The old Audubon mill in more recent times was incorporated into a warehouse for the storage of leaf tobacco; it was burned to the ground on March 18, 1913. [224] The mill is supposed to have cost about $15,000; of this sum Thomas Pears is said to have contributed from $3,000 to $4,000, and William Bakewell a similar amount in the interest of his son, while Audubon presumably furnished the balance. [225] Maria R. Audubon, _op. cit._, vol. i, p. 47. [226] In his journal of 1820 Audubon said that after the withdrawal of Bakewell, "men with whom I had long been associated offered me a partnership. I accepted, and a small ray of light appeared in my business, but a revolution occasioned by a numberless quantity of failures put all to an end." [227] One of J. J. Audubon & Company's bills is here reproduced from Starling, _op. cit._ "To the President and Directors of the Bank of Henderson to Henderson steam mill: "To three pieces of scantling, 56 feet, 4½ c $2.52 "To ten pieces of scantling, 34 feet —— "To sixty rafters, 714 feet, at 4 c 28.56 "To five pieces scantling, 40 feet, at 3 c 1.20 "To fifteen joists [?], 278½ feet, at 6 c 16.71 ——— "J. J. Audubon & Co." $48.99 [228] According to W. G. Bakewell, _Bakewell-Page-Campbell_ (Bibl. No. 200), Thomas Bakewell sold his interest in the store and mill to Audubon in 1817, but this is contradicted by other accounts. For the incident which follows, see Maria R. Audubon, _op. cit._, vol. i, p. 34. [229] See Dixon L. Merritt (Bibl. No. 226a), "Audubon in Kentucky," _The Taylor-Trotwood Magazine_, vol. 10 (1909), p. 293. [230] Thomas Bakewell later became a successful builder of steamboats, first at Pittsburgh, and after 1824 at Cincinnati, where he was an important factor in the rising commerce of the Ohio Valley, and where he left his mark on the history of that city. As a theoretical mechanic in iron and wood he is said to have had no superior; his business was nearly destroyed in the panic of 1837, and he never regained his financial position. To his credit also it must be added that in 1860, at the age of seventy-two, he began at the bottom of the ladder again by engaging as a clerk with a paper company at Cincinnati, and, refusing the proffered aid of his children, he did not give up work until his eightieth year, seven years before his death in 1874. See W. G. Bakewell, _Bakewell-Page-Campbell_ (Bibl. No. 200).