[Illustration: "MILL GROVE" IN 1835, SHOWING THE MILLS ON THE BANK OF PERKIOMING CREEK, THE FARMHOUSE, AND THE OLD SMELTING WORKS (BUILT BY SAMUEL WETHERILL), THEN IN DISUSE. After a water-color painting by Charles Wetherill, son of Samuel Wetherill, and uncle of William H. Wetherill, the present owner of the estate.] [Illustration: "MILL GROVE" AS IT APPEARS TO-DAY. The above from photograph by, and this published by courtesy of, Mr. W. H. Wetherill.] Audubon thought nothing of walking to and from Philadelphia when no conveyance was at hand, but to-day the railroad brings the traveler within a mile and a half of his old farm. Not far to the south, beyond the present railway station of Protectory, lies Valley Forge and the wooded hills where Washington's ragged veterans passed in log huts the ever memorable winter of 1777-8. Audubon fancied that his father had made the acquaintance of General Washington at that date, but this was eleven years before the place had come into the possession of his family, and at that time Captain Audubon was sailing the seas (see Chapter II, p. 32). Equally fanciful also was the idea that his mother had once lived there, which he expressed in a letter (quoted in full in Chapter XXXIII) written from New York on February 10, 1842, to young Spencer F. Baird, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The naturalist was assuring his young friend that the slow but beautiful "Little Carlisle" was to be preferred to "Great New York, with all its humbug, rascality, and immorality," and added: "It is now a good long time since I was young, and resided near Norristown in Pennsylvania. It was then and is now a very indifferent place as compared with New York; but still my heart and my mind oftentime dwell in the pleasure that I felt there, and it always reminds me that within a few miles of that village, my Mother did live."