Note 164 — Chapter XIII · AUDUBON'S MARRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT IN THE WEST
Reading edition
This diary was first brought to my attention by Mr. Ruthven Deane, and for permission to reproduce it I am indebted to the kindness of a great-grandson of Ferdinand, Mr. Welton A. Rozier, of Saint Louis. Mr. Rozier writes that the original French notes have been mislaid or lost, but that they were closely followed in this translation, whenever complete. Though numerous verbal changes have been made in the present draft, these have not altered the meaning in any respect. Ferdinand Rozier's narrative begins as follows:
"I left Nantes, France, in company with John James Audubon, on Saturday, the 12th day of April, 1806, bound for the city of New York, U. S. A., on an American ship named the Polly, commanded by Captain Sammis, and arrived at New York on Tuesday, the 27th day of May. While on the voyage across the ocean our vessel was stopped, overhauled, searched, and robbed by an English privateer, named the Rattlesnake, which detained us a day and a night.
"We remained in New York City for a few days, and then removed to Mill Grove, on Pickering [Perkioming] Creek, in Pennsylvania, a tract of land owned by our fathers, and at that time thought to contain valuable minerals."