In May of 1833, John James Audubon made the acquaintance of Theodore Lincoln. After graduating from Harvard in 1786, Lincoln organized a group of settlers to establish a town on the Dennys River called Dennysville. The father of Theodore Lincoln was Benjamin Lincoln (1733-1810). Benjamin Lincoln and Jean Audubon, the father of John James Audubon, were at Yorktown when Lord Cornwallis surrendered to the American rebels in 1781. Lincoln served as a major general in the Continental Army, while Audubon was a part of the French fleet blocking the English from entering the Chesapeake Bay. If Theodore Lincoln and his fellow settlers hoped that the remote location would keep Dennysville small, they would be pleased. Only about 300 people live in the town today.
Theodore Lincoln and his wife, Hannah, and nine children lived on a farm where they maintained an apple orchard, grew wheat, corn, and hay, and raised cows, oxen, and sheep. Lincoln also owned and operated a grist mill and a sawmill. Among the nine children was a boy named Thomas whose marksmanship and knowledge of birds quickly gained the attention of John James Audubon. One account that Lincoln provided Audubon involved a Cliff swallow (Plate 68) and an American Sparrow Hawk. The current common name for the American Sparrow Hawk is the American kestrel.
Lincoln described to Audubon that each spring he anticipated the return of Cliff swallows to build their nests under the eaves of a nearby barn. On at least one occasion, so did an American kestrel. Lincoln noticed the hawk circling and then begin to single out one of the nests by striking at the nest with its talons with each passing. The occupant of the nest refused to abandon the nest and the eggs it contained until the hawk ripped away so much of the nest that it was able to snatch the parent Cliff swallow from the nest and carry it to where it could be pinned down and made into a meal.