 Keats endorsed the notes of friends, including Thomas W. Bakewell, who had committed to build a large passenger steamboat.Caught up in the Panic of 1837, Bakewell defaulted, leaving Keats to reimburse the Portland Dry Dock Co. Keats liquidated his holdings to do so, but before he could restore his finances, he succumbed to a gastrointestinal ailment, dying on Christmas Eve 1841.His extensive library included many of John Keats's best letters, as well as Audubon's Ornithology, which would fetch over $1 million in contemporary dollars.