In 1810, John James Audubon, the famed ornithologist and painter, his wife Lucy and infant son Victor arrived in Henderson floating on a skiff downriver from Louisville, Kentucky. Audubon loved the frontier spirit of Henderson in the early 1800's, roaming the woods, observing and painting the many species of birds abundant in this area. Few of Audubon's paintings from his time in Henderson survive. Every year on his birthday he would edit his work and destroy all that were not up to his current standards. Many of those that he did keep were destroyed when, during a long family absence from Henderson, rodents built a nest in the box where his work was stored. Audubon later stated this event forced him to replace the works with ones utilizing a much better technique. Two of Audubon's four children were born here and baby Lucy is buried in Henderson. The Audubons left Henderson in 1819 when he began work on his publication of The Birds of America.
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