John james audubon family
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John James Audubon was born Jean Rabin on April 26, 1785, on his father's plantation in Les Cayes, Haiti (formerly Saint Domingue). His mother was a French chambermaid named Jeanne Rabin; she died of an infection shortly after giving birth. In 1789, Audubon's father, Captain Jean Audubon, brought him and his half-sister, Rose, to Nantes, France; both were adopted by Ann Moynet Audubon, their father's wife. Jean Rabin's name was changed to Jean-Jacques Fougère Audubon to conceal his illegitimacy and protect his inheritance. Once back in France, the family moved to Couron, five miles south of Nantes, where his father would spend the rest of his life.
As a child, Audubon studied at a naval academy at Rochefort, France, before his father recognized his enthusiasm for the outdoors and began encouraging his son to study natural history and painting. In 1803, at the age of 18, John Audubon moved from France to avoid conscription in Napoleon's army. He moved to Mill Grove, an estate located on the banks of the Perkiomen River, northwest of Philadelphia. At Mill Grove, the young Audubon l
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Audubon Biography
Audubon, John James (Apr. 26, 1785 – Jan. 27, 1851), artist and ornithologist, perhaps the most popular naturalist of America, has so long been a figure of sentiment and idealism, and as a man and a scientist has suffered so from the touching up of enthusiastic biographers, that it has been difficult to divorce the romance of fiction from that of truth in what was in any case a most colorful and adventurous life. The facts of Audubon’s birth and parentage, long obscured by the haze of legend, have been established through the researches of Prof. Francis Herrick. Audubon’s father, Jean Audubon, a native of Les Sables d’Olonne on the Bay of Biscay, from boyhood had followed the sea. In 1770 he entered the Santo Domingo trade, and from 1774 captained his own ship. Captured by the British in 1779, he was held a prisoner in New York for several months. A short time after his release he was placed in command of the Queen Charlotte, with which in October 1781 he joined the fleet of De Grasse before Yorktown. After successively commandi
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John James Audubon
A multifaceted and enigmatic person whose life story has at times been portrayed with a mix of facts, fiction, and legend both by himself and others, John James Audubon continues to fascinate, perplex, and even disturb those who take an interest in him and his work. With limited formal training in either art or science, he came to be regarded as one of the most important artist-naturalists of the nineteenth century. In the United States his name became associated long after his death with new movements for nature conservation and the popularized study of birds. During his lifetime Audubon studied and drew almost 500 species of American birds, and close to 100 species of mammals. The publication of his drawings, and the many reproductions of them produced since, assured his enduring fame.
Audubon was born April 26, 1785, in Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue, then a French colony, now Haiti. Audubon's father was Jean Audubon, a French sea captain who owned a sugar plantation in the colony. The identity of Audubon's mother is still controversial, though it m
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