Charles-Alexandre Lesueur

Charles-Alexandre Lesueur was both a scientist and an artist. He could observe an animal with a naturalist's eye and draw it with an artist's skill. His drawings are some of the best visual records we have of early New Harmony and the American frontier.

​

The Voyage to Australia

Lesueur was born in Le Havre, France, in 1778. In 1800 he joined a French scientific voyage to Australia led by Captain Nicolas Baudin. He was hired as an assistant, but his talent quickly made him one of the expedition's official artists. Working with the naturalist François Péron, he helped collect and record thousands of animals. Some of the animals he drew, such as the King Island emu, are now extinct. His drawings are the best record of what they looked like.

​

Coming to America

In 1815 William Maclure hired Lesueur to travel with him and naturalist. The two men toured the West Indies and the eastern United States. Lesueur then settled in Philadelphia. He joined the Academy of Natural Sciences and studied American fish, reptiles, and other animals. He described many fish species from the Great Lakes and other American waters. He also taught drawing and worked as an engraver.

​

The Boatload of Knowledge

In the winter of 1825–26, Lesueur traveled to New Harmony aboard the "Boatload of Knowledge" with Maclure, Thomas Say, and other scientists, artists, reformers, and teachers. Along the way, he filled his sketchbooks with drawings of the river, the boats, and the people on board. 

​

Drawing New Harmony

Lesueur lived in New Harmony for about eleven years. He taught drawing in Maclure's schools and continued his scientific work. He helped illustrate Thomas Say's American Conchology. He also made many trips down the Wabash, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers. On these trips, he collected specimens and drew towns, landscapes, steamboats, and Native American people and objects.

​

His sketches of New Harmony show houses, gardens, workshops, and residents going about their daily lives. Few artists recorded small frontier towns in such detail. Today, historians use his drawings to learn what New Harmony and the Ohio River Valley looked like in the 1820s and 1830s.

​

Final Years and Legacy

Lesueur returned to France in 1837. In 1845 he became the first director of the new natural history museum in his hometown of Le Havre. He died near Le Havre in 1846.

​

Many of Lesueur's drawings are now held by the natural history museum in Le Havre. His work is valued in France, the United States, and Australia, where his drawings of its animals are treasured. In New Harmony, he is remembered as the artist who captured the town's early life.