After his return to Henderson in the spring of 1811, Audubon began to look for another opening in trade, living meanwhile with his family at the home of Dr. Adam Rankin, called "Meadow Brook Farm." Dr. Rankin was the first educated physician in his district, and was for many years an officer of the court. A doctor of the older school and a genuine lover of his kind, with a large heart and an open hand, he made his home a hostelry where anyone in need could find refuge without money and without price. No doubt he was attracted to the naturalist by kindred tastes, and it is known that they became life-long friends. The old house, to which Audubon refers in one of his "Episodes,"[215] was built of logs, and stood at some distance from the pike, about two miles from the village in a southeasterly direction. There were experienced in greatest frequency, in the winter of 1811 and 1812, the terrific earthquakes that repeatedly shocked the country at that time; there also Audubon's younger son, John Woodhouse, was born on November 30, 1812. The Rankin farm became at a much later day the site of the village of Audubon, which still later was to be incorporated in the growing city of Henderson, when most of the old landmarks had been obliterated. Dr. Rankin built a more commodious and pretentious brick house in the village itself, and was neighbor to the naturalist for many years, their houses being on the same or adjoining lots. He was thrice married and had many children, the eldest of whom, William Rankin, became Audubon's favorite companion in the field; together they ransacked the country for birds and animals of every sort. Audubon's unfortunate business relations with his brother-in-law, Thomas W. Bakewell, began in the autumn or winter of 1811, when the naturalist was in the East and Bakewell was about to return to New Orleans in the employ of a firm of Liverpool merchants who dealt in cotton. Bakewell, who had seen much of the South since the failure of his uncle in New York, induced Audubon to join him in an independent commission business, with the assurance that his French nationality would help their undertakings. According to Vincent Nolte, when they were descending the Ohio in December, 1811, Audubon displayed a business card, showing the firm name of "Audubon and Bakewell," and indicating that they were to deal in such homely products as pork, lard and flour. Thomas Bakewell, we are told, taking with him all the disposable funds of Audubon, who continued to send him "almost all the money" that he could raise, opened their business at New Orleans in the winter or spring of 1812, just in time for the war, which broke out in June, to destroy it. When he returned north, in August of that year, Thomas Bakewell, said the naturalist, suddenly appeared one day at "Meadow Brook Farm," while he was making a drawing of an otter, and after bewailing their misfortune in trade, departed.