her about writing a will. Her first concern was Hattie, her second was Lulu, and then, whatever might be left could go to her other 12 grandchildren. (The “lot and well” in the letter refer to the original Audubon house, though in 1862, Lucy also owned a small lot west of present-day Broadway and the spring that originated there. She would sell that parcel along with the house and land, in 1864.) When Lucy did die, more than a decade later, she left her entire estate, much diminished, to Hattie.

Tufted Titmouse:
New York Historical Society

I do not know what I can say about a will when I know not if I shall have anything to leave, but under existing circumstances I think if I leave all personal property, except Books and Pictures, to Harriet, along with the “lot and Well”, the Books and pictures to be divided between the two Sisters Lucy and Harriet. Then such an amount out of what I may have; as my Executors shall deem necessary to make Harriet quite comfortable, if such there be, and whatever there may be left after that; to be divided equally amongst the other Grand children as may be living at the time of dividing my property, be it what it may.

In April 1862, when Lucy began corresponding with George Burgess about selling the copper plates, she was both concerned and indignant because “Mrs. John [John W.’s widow Caroline] says I have no right to them.” In June, she considered writing her remaining contacts in England to inquire about interest in the paintings there and by July, she was considering selling the drawings for $3.00 a piece, which would have yielded only $1,200 ($27,700). In November 1862, Lucy sold William Wheelock the house he had been leasing on a yearly basis for $13,000 ($300,000), seemingly a small fortune, but not enough to assure Lucy that she and Hattie were financially independent. What seemed to bother her even more than her debts was the interest on the mortgage, because it was money she was paying without any visible return.

By December, the negotiations with the NYHS were in full swing and Lucy was updating Burgess on her progress, telling both him and Frederic DePeyster that the British Museum, the King of Portugal, the Prince of Wales, and “friends in Philadelphia” were all interested in purchasing the paintings. While this was not a complete bluff, she may have been exaggerating (or imagining) the interest, since she ultimately did not sell to any of them and never mentions concrete offers. 

Of all the letters in the series, the most revealing is the one “Mr. McPeters” wrote to Frederic De Peyster on February 24, 1863, after an interview with Lucy Audubon. In it, McPeters reports Lucy’s claims about her sons unsuccessful businesses, her school, her financial “embarrassments,” and her supposed generosity. That generosity is not confirmed in any other sources, including Lucy’s own letters or the public record, which record that her sons paid her for every parcel they received in Minnie’s Land. The numbers McPeters quotes in the letter are interesting and suggest Lucy was fudging a bit to make her condition seem direr than it was. The total indebtedness she reports is a $20,000 ($370,000) mortgage on her remaining property. Lucy then reported that “by parting with one piece of property” she had reduced her indebtedness to $12,000. When Lucy she sold her house and land to Jesse Benedict in 1864, she received $24,000 ($354,000 – again note the fall in the value of the dollar) and immediately paid $12,000 for the outstanding mortgage, so that sum is accurate. What doesn’t calculate is that in November, she had sold her smaller rental house and the land around it to William Wheelock for $13,000. If she had reduced her $20,000 debt to $12,000, $5,000 is unaccounted for. Granted, she may have used it to repay old debts or taxes, but it might as easily have gone into Lucy’s nest egg. Coincidentally, $5,000 was the amount Lucy had originally named as her price for the drawings.

By April, Lucy was quite frustrated with the lagging negotiations and seeming lack of interest from the NYHS. She wrote Burgess on the 9th that her view of the society was very much in line with his – the suggestion being that neither of them thought highly of it. On the 10th, when she wrote to DePeyster, she switched from her “widow and orphan routine” to irony, “It is somewhat singular that my enthusiastic husband struggled to have his labours published in his Country and couldn’t; and I have struggled to sell his forty years labour and cannot.” In the same letter she strongly hinted that she was packing the paintings to send to England, which being the practical individual she was, she probably would not have done without a firm offer and at least a down payment. Her ploy worked, however, and on the 12th, she wrote to Burgess that Shepherd Knapp, a neighbor just north of Audubon Park, had visited the previous evening to tell her that a committee of 15 “Gentlemen of the Historical Society” had joined “to try and raise the money” to buy the paintings. Soon, a circular appeared for just that purpose. Among the signers were Knapp and Daniel F. Tiemann, former mayor of the city, state assemblyman, and long-time friend of the Audubon family. With the circular, these gentlemen signified their intention of raising $4,000 ($74,000) to purchase Audubon’s drawings.

A couple of weeks later, when the funds had not materialized, Mr. McPeters visited Lucy again, telling her that the NYHS would be happy to buy the paintings, but needed more time to raise the funds. Lucy wrote DePeyster and complained that she was surprised by the delay given that wealth was so “abundant” in New York. She followed that sentiment with a lament that during the months she had been negotiating with the NYHS, she could have been liberated from her “pecuniary embarrassment and England in possession of the Drawings.” Lucy may have shot herself in the foot with that remark. DePeyster probably realized that if anyone in England had really made a firm offer for the drawings, Lucy would have sent them long since and he would have relieved of her tedious letters.

Whether DePeyster was trying his own bargaining tactics or whether he was conveying fact, when he reported to Lucy that the NYHS could only raise $2,000 on subscription ($37,000; due to the falling value of the dollar during the Civil War, if Lucy had sold the painting for this amount a year earlier, the buying power would have been $46,000), she accepted the offer and surrendered the drawings – all of them, the paintings and the studies.  Before DePeyster could breathe a sigh of relief that the deal was closed, Lucy was writing to him again, once more offering the coppers. With no positive response form DePeyster on the coppers, she offered the Ornithological Biographies, which were lying in a barn up in Audubon Park, molding. They had originally sold for a guinea each, but with booksellers in England ignoring her letters, she offered them to the Society for a dollar a volume. DePeyster did not pursue that sale either and with that letter, their correspondence ended. 

The Lucy Audubon who inhabits the correspondence cited here is quite a different individual from the Lucy Audubon portrayed in Audubon biographies and histories. The self-sacrificing helpmate of the latter is hard to reconcile with the determined and often querulous woman in the former. While the negotiating skills she displays in these letters is admirable, her tone can be irritating and her self-image as the martyred mother, downright annoying. Ultimately, however, she knew what she wanted to accomplish, and like her husband, she understood the value of playing a role. Whichever of these personae is the real Lucy Audubon (and most probably, she was a combination of all ) and whatever her ultimate reasons for selling her husband’s paintings to the New York Historical Society, she deserves the thanks of succeeding generations for conveying her husband’s work to an institution that has cared for it, preserved it, and made it available to the public for 150 years. 

Excerpts from the Correspondence  

These excerpts from Lucy Audubon's correspondence with George Burgess and Frederic DePeyster during her negotiations to sell her husband's artwork to the NYHS illustrate her negotiating skills as well as her determination and willingness to spin the story to her advantage. Notations in brackets [ ] are explanatory, not original to the text.

(All correspondence with George Burgess is in the manuscript collection of the New York Public Library, George Burgess papers; all correspondence with the NYHS is in the New York Historical Library manuscript collection, Audubon folder.)

Lucy Audubon to George Burgess, April 28, 1862

…Now I want your opinion about some hundred plates (more or less) I mean as to what I must do with them they were engraved in London long before my Sons took any part in that first work and I thought them mine. Mrs. John [Lucy’s daughter-in-law Caroline Hall Audubon, widow of John W. Audubon] says Mr. Lockwood [of the publishing company Roe Lockwood] told her he had some hundreds of them and that if all these were added to them he might make out a volume of the first large work “Birds of America” therefore Mrs. John says I have no right to them but ought to send them immediately to Lockwood. I said I should ask you before I did it for I do not see the advantage of so doing…  

Lucy Audubon to George Burgess, June 26, 1862

…I have been thinking that Mr. Bean might know of someone who would like to purchase the Coppers even for less than their value would help me to pay my debts. A little while before Johns death he received a letter from some Sir Henry something Curator of the British Museum in London, saying “if” the Widow of J. J. Audubon would send over the original drawings of Mr. Audubon he would sell them for the Widows benefit better he thought than they would sell in America. All our old and true friends amongst the aristocracy are gone, but there are one or two Persons who were friends all the time we were in England, that I could write to, if you think it a plan likely to succeed. I will not only write to the Curator but to Honable Thomas Liddle who always took great interest in us, and Sir Wm Wood. And if you think it worth while I will have them packed here and a list made of the plates. I perhaps appear impatient and restless to you, but Mr. Burgess it is hard to work all day every day and at the end of a quarter find just enough to pay our Board. I see no way of paying the debts, nor have I even the means of going anywhere. 

Lucy Audubon to George Burgess, July 31, 1862

…I still hope to get something worth having from the drawings and Coppers … I will be patient certainly but I cannot be quite passive (?), I must be trying to help myself out of this great indebtedness … I think Mr. Bien will help me about the drawings and coppers. The drawings 430 at three dollars each all round would be twelve hundred and 90. 

Lucy Audubon to George Burgess, November 25, 1862

…  I mentioned the affair of gradual payments for the Drawings because the plan might suit another. The person in question is just beginning the world and I found his friends had no intention that he should so gratify himself, but I said to Mr. Peters of Bloomingdale that I would take 4,000 dollars in cash at once, or 5 or 6,000 in sums annually, of one thousand or every six months. I do not think, these times that they will be easily sold, and I want to get on to the end of this ruinous Interest business ...

Lucy Audubon to George Burgess, December 3, 1862

…  I have seen four of the leading Professors of the Scientific Academies and they have no funds for Drawings I have seen also the first engravers and Publishers and they advise me as did Mr. Havell [Audubon’s British engraver who had emigrated to the United States in 1840] to sell the Coppers as old Copper because they will injure by time as engravings and Lithography has taken the place of Metal. Mr. George Childs who is first here in that line says he will put his own name at the head of a subscription list to obtain 5,000 for the Drawings to place them as soon as he can and from the character he has I hope, but in the meantime he said I might sell if I could … 

Lucy Audubon to George Henry Moore, December 1862

 “…it was always the wish of Mr. Audubon that his forty years labor should remain in his country, therefore I give the preference to this society over my request to send them to the British Museum…should your Society purchase them, you will possess the only work of the kind in the world and relieve the orphan and widow. I have friends in Philadelphia who are joining their efforts to possess(?) these drawings, but I left them with the liberty to sell them, if I could before the six weeks they spoke of expired. The price of them is 5,000$. Less than that would be too great a sacrifice. I have also the Copper plates…I shall sell by weight as old Copper, if not otherwise valued.”

Lucy Audubon to George Burgess, December 12, 1862

… Mr. Peters writes me … I will copy what he says truly “I received a note today from Mr. Moore of the Historical Library. He agrees with me that you had better accept any positive offer for them than wait the action of of (sic) a slow corporate body. The Historical Society has not acted, & it will go now a week certainly before they come to any decision. If you can get $4,000 in semiannual payments I would certainly advise you to accept.” … Now if they would pay me one thousand down and the other three each following six months it might help me to clear the mortgage. And the sale of the coppers even by weight … Excuse my writing on half sheets of paper I have no other. The date of Mr. Peter’s letter is Dec. 8 next Monday will be a week. Pray do for me as you think best, I know it is far below their value as works of art, but art is at a very low ebb just now. Mr. Wheelock [Lucy Audubon’s tenant in Audubon Park, who eventually bought the house he leased] knows Mr. Moore intimably (sic). I do hope to be able to pay you and all others soon.

Lucy Audubon to George Burgess, December 18, 1862

… I sent you word the Historical Society would meet last Monday, I think from the tenor of Mr. Peters  letter they would expect me to acquiesce to their terms or not, Mr. W[heelock]thought they would write to me again but they have not, and I venture my poor judgement by saying to you that one thousand dollars down with four from Mrs. John and at least two thousand or even on from the Coppers would make six then the other three thousand every six months would make nine, and the rent of the old house and the lot would make another thousand & the coppers ought to bring more. I am willing to make great sacrifices to pay these debts … 

“Mr. McPeters” to Frederic De Peyster, February 24, 1863 (written after an interview with Lucy Audubon)

…Her present embarrassments have arisen from her liberality toward her sons John & Victor, both now deceased. A large part of the real estate at Washington Heights was sold to pay debts compiled (?) by them in unsuccessful businesses. Other positions (?) were given to them on which they built and raised money by mortgages. Finally, Mrs. Audubon mortgaged her remaining property for $20,000 to enable the late John W. Audubon to prepare (?) and [illegible] of the large birds lithographer. This sum was lost by the breaking out of the present civil war, which necessarily caused a suspension of the publication under way. The interest upon the mortgages together with taxes exceeds the rents, although Mrs. Audubon vacated her own house and took board with the widow of one of her sons. For her own support, consequently Mrs. Audubon was obliged to undertake the teaching of some of the children of the vicinity, assisted by an orphan Grand daughter. This she continued until a few months since, when, at the age of 74, her strength entirely gave way – By parting with one piece of property her indebtedness has been reduced to $12,000. This amount she hopes (?) will further so reduce by the sale of these drawings, so that for the remaining years of her life she may receive a small income & be enabled to provide for the dependents (?) and her grand daughters (?)…The grand daughters of her two sons Victor G. & John W. [Maria Rebecca and Mary Eliza, eldest daughters of John W. and Victor, respectively] are now teaching in the public schools of the 12th Ward. The orphan Grand daughter [Hattie] is giving music lessons to assist in maintaining her Grandmother & self.

Lucy Audubon to Frederic De Peyster, March 20, 1863

 …The Coppers I should like to sell to the mint in Philadelphia if I had anyone proper to consign them to, the Copper being such, as to purity(?), as is required for coining I am told …

Lucy Audubon to George Burgess, April 9, 1863

I this morning received a note from Mr. DePeyster which I intended sending to you, for advice as to what I should do next. I perceive from your very friendly note to me that we both take the same view of the Historical Society, and if I am well tomorrow I will write if not as soon as I can as you mention and send the letters to you, but yesterday and today I have been labouring under a bilious headache … Shall I send for the 28 Drawings and the two Portfolios from Mr. De Peyster—

Lucy Audubon to Frederic De Peyster, April 10, 1863

… It is somewhat singular that my enthusiastic husband struggled to have his labours published in his Country, and could not; and I have struggled to sell his forty years labour and cannot.

Lucy Audubon to George Burgess, April 12, 1863

Last evening Mr. Knapp [Shepherd Knapp, neighbor to the north of Audubon Park]  called upon me with a message from the Gentlemen of the Historical Society begging that I would not for a short time send the Drawings to Europe as fifteen of the Committee had resolved to try and raise the money. With this report dear sir do as you always have done, the wisest and best for me only let me know when you can what that is …

Lucy Audubon to Frederic De Peyster, April 30, 1863

…To me the months that have passed away since the proposition was first made, have been painful and obliged me to submit again to the payment of an Interest that is truly throwing away my Substance under other circumstances I might now be liberated from my pecuniary embarrassment and England in possession of the Drawings.

Lucy Audubon to Frederic De Peyster, May 9, 1863

… Again I thank you for your unremitting attention to my sad affairs. I fully intended to have the pleasure of seeing you at University Place today but my cold is so bad that I have to postpone till next Tuesday my visit to the city…I caught my cold by emptying three or four boxes of Books in the Barn, but did not find a first Volume. There are several more Boxes to be looked into when I am better, and when I can hire a man to help me, but now every body appears to be moving and I could not get anyone…I am now residing in 152nd Street near the 10th Avenue…

Lucy Audubon to Frederic De Peyster, June 26, 1863

… Mr Havell’s plan for arranging the Birds I think a good one … I shall not sell them [the Coppers] for less than two thousand dollars simply because a less amount will not finish my much desired object, which is liberation from the mortgages on my former home!

Lucy Audubon to Frederic De Peyster, November 23, 1863   

…I hope you will not be displeased at the sight of my handwriting again before you…the World is too busy to care for the wants or grievances of an old and lone Widow. I find it impossible to keep the rats from the boxes of the “Ornithological Biography.

The Mayors of Trinity Cemetery

When former Mayor Edward Irving Koch (December 12, 1924 – February 1, 2013) is buried in Trinity Cemetery tomorrow, he will join three former mayors in the burial ground bordering the Audubon Park Historic District on the south: Cadwallader David Colden (1769-1834), Fernando Wood (1812-1881), and Abraham Oakey Hall (1826-1898).

Famously outspoken and colorful, Mayor Koch will find himself in good company with Wood and Oakey. Compared to that trio, Colden’s term in office was reasonably calm. He became mayor when his friend and fellow Freemason, DeWitt Clinton, was elected governor of the state in 1817 and persuaded the Council of Appointments (which appointed the mayor) that Colden was the man for the job. Although Mayor Colden suffered politically because of his ties to the unpopular Clinton, he made headway reducing crime and alleviating poverty in the city, though his greatest achievement was championing the Erie Canal, a waterway that ensured New York City’s preeminence as a commercial hub.  

Described in his lifetime as elegant and refined, Fernando Wood, who has had a recent moment in the spotlight in the film Lincoln, is remembered as ruthless and ambitious. A Copperhead through and through, during his second term in office (1860-1862), he advocated that New York City secede with the southern states so that it could continue its profitable cotton trade. Later, while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, he was censured for “unparliamentary language,” apparently for injudicious use of the word “infamous.” Wood is credited with mentoring the master of corruption, William Magear (Boss) Tweed, who in turn promoted the mayoralty of Abraham Oakey Hall. Elegant and educated, the Republican Oakey was an excellent front man for the graft and corruption that marked Democratic Tamany Hall during the Tweed years. Brought to trial twice, Oakey explained away his many signatures on suspicious invoices with the tried-and-true excuse that he was too busy to read each one in detail. He was convincing enough that his first case ended in a mistrial and the second with an acquittal. 

Although Trinity Cemetery is owned and operated by Trinity Wall Street, an Episcopal Church, it has been multi-denominational since its early years, though the non-Episcopalians were either members of other Protestant denominations or unaffiliated with any group. Among the latter, was John James Audubon who was Catholic by baptism, but practiced no known religion during his adulthood. In the later part of the 20th Century, when unsold burial plots became scarce, Trinity added a mausoleum at its western end, expanding it several times to accommodate demand. Among non-Christians interred there is the Jewish actor Jerry Orbach, who knew the surrounding neighborhood well from many film shoots of Law and Order. 

What sets Koch apart from other contemporary burials in the cemetery is that he has a plot, one of only a few remaining – and those reserved for notable New Yorkers. He reportedly paid $20,000 for his plot and, at the suggestion of a rabbi, had the nearest gate, which services what was once the caretaker’s lodge, designated the “Jewish Gate.” 

The Jewish Gate on Amsterdam Avenue at 154th Street
(photograph, Lynne Van Auken)

At $20,000, Koch paid quite a premium for his lot in 2008, compared to the $97.10 the Audubon family paid for a similar-sized lot in 1851 ($2,090.00 in 2008 dollars). However, Koch died with the assurance that he would remain in New York, easily accessible for visits from his former constituents, via the 1-train (Broadway and 157th), the C-train (Amsterdam, and 155th), or the M104 bus stop at Broadway and 155th.

Mayor Cadwallader Colden's gravesite
(second name from top on the marker)

An interesting footnote: Until just recently, Mayor Cadwallader Colden’s presence in Trinity Cemetery was forgotten and sources located his burial place in Queens. However, while Trinity Cemetery historian Eric K.Washington was searching for the burial place of David Colden, a friend of Charles Dickens, he found the elder Colden, who was buried in New Jersey when he died in 1834. In 1843, he was reburied in Trinity Cemetery in a plot that lay in the line of 11th Avenue as laid out on the Commissioners’ Map. When the city extended the Grand Boulevard to 155th Street, Colden was moved to his present location in the western portion of the cemetery.

Audubon Park Christmas: Clement Clarke Moore festival and the ROA Calendar on sale

Two signs that Christmas is coming to Audubon Park – an old tradition and a relatively new one – the Church of the Intercession has announced its annual Clement Clarke Moore fete and the Riverside Oval Association has put its 2013 calendar on sale.

Since 1911, the Church of the Intercession has hosted a yearly reading of Moore’s beloved poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” – more commonly known as 'Twas the Night Before Christmas – on the Sunday before Christmas, followed by a candlelight procession to Moore’s grave in Trinity Church Cemetery. This year, Pat Battle, a journalist and co-anchor at NBC New York's Weekend Today in New York, will read the poem. The ceremony, which is open to the public free of charge, will begin at 4:00 P.M. on Sunday, December 23 at the Church of the Intercession, 155^th Street and Broadway. (For a history of the ceremony, read the Audubon Park Perspectives blog from December 2011.)

The 2013 Riverside Oval Association (ROA) calendar continues the theme of historic views of lower Washington Heights with thirteen vintage photographs, mainly from the Museum of the City of New York. The sixth in the series, the calendar is a major fund-raiser for the ROA, supporting its programs in the neighborhood, particularly the gardening efforts in the Riverside oval at the foot of 156^th Street and the installation of tree guards throughout the historic district. During the last year, the Parks Department installed a new curbstone and fence around the oval, an initiative made possible by city funds allocated by Councilman Robert Jackson.

Over the last two years, local resident Christina Read has led a group of volunteers who have re-landscaped the park, increasing its beauty and making it more inviting for events such as the John James Audubon birthday party in April. With an eye to taking the ROA to a new level of community development, Christina has worked with local graphic designer Mitch Mondello to create a logo that will brand all ROA programs and initiatives going forward, a reminder that the association is a community effort and depends upon the generosity and support of neighbors and friends.

The calendar itself is a reminder of northern Manhattan’s rich history, featuring a group of photographs taken between about 1910 and 1930, many of them by the prolific photographer Thaddeus Wilkerson. As is often the case with historical photographs, these images bear viewing again and again, so the calendar is valuable both for its utilitarian purpose and as a keepsake.

August, for example, is a street scene looking north from Broadway and 155^th Street. Notice that the Church of the Intercession’s east tower is missing its spired top (removed rather than repaired since the congregation was already planning a move to 155^th Street) and Broadway has a distinct lack of trees. A common belief of the time was that trees drew insects, so they were far sparser than now. Get out a magnifying glass and look at the signs on the southern end of the taxpayer that still stand at the corner of 157^th and Broadway, only slightly modified from the original. The lower floor is a shop for Sheffield Farms, New York’s largest milk producer in the first decades of the 20^th Century and the upper is labeled Corrigan Hall. The building’s owner, Adolf Lewisohn (who donated the now demolished Lewisohn Stadium) leased the top floor of his building to the Corrigan Council No 705, Knights of Columbus, who used it for their activities. They shared the space with the Washington Heights Taxpayers Association, which held its monthly meetings there. (Is the man crossing the street in the foreground lighting a cigarette or blowing his nose?)

The March image is full of interesting details. Not only is there a for-sale sign atop the Audubon house, but the seller is Chase. The benches along Riverside Drive above the house appear to have been a popular congregation point in the neighborhood; and look at the cars parked in front of 780 Riverside Drive – perpendicular rather than parallel parking.

June, a photograph of the Hispanic Society and its neighbor the Numismatic Museum, illustrates how steep the slope was down to the river, even after five decades of cultivation and construction in Audubon Park. The photograph must have been around 1909 as excavations for the Riviera have not yet begun. At the left, just outside the photographers frame, is the Hemlocks, the home of the Grinnell family, tantalizing in its absence.

The calendar is available for $12.00 plus postage. Email vducat@gmail.com, call (917) 301-1120, or write to V. Ducat, 790 Riverside Drive, Apt. 12A, New York, NY 10032. Please write checks to: Washington-Heights Inwood Coalition (the Riverside Oval Association’s fiscal conduit).

Celebrating JJA's 227th and a Renewed Riverside Oval

Re-designed and landscaped "Riverside Oval" looking north

More than sixty locals, friends, and guests gathered on Saturday, April 28th for the third annual John James Audubon birthday party, an event sponsored by the Riverside Oval Association and held in the Charles and Murray Gordon Memorial Park (a.k.a. "the Oval") in Riverside Drive at the foot of 156th Street, land that was once part of John James Audubon's farm in northern Manhattan. The afternoon was sunny, but the breezes were brisk and temperatures hovering in the upper 50s, so the celebrants adjourned to the community room at the Grinnell for cake, speeches, and some remarks about the neighborhood's history. Before leaving the Oval, however, everyone admired the new fence and footing installed this year with assistance from City Councilman Robert Jackson as well as the beautiful new landscaping, designed by local resident Christina Read and planted under her guidance. 

At the Grinnell, Dr. Harvey Flad, a geographer and professor emeritus from Vassar College, spoke about living in the neighborhood and working at the American Geographical Society in the 1960s and your blogger, Matthew Spady, local historian and webmaster of AudubonParkNY.com, spoke about the historical antecedents of Riverside Drive and the reason two separate Riverside Drives run between 155th and 165th Streets. 

ROA co-chairs Steve Simon and Vivian Ducat, who had organized the event, split duties for the afternoon; Steve was Master of Ceremonies and led a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday" while Vivian Ducat cut and served the birthday cake to the guests, among them Assemblyman Denny Farrell.

A birthday cake celebrating John James Audubon's
227th birthday

The party also served as a "water fund-raiser" for the Riverside Oval Association. Currently, the gardeners must haul water across the street in large containers to keep the new plantings flourishing. Although a water source runs beneath the Oval, connecting to it will be an expensive proposition; however, in the meantime, the ROA can connect to a nearby hydrant, if it can raise the necessary $2,500 for a permit and equipment. After donations at the party, the ROA was more than half way to its goal, close enough to begin obtaining the necessary permit to use the hydrant. 

Anyone wishing to make a tax-deductible contribution to the water effort should write a check to "Washington Heights-Inwood Coalition" and mail it to the Riverside Oval Association, 790 Riverside Drive, Apt. #12A, New York, NY 10032.

Plans for the fourth annual John James Audubon birthday party are already underway, so mark April 27, 2013 on your calendars now!  The next event in the Oval will be gardening on "It's My Park Day," May 19th.

Plea for water funds for the newly-landscaped Riverside Oval
Christina Read (Landscaper / head gardener), Vivian Ducat and
Bruce Robertson (ROA)

Redesigned and landscaped
"Riverside Oval" - south end

Birthday celebrants begin to gather

Preliminary speeches before moving indoors

Additional pictures: http://www.facebook.com/RiversideOval

Where Better to Spend Audubon's 227th Birthday than His Former Home in Northern Manhattan?

The Riverside Oval Association is commemorating John James Audubon’s 227th Birthday on Saturday, April 28, 2012 at 3PM in the Riverside Oval (156th Street at Riverside Drive), a few steps from the site of the naturalist’s final home in northern Manhattan.

The event will feature a talk by Harvey Flad, a geographer and professor emeritus from Vassar College, who lived in the neighborhood and worked at the American Geographical Society in the 1960s. Matthew Spady, local historian and webmaster of AudubonParkNY.com, will give a presentation on the historical antecdents of Riverside Drive and the reason two separate Riverside Drives run between 155th and 165th Streets.

Everyone is welcome to join members and friends of the Oval Association for cake, beverages, and a hearty chorus of “Happy Birthday” to Audubon: admission is free.

H. W. Johnson, the Titanic, and John Jacob Astor IV

Pink dogwood blooming in Trinity Cemetery

When the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, Audubon Park had barely completed the first phase of its rapid transformation from a “residential park” to a cityscape and the Hemlocks, the Grinnell family residence that once occupied the Riverside Drive block front between 156^th and 157^th Streets had been gone only a couple of years, its demolition making way for the Riviera, the thirteen-story apartment building numbered 790 Riverside Drive. Although the Grinnell family had called the Hemlocks “home” for five decades, they were not the first family to live there. When the Audubon brothers, Victor and John Woodhouse, first built the house in 1851, they first leased it to merchant Samuel R. Downer, who lived there until about 1856. When Downer moved his family from the Park, the Audubons leased the house to Henry Ward Johnson, an average adjuster and founding partner (with A. Foster Higgins) of the marine insurance company Johnson & Higgins, a company that is still in business more than one hundred and fifty years later.  

A Johnson & Higgins website containing company information and history, notes that in the early days, while “marine insurance policies were often simple enough to fit on one page and the need for brokers was therefore slight, there was a great need for average adjusters. The term ‘average’ in this context derives from the French word for a loss and refers to the practice of the various owners of a ship's cargo sharing the costs of a loss when cargo is sacrificed to save the ship during a storm. This practice originated over 3,000 years ago and became increasingly complex in the 19th century as large vessels carried the property of hundreds of different merchants. The average adjuster served as a disinterested party who would assess the value of the loss and determine the portion to be borne by each merchant.”

Henry Ward Johnson died in 1881, but the company he and Higgins founded continued to prosper under their names and thirty years after Johnson’s death, it insured the maiden voyage of the Titanic, a ship that needs no introduction, particularly not on the centennial of its sinking.

“The Titanic's disastrous maiden voyage in April 1912 took the world by surprise, famed as the luxury liner was for its superior design, which included a double bottom and a hull divided into 16 compartments, two of which could be punctured without compromising the ship's buoyancy. Johnson & Higgins was among the incredulous: calculating the risk of total loss to be very small, it had brokered the U.S. portion of the $5.6 million coverage at a nominal rate. All claims were paid within 30 days, though payments accrued only to the owners of the ship, not the survivors or the families of those lost. It was not until 1934, after other marine disasters, that U.S. law required minimum liability coverage.” (Johnson & Higgins website)

Henry Ward Johnson family vault
in Trinity Cemetery

Johnson had moved from Audubon Park around 1860 and was living in Connecticut when he died in 1881, but he was buried in a plot in Trinity Cemetery on the southern border of Audubon Park, high on the hill in the cemetery’s western division, at that time within sight of the house he had once occupied. The plot already contained the remains of Johnson’s two sons, Ward, who died an infant while the family was living in Audubon Park, and Henry Ward Johnson, Jr. who had died in 1871 at the age of twenty-four. Later, Johnson’s wife and daughter would also be interred in the family plot.

Visible from the Johnson plot, perhaps twenty yards down the hill, is the tombstone of John Jacob Astor IV, the richest passenger on the Titanic and the only fatality of that ship’s disaster buried in Manhattan. In 1909, Astor had created a scandal in society when he divorced his wife Ava Lowle Willing and, at the age of forty-seven, married 18-year-old Madeleine Talmage Force, who was a year younger than his son Vincent. Escaping society’s glare and waiting for the turmoil to die down, Astor took his bride on an extended tour of Europe, travelling part of the time with American Margaret Brown, later memorialized as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” When the young Mrs. Astor realized she was pregnant, she and Astor agreed that they wanted their child born in America, so they made reservations to return to New York on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.

A "fouled anchor" on John Jacob
Astor's tombstone, indicating
the manner of his death

The evening the Titanic struck an iceberg, Astor accompanied his wife, her maid Rosalie Birdsie, and her nurse to the deck where he helped put them in Lifeboat Number 4. He asked if he might accompany his wife because of her condition, but when the officer in charge told him that no men could leave the ship until all women and children were evacuated, he stepped back. Astor and his valent went down with the ship. Over the next few weeks, numerous articles in newspapers around the country mentioned Astor’s valor, several women coming forward to commend his bravery, particularly Mrs. Ida Hipach and her daughter, who reported that but for Astor’s calm command, they would not have been put in a lifeboat at all.

Astor’s was among the 333 bodies reclaimed from the sea, recovered by the Mackay-Bennett on April 22, 1912, but not idenfied until several days later. Some witnesses reported that his body was bruised and mangled, possibly from a falling smokestack, but the mortician who prepared Astor for burial disputed that claim and reported that the body was undamaged.

Though Astor’s funeral was confined to family and invited guests, it drew a large crowd of observers, some no doubt touched by the stories of his bravery; others curious to see the funeral of one of the richest men in America or to catch a glimpse of his teen-age bride. The funeral service itself took place on Saturday, May 3, near Ferncliffe, the Astor estate, in the Church of the Messiah in Rhinecliff-on-the-Hudson, where Astor had served many years as Senior Warden on the Vestry. The list of honorary pallbearers and invited guests was a veritable who’s-who of New York’s wealthiest citizens. Afterwards, the pall bearers loaded the coffin—covered with lavendar orchids—onto a train, and then the family, clergy, and guests boarded for the trip down the river along the Hudson River Railroad tracks to the station at 158^th Street. There, according to a New York Times article (May 4, 1912), a twelve-man police squad from the 152^nd Street station met the train and escorted the corgege (a hearse and four carriages) the few blocks south to Trinity Cemetery for the interment service.

155th Street entrance to Trinity Cemetery

A crowd that the Times estimated to exceed 5,000 had been gathering around the cemetery for several hours, though only those with invitation cards were permitted inside the gates; another police detail was on hand to maintain order. Observers congregated on the Riverside Drive viaduct and along the cemetery fence, as well as the tops of “adjoining apartment houses.”

John Jacob Astor IV vault and
tombstones

After a brief graveside service, Astor’s coffin was placed in the vault with his father, just a few feet away from a separate vault containing the remains of his great-grandfather, the first John Jacob Astor. The story did not end there, though. The press eagerly followed Mrs. Astor’s health, the birth of her baby, and the dispursement of Astor’s estate, supplying details for an interested reading public. Astor’s name resurfaced during the inquiries into the disaster, and he has inhabited the many stories, books, and films about the Titanic and its doomed voyage. As long as the Titanic’s story survives, so will the memory and gallantry of John Jacob Astor IV.

Postscript

During the fifteen years I’ve been researching and writing about Audubon Park, I’ve had many moments of coincidence when a fact or name would suddenly appear in a new context and illuminate another bit of information that had previously seemed completely unrelated. Oddly—or perhaps not—these moments often occur in the quiet of a cemetery, where a date, a name, or even a place of birth will suddenly jump off a tombstone and bring an “a-ha” moment.

Yesterday, when I walked the two blocks south from my apartment building to Trininity Cemetery, my purpose was to photograph John Jacob Astor’s tomb, so that I’d have a few pictures to accompany a blog relating the sole fatality of the Titanic buried in Manhattan with the neighboring Audubon Park Historic District. After taking pictures, I walked up the hill in the western division to admire the pink dogwood, the sole remaining specimen of what reportedly were once hundreds in the neighborhood. Then, as I often do, I walked about a bit, casually looking at tombstones and checking names in case any are familiar. Only a few feet from the dogwood, I spotted H. W. Johnson, a name I hadn’t noticed in the cemetery before, but that I had run across long ago in George Bird Grinnell’s Memoirs. Since I knew that Johnson had moved from Audubon Park before 1860, I hadn’t suspected he would be buried in Trinity Cemetery, but as I soon learned from the tombstone, in 1857 while the Johnsons lived in the Park, their infant son died, so they must have purchased the plot in Trinity Cemetery and made their own burial plans then.

Back home, I checked my database and found that I had entries from New York City Directories for “average adjuster” H. W. Johnson and his company Johnson & Higgins. A quick google brought up several websites with information about the company, the first of which began, “What do the Titanic, Boeing jets, the racehorse Secretariat's bloodline, and industrialist Andrew Mellon's business properties have in common? At one time or another in its 150-year history, Johnson & Higgins brokered the insurance coverage for each of these disparate entities.” The coincidence took my breath away.

Granted Johnson was long dead when his company insured the Titanic, but what an interesting bit of trivia that from the gravesite of the founder of the company that insured the Titanic you can look down the hill and see the gravesite of the one Titanic fatality buried in Manhattan, the galant Mr. Astor.

Cemetery ciphers can be as fascinating as they are enlightening.