In November of 1811, John James Audubon was asked by his brother-in-law, Thomas Bakewell, to be his partner in a trade business in New Orleans. Audubon was opposed to giving up his home and trade business that he had worked so hard to establish in Henderson, Kentucky. Whereas his wife, Lucy, felt that being with her brother in New Orleans and experiencing the culture and society of a large town had a certain amount of appeal. Preferring to please his wife, Audubon set in motion plans for him and Lucy and their 3-year-old son, Victor, to move to New Orleans.
Audubon first needed more funds to invest in the trade business that Bakewell was proposing. Audubon decided that his best chance of raising funds was by returning to Pennsylvania to sell his remaining interest in his family farm called Mill Grove and to negotiate a loan from William Bakewell, the father of Lucy and Thomas. Audubon fashioned a sort of child’s seat for Victor and secured it on the back of a horse that Audubon owned named “Barro.” Audubon and Lucy then placed Victor in his seat, strapped some other belongings aboard Barro, and made their way to Fatland Ford, Lucy’s family home in Pennsylvania.
While working out his financial obligations and investment opportunity, Audubon still found time for hunting and studying and drawing the birds around Fatland Ford and Mill Grove. Along the banks of the Schuylkill River just outside of Reading, Pennsylvania, Audubon encountered for the first time a Blackburnian warbler. It was not until hunting and collecting specimens near Mars Hill, Maine, in the summer of 1833 that Audubon was able to identify and draw the female Blackburnian warbler.