Lucy Bakewell must have had a great sense of adventure to marry John James Audubon. Just days after their wedding on April 5, 1808, Lucy left her safe and comfortable family home called Fatland Ford just outside of Philadelphia and was riding in a stagecoach with all her belongings on board and Audubon sitting by her side heading in the direction of the western frontier of North America. While traversing a ridge just west of Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, a snowfall began to cause the horses to lose their footing. Lucy agreed to begin jettisoning her belongings and Audubon followed on foot to lessen the weight that the horses had to pull. Even with the lightening load, the horses kept stumbling and falling and failed to keep the stagecoach tipping over on its side. Audubon assisted Lucy out of the stagecoach and up onto one of the horses and rushed her to an inn in Chambersburg where she could rest and recover. Time at the inn certainly would have also given Lucy ample opportunity to regret leaving Fatland Ford. Instead, she regained her strength and maintained her faith in Audubon to take her westward.
By the time Lucy reached Pittsburgh, she surely should have reached the point where she was ready to turn back. Yet, she joined her husband and hundreds of others, some with their cows, pigs and other barnyard animals, to endure the mayhem, stench, mud, and almost a complete lack of privacy aboard a river flatboat and float down the Ohio River. Even with the primitive living conditions, Lucy and John James Audubon and their fellow passengers must have found solace and hope in the comparatively smooth traveling that the flatboat afforded, the grandeur of the trees and forests along the river banks, and the abundance of wildlife: “A Wild Turkey [or Great American Hen], a Grouse, or a Blue-winged Teal, could be procured in few moments; and we fared well, for, whenever we pleased, we landed, struck up a fire and provided, as we were, with the necessary utensils, procured a good repast.”
Upon landing in present-day Louisville, Kentucky, Audubon worked out arrangements for him and Lucy to reside at an inn called the Indian Queen. Audubon resumed assisting his partner Ferdinand Rozier with a trade business that they had established in the town. And on June 12, 1809, John James and Lucy Audubon had their first child. Lucy gave birth to a boy who was named Victor Gifford.