August 25, 2022 • 45 mins
Are you a cat person, a dog person, or somewhere in between? It turns out that famous trash-talking wrestler -- and former President -- Abraham Lincoln was also a huge fan of cats. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max dive into the lives of Presidential pets, from eagles to goats, dogs and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
(00:27):
welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning in. Let's give it up
for the one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams,
and I love the energy, guys. Let's also let's see
also give it up for our research associate on this show,
(00:47):
this episode, Mr Max Williams. Okay, al right, okay, you
know what, you keep this up. Max, I'm gonna start
going in and doing some post production because I got
some opinions on these wos. I think, no, no, no, no,
don't don't do that to our listeners. Our listenership will
just fall off a cliff if you get in there.
Well they called me Ben uh and we are so
(01:10):
glad you're here, Ridiculous Historians, especially because you, like us,
are getting the chance to hang out with an actual
legend in the podcasting space. Uh, one of my dear friends,
co founder of this show. We hang out all the time,
and we still, for some reason, are our best friends. Uh. Folks,
(01:35):
Mr Noel Brown a wott have bit awkward if you
were talking about someone else and I was like, yeah,
that's true. I love that there. There's such a good
trope in in in in movies where there's like a
big speech where it's some you know, um family, you know,
patriarch announcing who his successor will be, or a king,
and then you see the one who thinks it's gonna
(01:56):
be him, all chuffed in the audience, and then it's
this other guy. I feel you. I feel that way
every time. Um okay, so you guys know I'm I'm
a sucker for advertising. I am so interested in nine
percent of all types of food. Ever, I feel that
(02:16):
way every time I have ordered fajitas in a restaurant,
you know where they sizzle and and I see somebody
coming out with a plate of sizzling fahitas and they
walk on bhy like my heartbreaks. That has nothing to
do with today's episode. That's just a universal human moment, folks.
May your fahitas come for you? Uh man, have you
(02:38):
seen that meme where it's the Alex Jones courtroom scene
where he and is like everybody at the Mexican restaurant
when someone orders sizzling fahitas, we're there with you. We
have like so one thing that we really wanted to
make like a day one rule when we started Ridiculous
(02:58):
History number of years ago is we wanted to find
these sort of universal truths. We wanted to correct the
misconception that history is just a bunch of words and
dusty textbooks. Uh, the people in these stories are very
much like you. They're very much like us, regardless of
(03:18):
how they may be portrayed, regardless of what they're known for.
And one of the reasons we did a classic episode
earlier this week, Noel, you and I A long time ago,
we did episode just on presidential pets because, like many
of our favorite episodes, we had this conversation off air
about about pets and we were like, well, a lot
(03:41):
of people have pets, and then before you know it,
we're Uh, We're sitting there frantically searching on our phones
about statistics of cat dog ownership in the US and abroad,
and then we stumbled on this idea of presidents also
being human and having pets. And uh, when Max forces
with us and classed up the show a little, we found, Noel,
(04:04):
that are are good pal. Mr Williams is also a
cat lover. Now do you think we should uh, I
think we should talk about cats for a second, well,
I think we must and I actually it was introduced
to a new to me term um that you you
you guys may be familiar with. But the idea of
of being a cat daddy, cat and daddy, yeah, cat daddy.
(04:28):
I think it's like, I think there's some sexual vibes
to it where you're sort of like a burly dude
who who has lots of cats, a bit of of
a of a bear, you know, like a like it's
like a leather daddy, but it's a cat daddy, So
I think it implies sensitivity, um, but also you know,
(04:48):
brute strength and potentially down to clown in this in
the bedroom. I don't know, it's just it's just a guess.
Maybe I wasn't actually introduced to the true meaning with
that whatever I heard ddy thrown around, I can't not
think that. But yeah, I've become a bit of a
cat daddy of late, I have to um of Vanessa
and kom and um, I know you have one that
(05:12):
shall not be named, isn't that right? And then also
Dr Vankman, Yes, that's correct. No, I have two cats.
One is named Dr Vankman, which is an amazing name.
I can say that because it wasn't my idea. Uh.
The second is a cat with many many names. You
may see him occasionally, may hear him occasionally on the air.
(05:34):
And uh Max Max Jaman you have since you said,
we can say Max stands for whatever. Max. You have
a cat as well, who we talked about in the
past on our episodes. Oh yeah, yeah, my Sylvia, who
I have a ceramic Sylvia right here for us to see.
It's terrifying, but I have my Sylvia, who is a
(05:56):
loud cat. She's a rescue herself. Though I can we
have one cat because she would try to kill any
other cats around. But uh yeah, I grythin assessment of
what a cat daddy is and I can say that
I fully am one. Okay, I'm proud of that. Alright,
cat daddy's We're also going to introduce you to a
another cat daddy, one of historical note folks, you you
(06:20):
may remember one Abraham Lincoln as a famous trash talking wrestler.
Fun note he was also president of the US once
upon the time. But for our purposes today, the main
thing we want to talk about is that Lincoln was
a cat daddy, as you would say, nol yeah, possibly
like one of the o G cat. I don't know. Cats.
(06:42):
Cats are ancients, pats domesticated cats, you know, all the
way back to you know, the Egyptians and stuff that
there's so much cat imagery and a lot of their
you know, hieroglyphs and things like that. There was cat worship,
even a lot of deities that resembled cats and the like.
But yeah, ab Lincoln uh, definite cat daddy. Um he
uh was the sixteenth president of course of these United States,
(07:04):
and he was just bananas for for for kiddies. He
would just play with them, presumably spoke to them directly
for like like extended periods of time. That's right, we
we know you'll recall also, I believe from our previous
Presidential Pets episode that was more focused on the dog side,
(07:26):
or maybe it was this episode into itself, I can't remember.
We definitely talked about Fido, which is like sort of
become this like cliche kind of stand in for dog,
kind of like xerox is to you know, mimiographs or
whatever or carper machines. Fido mainly from cartoons. I've never ever,
in a million years known a person with a dog
named Fido because it's so cliche that no one would
ever do it. But it's like you see in bugs
(07:48):
Bunny cartoons like hey Fido, come here, boy fight whatever.
And it was because of of President Lincoln's dog, Fido,
who they had to leave back home in Springfield, Illinois,
where we're from, because the dog was a little skittish,
not to take too well to excitement and chaos that
comes along with, you know, being elected president. So they
adopted the dog out to some some neighbor friends. Um,
(08:09):
but kitties, as we know, are a little more resilient,
I would argue, Um, for better or for worse. I mean,
I would also argue that kiddies, you know, don't give
a f you know when it comes to like people
and dogs are much more doting. But Lincoln believed that
the kiddies were. He he liked something about that vibe,
(08:29):
the way that they kind of just you know, we're
a little indifferent. But also you know, snuggly, especially kittens.
He loved kittens, was always rescuing him, snuggling them and whatnot. Yeah,
he's a kitten guy, and he uh, you know. One
time someone asked Lincoln's spouse, Mary Todd Lincoln, and they said,
just did your husband have a hobby? Does the old
(08:51):
man have a hobby? And she just said yes, cats.
He was elected president, had to bid fond farewell off.
He just ain't to Fido, and Secretary of State at
the time, William Seward, said, I can't let it in
this way. So he gave the president two kittens as
(09:12):
a gift, sort of a congratulations, sort of a surprise.
And the President, old Abe was all about these cats.
He named them Tabby and Dixie, and he did things
that are familiar to a lot of people who get
uh very far in the extreme cat loving spectrum. Uh.
(09:32):
He once had a formal dinner at the White House
and had Tabby over and fed her at the table.
No report on what the other attendees, the human attendees
of the dinner thought, but Mary Todd was kind of embarrassed.
She said, this action is shameful in front of our guests.
(09:52):
And then this is when Abes trash talking wrestling comes back.
He's got a clap back, dude. Yeah, he said something
to the effect of, uh, if this golden spoon is
worthy of the former president James Buchanan, Well, I think
it is good enough for the Tabby. For Tabby, I
guess that's meant to be a dig at James Buchanan.
(10:13):
Uh is that is? That? Is that right? I mean
it's a little little column, a little column b. It's
partly a dig at Buchanan's partially saying my cat's awesome,
though it's a big up to Tabby, A bit of
a day to to Buchanan. You know what I like
about Lincoln though, he really is you know, one of
the first kind of like kind of fish out of
water presidents. You know, he was sort of this hay
(10:34):
seed that kind of like took his country ways to
the White House. And it's like, you know, I just
picture him like wearing shoes look like up toe poking
out of the shoe because his warm as he doesn't
he refuses to get a new pair of shoes until
they're purely worn out. And you know, Mary Todd was
just a little bit more trying to adapt to this.
I don't know, this is just my imagination running wild here,
but the wrestling and just the kind of outdoors men
(10:56):
Lee Beardy nest of Lincoln just really does make me
see him as this kind of like fun fish out
of water, you know, Washington. Mr Lincoln goes to Washington
kind of story. Yeah, yeah, and his he had a
quite strange, dare I say unprecedented rise to the position
of Commander in chief. It's the story for another day.
(11:17):
We're Ridiculous Cats in this episode, we're Ridiculous cats talking
about cats as someone work on that, we'll fix it
and post. Lincoln has this friend named Caleb, Caleb Carmen,
and Caleb is the guy who tells us about how
Abe would talk to his cats. He would just choose
(11:37):
one at random, either Tabby or Dixie. He would pick
it up and he would just talk to it for
thirty minutes, you know, all the like. Imagine Abraham Lincoln
doing baby talk to cats. That's what he was. And
also I want to point out about domestication. Cats are
really interesting. Cats domesticated themselves. They're not truly domestic cadid creatures.
(12:01):
They just hung out in um. What you could argue
is uh mutualism in terms of organisms interacting. But cats,
unlike dogs, were not really domesticated by people. That's why
if you have cats, if you live with cats, I
wouldn't say own them. If you live with them. That's
why they have a lot of natural wild animal tendencies.
(12:22):
It wasn't bred out of them. That's why if they
think you can't hunt, or they think you're getting a
little skinny and they want to impress you, they go
and you know, they catch a mouse and they bring
it to you and eviscerated and make this weird sort
of grand dunal tapestry. For I think we've all experienced that, right, absolutely, Yeah,
(12:43):
Now it's true, like um with the I think I
talked about a previous cat that I had that would
just leave these like weird assembly bits of severed parts
from various animals, like in these you know, true detective
esque array is like on the porch, like like with
a little garland of grass, you know, around the end
(13:04):
of a mouse and the body. Yeah, it's it's truly
maccab And then there's one time, my why this is
this is an ongoing thing and like you know, people
always say, oh, they're just they're they're they're trying to
give you a present. I'm like, I think it's a threat.
I think it's a threat. It's like this could be you,
you know, it's kind of like also it's it's a
sort of their way of saying, you suck at hunting.
(13:27):
Here learn but but yeah, but Lincoln, Lincoln had all
these cat owner moments. You're listening, if you're listening in
the year this comes out, Folks, you're listening, and if
you have a cat, you probably have some questions or
observations about your own little fur ball of fury. Lincoln
has all your same questions, all your same fascinations. One time,
(13:52):
he gets pissed at his cabinet in his first term
as precedent, and he says, this is a quote. He says,
Dixie is smarter than my whole cabinet. And furthermore, she
doesn't talk back. He was. He was not cool with it.
(14:14):
He also, by the way, didn't just stick with Dixie
and Tabby. He would find stray cats and sometimes he
would bring him home or they would follow him home.
And this happens often. It doesn't just happen in d C.
One time he was meeting with General Ulysses S. Grant, Yes,
(14:36):
that General Grant, who later became president himself. He's meeting
with him City Point, Virginia. There's a siege happening. It's
the siege of Petersburg March eighteen six, and Lincoln is
having problems paying attention to the general during the siege
because part way through he's going, well, hold on, hold on,
(14:59):
you're here. That sounds like sounds like kittens. Yes, it does.
And if you hear that, move aside, General, there's kittens
in need. There's an animal in trouble. Anybody who has
kid wonder wonder pets, that's what that's what hey. Lincoln
was like his ears would perk up and he go
the phone, the phone is ringing, and anything's running and
(15:23):
rescue the kittens. And there are accounts of the way
he would just dote on these rescue kittens. A guy
named Admiral David Porter, in what I would argue as
a bit of a subtweet, says he was struck by
the side of the president quote tenderly caressing three straight kittens,
and that it well illustrated the kindness of the man's
disposition and showed the childlike simplicity with which was mingled
(15:47):
with the grandeur of his nature. A little bit of
a isn't that a little bit of a backhanded compliment
the childlike simplicity? Yeah, I could say I could say
it's a little bit of it's edits ororeal license at
the very least right, and and he also the same guy.
Admiral Porter also says Lincoln would talk to the cats
(16:10):
and be like kitties. Then god, you are cats and
can't understand this terrible strife that's just going on. Who's
your widow, pretty widow? Fooball, pay no attention, pay no
attention to this civil war. We find ourselves in the
midst of max Is above our attempts to do Lincoln
(16:31):
baby talk. I see you mane zie and weird. Yeah,
we definitely did. But yeah, I mean he also like,
you know, again, this is like a wartime president. He's
he's going to back to his his presidential tent or whatever.
And he says to a colonel, I leans in and says,
(16:53):
I hope you will see that these poor little motherless
waives are given plenty of milk and treated kindly. And no,
he's not referring to actual like orphans. He's referring to kitties, Maxican.
We sound cute and all they're like the most obnoxious
cutesy Ah. There it is perfect. It does seem like
(17:21):
he was a good guy. I will say, I mean,
you know, presidents are complicated, history is complicated. We know
that that Lincoln wasn't like perfect. He really is held
up there as this like you know, paragon of like
you know, um presidential empathy and like he you know,
he's he free the slaves. He was the greatest man
ever lived. But we know that that that there was
(17:41):
some you know, complexities to that. But it will I
will say that for his time, this whole all this
kitty love really makes me feel like he had a
you know, had a pretty good heart. I would say, well, yeah,
let me to that point about complexity. Let me let
me bring into the conversation a quotation that Max found
that go into your note about subtweets Snoll and also
(18:04):
going to the note about complexity. There's a Treasury official,
Mansell B. Fields, which is a weird name, uh, who
writes about Lincoln in the following way. He says, President
Abraham Lincoln quote possessed extraordinary kindness of heart when his
feelings could be reached. What he says, he was fond
(18:26):
of dumb animals, especially cats. I've seen him fondle one
for an hour. Fondle meant something very different back then
helplessness and suffering touched him when they appealed directly to
his senses or when you could penetrate through his intelligence
to them. So it sounds like he's saying, uh, there's
some kind of wall around Lincoln's mind, right, like only
(18:51):
like he may be hardhearted or cold to a lot
of human beings, but if you're infantile enough or feel
it enough, arguably, then all of a sudden, he's your
biggest fan. Does that feel like a subtweet to you?
It's just it gets me where he says possessed extraordinary
kindness of heart when his feelings could be reached right
(19:13):
and implied that he was a bit of I don't know,
a tough nut to crack, and then he and then
maybe it's like, you know, all this kitten love and
stuff is like that is a way that maybe a
person that is typically not able to be emotionally vulnerable,
you know, to humans, is able to exhibit that level
(19:36):
of vulnerability. But only two creatures, you know. It strikes
strikes me as that that that Lincoln would have been
a very perhaps a difficult man and uh and an
emotionally you know, guarded man, but with the kiddies. He
could just let it all hang out, you know. Yeah,
a dent. And again to the point about Fido that
we raised earlier. Uh, Lincoln was a yes, all pets
(20:00):
kind of dude. He you know, there's a great ongoing
debate nowadays about whether someone is a dog or a
cat person. Lincoln rejects these labels. He had tons of
pets during his life, even had a pig. That's a
true story, but that is a sad story. And on
(20:21):
the advice of our pal Max, we are leaving it
out of the narrative unless you have a declaration to
make about this, Max for ridiculous historians. Oh, I have
a declation, Maka. I actually wrote in the in the brief,
this is too heartbreaking the start. We're not going to
talk about it. That's it. Yeah, okay, well that's we
set you up to confirm that, all right. So if
(20:42):
you are feeling in too good of a mood, if
you're having too good of a day and you need
to take it down and notch, look up Lincoln's pet pig.
So we talked about other pets Lincoln had. In a
previous episode, we mentioned his dogo Fido. We should also
note that Lincoln had multiple ponies. They technically belonged to
(21:07):
his sons, but come on, he was there, and he was,
you know, chuffing with them and and petting their manes
and saying like I wish you were the secretary of
Defense or whatever. And then he had a white rabbit.
He had two goats. We know the names of the goats,
Nanco and Nanny. He had another dog named Jip. And
he was associated with a pet turkey once upon a time. Yeah, yeah,
(21:31):
he had yeah, exactly. Uh Jack was that was the
name of the of the turkeys. There was Jip the
dog and Jack the turkey. Sounds like a classic setup
for an animated pair of adventurers. Yeah, I'm thinking of
Jake the dog and Finn the human. The funnel never end,
It's adventure time, lovely show. Um, so yeah we we.
(21:54):
We can now probably move on to a president. And
I don't typically think of um Franklin Pierce. I think
that's probably true for most folks. He wasn't really considered
one of the best presidents. I didn't do anything outward
and horrific. He was just he was just a little
bit of a turd, you know. He was like a
bad outfielder, you know, he's just kind of it's kind
(22:15):
of stood around. He did he did the open trade
relationship with Japan, which was kind of a big deal. Right,
I don't know why I need the guy so are there.
That's a big deal. But he really isn't a president
that you know, comes to mind as like being like
one of the greats. Uh. He thought abolition was a
fundamental threat to the United States. So it's very pro slavery.
Just gonna pop that in there, whatever you think of
(22:37):
Franklin Pierce. Yeah, that's that's his that's where he's calling from,
as rum M Carver would say. But he did have pets,
didn't he. That's why we're talking about. Yeah, and and
then then you know, it seems like some of this
maybe stemmed from that that relationship with Japan. He had
He had dogs that were some of the earliest examples
of the breed known as the Japanese chin um, which
(22:58):
were huge in Japan. But they yes, right, they're they're
small everywhere, but they're very popular in Japan. And this
is like sort of an example of them coming over
here for the first time. Uh, they're which you would
call toy dogs, you know, um toy sized dogs, like
like miniature, which I believe is Isn't that a process
(23:18):
that requires some pretty gnarly in breeding and weird breeding pressing. Yeah, yeah,
it's kind of eugenics. Yeah, I mean, dog breeding in
general gets pretty crazy. And maybe we can do a
history of dog breeding in the future, but Yukonuba definitely
(23:39):
will not sponsor that because it gets dark really quickly.
You're you're right, No, you're absolutely right. Uh he he did,
as you said, open trade relations with Japan, and that
was quite a coupe because Japan had for many, many years, centuries,
they had closed their borders to almost every foreign trading party.
(24:04):
So he sends this guy named Matthew Perry, US representative,
also commodore. Commodore Matthew Perry goes back to the States
after cracking this deal with Japan, and he says, hey,
President Pierce, I got you something. Here are the seven
very tiny dogs. And they're not just tiny, their teacup size,
(24:25):
so any dog Fishionado knows that as the tiniest absolute
tiniest dog. And they were called I believe they were
called sleeve dogs because if you had the right kind
of outfit, like say a kimono. You could fit them
up in your sleeve. I guess they're you know what
(24:45):
they are. They're like a in my head, dude. They're
like a predecessor of the emotional support animal that is
so popular now. Yeah, um, you know it's funny. It's
just a back duck really quickly. It's a little trivia moment.
Not really trivia, I guess, but you I know you
from you're familiar with the Cohen Brothers anthology Western The
(25:07):
Ballot of Buster scrugs uh. And there's one of the
chapter is this that's one of the longer ones, and
it's it's really really good, incredible twist, very sad um
but excellence, called the Gal who Got Rattled, And in
it there is a dog named President Pierce. It takes
place presumably during this time. Um, so they knew about
(25:28):
Pierce and it seemed seemed fits. But I believe it
was even like it was her brother's dog and he's
kind of an idiot politically, and so I think there
was this this um the sense that Pierce wasn't a
particularly good president, but his brother like supported him and
therefore naing the dog after him. Uh, and it might
(25:49):
be I might be misreading that, but it did just
occur to me. Yeah, and so these dogs are not
universally loved. You could say, we'd like to introduce a
character named Verena Davis. She was the spouse of a
guy who was serving as the Secretary of War at
(26:11):
the time. One of Max's favorite political figures in US history,
guy named Jefferson Davis. Now, Max, you have a sound
cue for us. Yes. Also, I just want to stay
it very clearly that Ben was being sarcastic when he
(26:32):
said one of my favorite political figures. I really do
not want anyone out there thinking I like Jefferson Davis
of all people. So you've heard it conclusively. Uh. If
you are a fan of Jefferson Davis, then please follow
Max on Twitter. Uh, so you guys can talk about it. Uh,
he is are you trying to No? No, no, no, Max,
(26:57):
being a tremendously good person, also knows that Jefferson Davis
is a piece of wet garbage. So anyhow to his
friends j D to his friends, Yeah, they're all terrible people. Yeah,
you knail, you brought it home. Yeah. So now that
we're done dancing, on the grave of that terrible person.
(27:18):
Let's point out that his wife had some opinions regarding
Pierces dogs. She described the dogs, these seven dogs, who
are again tiny, as having quote head like a bird
with a blunt beak, eyes large and popped, and a
body like a newborn puppy of the smallest kind. And
then she said they can scamper around on a coffee sauce.
(27:42):
They're so tiny. And we don't know if she loved
them or if she hated them, but that gives you
a sense of how how small these sleeve dogs were.
Pierce loved them, by the way. He was over the moon. Uh,
nobody could say that, Like if you've ever hung out
with your friends who are clearly treating a small dog
(28:04):
as their child, and you know they're saying stuff like, oh, well,
you know, we shouldn't eat waffles in front of Rupert
because it offends his sensibilities. He's a sensitive boy. This
is how Pierces with his dogs. And he kept showing
like he One day showed up to talk with Jefferson
(28:25):
Davis more like Jevis to du Fis. He shows up
at the Davis place and he says, generally have a
dog for you. And then uh, Pierce gives one of
these seven tiny dogs to Secretary Jefferson Davis. You suck,
(28:56):
you sucked, Davis go home, turns and Davis Davis names
this dog. He accepts the dog, accepts delivery of the dog.
He names it bon In b O N I N
and named dogs by Bonin and Uh. He carries little
(29:19):
bon In around in his pocket. So we can only
imagine this is just us guessing, felt ridiculous historians. We
can only imagine that a multiple times during his life
someone asked, Jefferson Davis, is that a bone in your pocket?
Are you just happy to see me? Why? Why does
(29:39):
it have to be one or the other? Why? Why
does the why are those things mutually exclusive? Right? Good question?
Lost to history maybe, And so he gives the uh.
He only keeps one of these seven dogs. He gives
the others to his friends. Like we mentioned, uh, mr
boo hiss Davis. And we don't know much about how
(30:04):
these dogs lives went. We know that they were for
a time, they were kind of like an important political currency, right,
You were able to convey favor if you were Franklin
Pierce by saying, hey, here's one of my exclusive run dogs.
And uh. This did always remind people of trade relations
(30:28):
with Japan. As weird as it sounds, those very little
dogs made some very big history. So let's move on
to America's first and so far only bachelor president. Let's say, uh,
(30:50):
as as you noted Max, just because he didn't take
a spouse, I mean to have a partner, but an
official partner. Just because he didn't take a spouse didn't
mean he didn't enjoy some companionship. Walked through those multiple
negatives on your own, folks. He had a pair of dogs. Uh.
He also had eagles. He had a legit pair of
(31:13):
bald eagles. So America, man, I know, I know, uh,
and they would He was not one of those people
who were clipping the wings and keeping them in cages.
He attained these eagles. They were not domesticated, of course,
they're not domesticated animals, but he attained them to the
(31:33):
point where they would fly away from their cages and
then they would come back. They just liked hanging out.
They associated Buchanan with um with a good life, which
a lot of people in the US rightly did not
at the time. But now for a little bit of
a quick run trivia game or a laundry list, nol.
(31:55):
I propose that we just round robin the many many
pets A former president Rutherford B. Hayes. Great name, by
the way, I've always liked Rutherford. It's just an old
timey name, you know. It's a name you can't see.
This got a good mouth feel. It just kind of
(32:16):
rolls around in there. Yes, yeah, it really does. First off,
we have Hector. The Newfoundland dog is a breed of
of Newfoundland of Newfoundlandic origin, Duke possibly English Massiff, but
don't d us. Yeah, some of these they're there. You know,
(32:36):
there's some speculation as to the breed. We've got Grim.
I think it's a cool name for a greyhound, especially
they are very dire looking creatures. Otis mini toure full
are just too much too Germany. Yeah. Yeah. And then
we've got Dot, a Cocker Spaniel Juno and shep to
hunting dogs. Sheep is a great name for a dog,
(32:56):
by the way. Um, we've got Jeff is almost my name.
Thank god I got in a car accident on the
way to the Yeah true story anyway, Jet Wow, my
name was almost Lyle that's a good name. I know,
we we we we love a lile. He's a he's
a dear friend of us both. But it would have
been awkward if you had the same name. But I
think actually don't like crossed it off my birth certificate
(33:17):
or something. But that that's that. That could just be
Lower Noel Brown Lower. Next guy can call me Shepherd
if you want Jets. Yes, Jet is a mutton. Uh.
And I would like to propose that I remained the
primary shep of this show. Shepherd im in troubled Uh. Siam, who,
funnily enough is this is a cat fact hashtag cat fact.
(33:41):
Siam is the first Siamese kitten to reach North America. Wow,
and a burst of creativity, as you would say, really
really leaned into that one. Uh, that's one. I'm sorry
you gotta say this one with a mint. Julia Boys
Stewart miss pussy who was another sign he's cat. And
(34:02):
then there's Piccolini. Picco You've got to raise your fish
in like a little cadence, you know, with your touching
your middle finger to your thumb. Piccolomini is a cat.
It sounds like an Italian restaurant. I love it. And
then we just have a goat. Yeah, but who knows.
(34:26):
I want to know more about this mysterious goat. Mr President,
what's your goats name? Leave? You have to leave now? Uh? Yeah,
the goat probably had a big, big voice in policy.
Then he had a mocking bird, but that wasn't the
only bird he had. He had four canaries as well. Yeah,
he got some cows. That's how you know you're making it.
(34:46):
Back then he had Jersey cows. He also had Yeah,
they were they were pedigreed, by the way, not just
any run of the mill Jersey cows. These where these
were these were pure bred Jersey cows. And then he
also had several carriage horses. And this is even more
impressive when, as you pointed out, Max, we realized this
guy served only one term as president, so he was
(35:09):
spending a lot of time at the petting zoo basically.
And so now let's give an honorable mention to former
President Millard Fillmore. We don't know a ton about his
pets other than a couple of ponies he had Mason
and Dixon, get it. But he definitely cared about animals.
(35:30):
This was something new to me until I didn't know
this until we went into the research. But he helped
found a chapter of the American Society for Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals or ASPCA in his hometown in Buffalo,
New York, all the way back in March of eighteen
(35:50):
sixty seven. And this wasn't just a pr thing for him,
like he honestly cared about it. He led local meetings,
he would use he did this three was president. Obviously
he used his juice, his political capital too, like influence
the laws to change laws so that animals in Buffalo
(36:12):
would be treated better, which is that's cool, right? Yeah? Man?
You know. And one thing that's it's a commonality in
the in these cases is usually you see that the
presidents that had the most pets and that treated them well,
we're probably relatively not beastly human beings. And it's always
(36:34):
a little sketchy when you have a president that doesn't
take a pet, because it's such a tradition to have
a presidential pet. The ones that don't must really hate animals.
That's my theory. I don't know what you think about that. Okay,
we have to talk about it. Then we have to
talk about it. Because we looked into this, folks, there
(36:57):
is one president that may have not had a pet.
And now history is a little unclear on this, and
we have, you know, we have a silver lining at
the end of the show here. But of the few
presidents who were thought to have not had any pets
at all, one of the ones who stands out to
(37:20):
us is former US President James K. Polk. You won't
find any canonical historical mention of him being a pet guy.
A cat daddy, he is not. But we know he's
good with horses, so you would have to assume he
had some sort of relationship with various steeds. And then
of course there's Andrew Johnson. Now, Andrew Johnson is a
(37:44):
little bit of a in my head, he's a little
bit of a ratitude president. What do I mean by that, Well,
he never formally had pets, but the guy loved mice
and he didn't want to kill him, and he would leave,
you know, little like pieces of cheese out there. I
like the idea of him doing the radituy thing all
(38:05):
the way, you know what I mean? Like, I like
the idea of a mouse under a hat was president.
The mouse was the president the whole time. He was
the brains operation. No. I love that Ben. That is that.
I don't know how much brains was going into the
Johnston administration though, I'm clear not not much hot take
hot historical presidential take when it comes to Johnston. I
(38:26):
don't think it's really even that hot of a take. Honestly,
I just don't know. I just don't really know much
about him. He was, he was one of he was.
He was kind of a monster, right, He was a
known bad dude. He kind of killed reconstruction. Yeah, he
he was not what we would call a banger of
a president today. First president to be impeached. I'm not
sure if I mentioned this in the past, but even
(38:50):
if you go to his hometown and you ask people
about him, they'll say, yeah, not that, not that great.
He's not He's not anybody's favorite except maybe some some mice.
Maybe you know, it's really weird. Uh. I just looked
up some fun facts about President Andrew Johnson. Apparently he
(39:11):
escaped from indentured servitude. One would think someone who had
escaped from indentured servitude would have a unique position to
be anti slavery. He he was unique in many ways,
so like he was the only Southern senator who states
the seeded from the Union, who showed back up at
(39:32):
his job, like all of them just laughing. The seed
he was from Tennessee. He just showed back up and
just kind of he wasn't Abraham Lincoln's first um VP.
It was when leacoln won reelection, like, hey, this is
our it was coming becoming pretty clear how the war
was gonna go. This is our alive branch. We have
this guy who is flip parties. He's a Republican now,
(39:54):
but he's a Southerner. And then he Lincoln got assassinated,
which was actually a three prong assassination tamp It was Lincoln, Johnson,
and Seward they went after and Stewart survived. Lincoln obviously
did not. Johnson became president and uh yeah six temper
tyrannus and all that. Yeah, so funny story. Again, I
(40:18):
think I mentioned this on the air, but there's a
little town called Greenville, Tennessee that is very Andrew Johnson
branded of a treehouse there that I sleep in. Sometimes
true story. I'm not gonna explain it. And even if
you go there and you ask people about Johnson, they
will all say, uh yeah, I mean he was a president,
(40:42):
and as we closed today's episode, we do have to
have one last dubious mention. Uh that was very important
to our guest research associate, Mr Max Williams. That is
the most recent president, the president. How many how many
pets did have Max? We talked about this from part one. Well,
(41:03):
I mean he had Eric, he had I'm not gonna
stays gonna kiss some people. Now, he did not have
any pets. He was very adamant about not having a pet.
It's funny is when writing the stuff I had nature
to listen through the original episode and Mr No you
(41:23):
made you noted that You're like, yeah, it's really where
this guy dosn't have a pet. Maybe he maybe he'll
get one eventually, because like like when I was doing
the research, I was like, yeah, like you know, like
like some other people didn't have pets. No, it really
looks like every single of them in some sort of
way had some sort of pet. Again, if only because
of the tradition of it all. Yeah, right, It's like
(41:45):
there's some really cute ones that I left out, like
you know, H. W. Bush had his like bleep cocker
spaniel and then when w became president, he had one
of the puppies that his dad's cocker spaniel had had
while he was a white house. Look, it's just cute,
and it's a way to relate to them, to show that, like, hey,
they're humans. The publicity stun sometimes absolutely at this point,
(42:09):
want to thank you again, ridiculous historians for going on
this journey with us. Lincoln avowed cat Daddy. This has
been Presidential Pets Part two. Most importantly, folks, this is
the time when I revealed my ulterior motive. Get the
two ridiculous historians on Facebook and show us pictures of
(42:31):
your pets. I love when we get to do this.
Show us, yeah, listen, good ones out there for sure,
and also shout out to the Presidential Pet Museum, which
is the thing. Presumably most of these animals are there
in taxidermy form I would hope preserved for future generations
to enjoy. What's sales position on taxidermy. By the way,
(42:53):
taxidermy of of beloved pets maccabre or or or totally on.
It's hard to say goodbye to yesterday man Boy's memoir, right,
especially if you're yesterday was the name of your beloved
cocker span that'd be a good name for a dog. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know. It depends on whether canines uh fall
(43:14):
under the theory of nominative determinism. You know, if you
name a dog chomp, is it gonna bite someone? Well?
And and and then it begs the question, do in fact
all dogs go to heaven? Uh? And do all dogs go? Direct?
Video and all dogs go to Heaven? Part two m
And with this, with these weighty philosophical conversations, we are
(43:37):
going to uh. We are going to wait to hear
from you ridiculous historians. Will be back next week with
an episode on Pringles that you uh that it's gonna
surprise you. It's it's going really weird places. We're excited
for you to hear it thinks as always to you
for tuning in. Thanks to our super producer, Mr Max Williams,
(44:01):
our composer, we have one, Mr Alex Williams. And thanks
to let's see who else know who else? Who else?
Oh you know, Christopher hasciodes Us, Jeff Code here in
spirit elsewhere in the world doing great things. Our love
to you, bo uh. Jonathan Strickland, as you mentioned him,
I try not to It's okay because sometimes when you
say if you say his name too loudly into a glass,
(44:24):
darkly things happens. Sort of a candy man rules, you
know what I mean. I think we've passed the threshold
for his appearance and UH, special thanks, one last special
thanks to all of our fellow ridiculous historians who are
out there volunteering with animal shelters, with animal rescue. UH.
This is often a volunteer driven enterprise. It's a nonprofit UH,
(44:49):
and it can be really really tough work. But from
all of us to all of you, thanks for thanks
for being the good folks. We'll see you next time, folks. Yeah.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
(45:10):
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
(00:27):
welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning in. Let's give it up
for the one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams,
and I love the energy, guys. Let's also let's see
also give it up for our research associate on this show,
(00:47):
this episode, Mr Max Williams. Okay, al right, okay, you
know what, you keep this up. Max, I'm gonna start
going in and doing some post production because I got
some opinions on these wos. I think, no, no, no, no,
don't don't do that to our listeners. Our listenership will
just fall off a cliff if you get in there.
Well they called me Ben uh and we are so
(01:10):
glad you're here, Ridiculous Historians, especially because you, like us,
are getting the chance to hang out with an actual
legend in the podcasting space. Uh, one of my dear friends,
co founder of this show. We hang out all the time,
and we still, for some reason, are our best friends. Uh. Folks,
(01:35):
Mr Noel Brown a wott have bit awkward if you
were talking about someone else and I was like, yeah,
that's true. I love that there. There's such a good
trope in in in in movies where there's like a
big speech where it's some you know, um family, you know,
patriarch announcing who his successor will be, or a king,
and then you see the one who thinks it's gonna
(01:56):
be him, all chuffed in the audience, and then it's
this other guy. I feel you. I feel that way
every time. Um okay, so you guys know I'm I'm
a sucker for advertising. I am so interested in nine
percent of all types of food. Ever, I feel that
(02:16):
way every time I have ordered fajitas in a restaurant,
you know where they sizzle and and I see somebody
coming out with a plate of sizzling fahitas and they
walk on bhy like my heartbreaks. That has nothing to
do with today's episode. That's just a universal human moment, folks.
May your fahitas come for you? Uh man, have you
(02:38):
seen that meme where it's the Alex Jones courtroom scene
where he and is like everybody at the Mexican restaurant
when someone orders sizzling fahitas, we're there with you. We
have like so one thing that we really wanted to
make like a day one rule when we started Ridiculous
(02:58):
History number of years ago is we wanted to find
these sort of universal truths. We wanted to correct the
misconception that history is just a bunch of words and
dusty textbooks. Uh, the people in these stories are very
much like you. They're very much like us, regardless of
(03:18):
how they may be portrayed, regardless of what they're known for.
And one of the reasons we did a classic episode
earlier this week, Noel, you and I A long time ago,
we did episode just on presidential pets because, like many
of our favorite episodes, we had this conversation off air
about about pets and we were like, well, a lot
(03:41):
of people have pets, and then before you know it,
we're Uh, We're sitting there frantically searching on our phones
about statistics of cat dog ownership in the US and abroad,
and then we stumbled on this idea of presidents also
being human and having pets. And uh, when Max forces
with us and classed up the show a little, we found, Noel,
(04:04):
that are are good pal. Mr Williams is also a
cat lover. Now do you think we should uh, I
think we should talk about cats for a second, well,
I think we must and I actually it was introduced
to a new to me term um that you you
you guys may be familiar with. But the idea of
of being a cat daddy, cat and daddy, yeah, cat daddy.
(04:28):
I think it's like, I think there's some sexual vibes
to it where you're sort of like a burly dude
who who has lots of cats, a bit of of
a of a bear, you know, like a like it's
like a leather daddy, but it's a cat daddy, So
I think it implies sensitivity, um, but also you know,
(04:48):
brute strength and potentially down to clown in this in
the bedroom. I don't know, it's just it's just a guess.
Maybe I wasn't actually introduced to the true meaning with
that whatever I heard ddy thrown around, I can't not
think that. But yeah, I've become a bit of a
cat daddy of late, I have to um of Vanessa
and kom and um, I know you have one that
(05:12):
shall not be named, isn't that right? And then also
Dr Vankman, Yes, that's correct. No, I have two cats.
One is named Dr Vankman, which is an amazing name.
I can say that because it wasn't my idea. Uh.
The second is a cat with many many names. You
may see him occasionally, may hear him occasionally on the air.
(05:34):
And uh Max Max Jaman you have since you said,
we can say Max stands for whatever. Max. You have
a cat as well, who we talked about in the
past on our episodes. Oh yeah, yeah, my Sylvia, who
I have a ceramic Sylvia right here for us to see.
It's terrifying, but I have my Sylvia, who is a
(05:56):
loud cat. She's a rescue herself. Though I can we
have one cat because she would try to kill any
other cats around. But uh yeah, I grythin assessment of
what a cat daddy is and I can say that
I fully am one. Okay, I'm proud of that. Alright,
cat daddy's We're also going to introduce you to a
another cat daddy, one of historical note folks, you you
(06:20):
may remember one Abraham Lincoln as a famous trash talking wrestler.
Fun note he was also president of the US once
upon the time. But for our purposes today, the main
thing we want to talk about is that Lincoln was
a cat daddy, as you would say, nol yeah, possibly
like one of the o G cat. I don't know. Cats.
(06:42):
Cats are ancients, pats domesticated cats, you know, all the
way back to you know, the Egyptians and stuff that
there's so much cat imagery and a lot of their
you know, hieroglyphs and things like that. There was cat worship,
even a lot of deities that resembled cats and the like.
But yeah, ab Lincoln uh, definite cat daddy. Um he
uh was the sixteenth president of course of these United States,
(07:04):
and he was just bananas for for for kiddies. He
would just play with them, presumably spoke to them directly
for like like extended periods of time. That's right, we
we know you'll recall also, I believe from our previous
Presidential Pets episode that was more focused on the dog side,
(07:26):
or maybe it was this episode into itself, I can't remember.
We definitely talked about Fido, which is like sort of
become this like cliche kind of stand in for dog,
kind of like xerox is to you know, mimiographs or
whatever or carper machines. Fido mainly from cartoons. I've never ever,
in a million years known a person with a dog
named Fido because it's so cliche that no one would
ever do it. But it's like you see in bugs
(07:48):
Bunny cartoons like hey Fido, come here, boy fight whatever.
And it was because of of President Lincoln's dog, Fido,
who they had to leave back home in Springfield, Illinois,
where we're from, because the dog was a little skittish,
not to take too well to excitement and chaos that
comes along with, you know, being elected president. So they
adopted the dog out to some some neighbor friends. Um,
(08:09):
but kitties, as we know, are a little more resilient,
I would argue, Um, for better or for worse. I mean,
I would also argue that kiddies, you know, don't give
a f you know when it comes to like people
and dogs are much more doting. But Lincoln believed that
the kiddies were. He he liked something about that vibe,
(08:29):
the way that they kind of just you know, we're
a little indifferent. But also you know, snuggly, especially kittens.
He loved kittens, was always rescuing him, snuggling them and whatnot. Yeah,
he's a kitten guy, and he uh, you know. One
time someone asked Lincoln's spouse, Mary Todd Lincoln, and they said,
just did your husband have a hobby? Does the old
(08:51):
man have a hobby? And she just said yes, cats.
He was elected president, had to bid fond farewell off.
He just ain't to Fido, and Secretary of State at
the time, William Seward, said, I can't let it in
this way. So he gave the president two kittens as
(09:12):
a gift, sort of a congratulations, sort of a surprise.
And the President, old Abe was all about these cats.
He named them Tabby and Dixie, and he did things
that are familiar to a lot of people who get
uh very far in the extreme cat loving spectrum. Uh.
(09:32):
He once had a formal dinner at the White House
and had Tabby over and fed her at the table.
No report on what the other attendees, the human attendees
of the dinner thought, but Mary Todd was kind of embarrassed.
She said, this action is shameful in front of our guests.
(09:52):
And then this is when Abes trash talking wrestling comes back.
He's got a clap back, dude. Yeah, he said something
to the effect of, uh, if this golden spoon is
worthy of the former president James Buchanan, Well, I think
it is good enough for the Tabby. For Tabby, I
guess that's meant to be a dig at James Buchanan.
(10:13):
Uh is that is? That? Is that right? I mean
it's a little little column, a little column b. It's
partly a dig at Buchanan's partially saying my cat's awesome,
though it's a big up to Tabby, A bit of
a day to to Buchanan. You know what I like
about Lincoln though, he really is you know, one of
the first kind of like kind of fish out of
water presidents. You know, he was sort of this hay
(10:34):
seed that kind of like took his country ways to
the White House. And it's like, you know, I just
picture him like wearing shoes look like up toe poking
out of the shoe because his warm as he doesn't
he refuses to get a new pair of shoes until
they're purely worn out. And you know, Mary Todd was
just a little bit more trying to adapt to this.
I don't know, this is just my imagination running wild here,
but the wrestling and just the kind of outdoors men
(10:56):
Lee Beardy nest of Lincoln just really does make me
see him as this kind of like fun fish out
of water, you know, Washington. Mr Lincoln goes to Washington
kind of story. Yeah, yeah, and his he had a
quite strange, dare I say unprecedented rise to the position
of Commander in chief. It's the story for another day.
(11:17):
We're Ridiculous Cats in this episode, we're Ridiculous cats talking
about cats as someone work on that, we'll fix it
and post. Lincoln has this friend named Caleb, Caleb Carmen,
and Caleb is the guy who tells us about how
Abe would talk to his cats. He would just choose
(11:37):
one at random, either Tabby or Dixie. He would pick
it up and he would just talk to it for
thirty minutes, you know, all the like. Imagine Abraham Lincoln
doing baby talk to cats. That's what he was. And
also I want to point out about domestication. Cats are
really interesting. Cats domesticated themselves. They're not truly domestic cadid creatures.
(12:01):
They just hung out in um. What you could argue
is uh mutualism in terms of organisms interacting. But cats,
unlike dogs, were not really domesticated by people. That's why
if you have cats, if you live with cats, I
wouldn't say own them. If you live with them. That's
why they have a lot of natural wild animal tendencies.
(12:22):
It wasn't bred out of them. That's why if they
think you can't hunt, or they think you're getting a
little skinny and they want to impress you, they go
and you know, they catch a mouse and they bring
it to you and eviscerated and make this weird sort
of grand dunal tapestry. For I think we've all experienced that, right, absolutely, Yeah,
(12:43):
Now it's true, like um with the I think I
talked about a previous cat that I had that would
just leave these like weird assembly bits of severed parts
from various animals, like in these you know, true detective
esque array is like on the porch, like like with
a little garland of grass, you know, around the end
(13:04):
of a mouse and the body. Yeah, it's it's truly
maccab And then there's one time, my why this is
this is an ongoing thing and like you know, people
always say, oh, they're just they're they're they're trying to
give you a present. I'm like, I think it's a threat.
I think it's a threat. It's like this could be you,
you know, it's kind of like also it's it's a
sort of their way of saying, you suck at hunting.
(13:27):
Here learn but but yeah, but Lincoln, Lincoln had all
these cat owner moments. You're listening, if you're listening in
the year this comes out, Folks, you're listening, and if
you have a cat, you probably have some questions or
observations about your own little fur ball of fury. Lincoln
has all your same questions, all your same fascinations. One time,
(13:52):
he gets pissed at his cabinet in his first term
as precedent, and he says, this is a quote. He says,
Dixie is smarter than my whole cabinet. And furthermore, she
doesn't talk back. He was. He was not cool with it.
(14:14):
He also, by the way, didn't just stick with Dixie
and Tabby. He would find stray cats and sometimes he
would bring him home or they would follow him home.
And this happens often. It doesn't just happen in d C.
One time he was meeting with General Ulysses S. Grant, Yes,
(14:36):
that General Grant, who later became president himself. He's meeting
with him City Point, Virginia. There's a siege happening. It's
the siege of Petersburg March eighteen six, and Lincoln is
having problems paying attention to the general during the siege
because part way through he's going, well, hold on, hold on,
(14:59):
you're here. That sounds like sounds like kittens. Yes, it does.
And if you hear that, move aside, General, there's kittens
in need. There's an animal in trouble. Anybody who has
kid wonder wonder pets, that's what that's what hey. Lincoln
was like his ears would perk up and he go
the phone, the phone is ringing, and anything's running and
(15:23):
rescue the kittens. And there are accounts of the way
he would just dote on these rescue kittens. A guy
named Admiral David Porter, in what I would argue as
a bit of a subtweet, says he was struck by
the side of the president quote tenderly caressing three straight kittens,
and that it well illustrated the kindness of the man's
disposition and showed the childlike simplicity with which was mingled
(15:47):
with the grandeur of his nature. A little bit of
a isn't that a little bit of a backhanded compliment
the childlike simplicity? Yeah, I could say I could say
it's a little bit of it's edits ororeal license at
the very least right, and and he also the same guy.
Admiral Porter also says Lincoln would talk to the cats
(16:10):
and be like kitties. Then god, you are cats and
can't understand this terrible strife that's just going on. Who's
your widow, pretty widow? Fooball, pay no attention, pay no
attention to this civil war. We find ourselves in the
midst of max Is above our attempts to do Lincoln
(16:31):
baby talk. I see you mane zie and weird. Yeah,
we definitely did. But yeah, I mean he also like,
you know, again, this is like a wartime president. He's
he's going to back to his his presidential tent or whatever.
And he says to a colonel, I leans in and says,
(16:53):
I hope you will see that these poor little motherless
waives are given plenty of milk and treated kindly. And no,
he's not referring to actual like orphans. He's referring to kitties, Maxican.
We sound cute and all they're like the most obnoxious
cutesy Ah. There it is perfect. It does seem like
(17:21):
he was a good guy. I will say, I mean,
you know, presidents are complicated, history is complicated. We know
that that Lincoln wasn't like perfect. He really is held
up there as this like you know, paragon of like
you know, um presidential empathy and like he you know,
he's he free the slaves. He was the greatest man
ever lived. But we know that that that there was
(17:41):
some you know, complexities to that. But it will I
will say that for his time, this whole all this
kitty love really makes me feel like he had a
you know, had a pretty good heart. I would say, well, yeah,
let me to that point about complexity. Let me let
me bring into the conversation a quotation that Max found
that go into your note about subtweets Snoll and also
(18:04):
going to the note about complexity. There's a Treasury official,
Mansell B. Fields, which is a weird name, uh, who
writes about Lincoln in the following way. He says, President
Abraham Lincoln quote possessed extraordinary kindness of heart when his
feelings could be reached. What he says, he was fond
(18:26):
of dumb animals, especially cats. I've seen him fondle one
for an hour. Fondle meant something very different back then
helplessness and suffering touched him when they appealed directly to
his senses or when you could penetrate through his intelligence
to them. So it sounds like he's saying, uh, there's
some kind of wall around Lincoln's mind, right, like only
(18:51):
like he may be hardhearted or cold to a lot
of human beings, but if you're infantile enough or feel
it enough, arguably, then all of a sudden, he's your
biggest fan. Does that feel like a subtweet to you?
It's just it gets me where he says possessed extraordinary
kindness of heart when his feelings could be reached right
(19:13):
and implied that he was a bit of I don't know,
a tough nut to crack, and then he and then
maybe it's like, you know, all this kitten love and
stuff is like that is a way that maybe a
person that is typically not able to be emotionally vulnerable,
you know, to humans, is able to exhibit that level
(19:36):
of vulnerability. But only two creatures, you know. It strikes
strikes me as that that that Lincoln would have been
a very perhaps a difficult man and uh and an
emotionally you know, guarded man, but with the kiddies. He
could just let it all hang out, you know. Yeah,
a dent. And again to the point about Fido that
we raised earlier. Uh, Lincoln was a yes, all pets
(20:00):
kind of dude. He you know, there's a great ongoing
debate nowadays about whether someone is a dog or a
cat person. Lincoln rejects these labels. He had tons of
pets during his life, even had a pig. That's a
true story, but that is a sad story. And on
(20:21):
the advice of our pal Max, we are leaving it
out of the narrative unless you have a declaration to
make about this, Max for ridiculous historians. Oh, I have
a declation, Maka. I actually wrote in the in the brief,
this is too heartbreaking the start. We're not going to
talk about it. That's it. Yeah, okay, well that's we
set you up to confirm that, all right. So if
(20:42):
you are feeling in too good of a mood, if
you're having too good of a day and you need
to take it down and notch, look up Lincoln's pet pig.
So we talked about other pets Lincoln had. In a
previous episode, we mentioned his dogo Fido. We should also
note that Lincoln had multiple ponies. They technically belonged to
(21:07):
his sons, but come on, he was there, and he was,
you know, chuffing with them and and petting their manes
and saying like I wish you were the secretary of
Defense or whatever. And then he had a white rabbit.
He had two goats. We know the names of the goats,
Nanco and Nanny. He had another dog named Jip. And
he was associated with a pet turkey once upon a time. Yeah, yeah,
(21:31):
he had yeah, exactly. Uh Jack was that was the
name of the of the turkeys. There was Jip the
dog and Jack the turkey. Sounds like a classic setup
for an animated pair of adventurers. Yeah, I'm thinking of
Jake the dog and Finn the human. The funnel never end,
It's adventure time, lovely show. Um, so yeah we we.
(21:54):
We can now probably move on to a president. And
I don't typically think of um Franklin Pierce. I think
that's probably true for most folks. He wasn't really considered
one of the best presidents. I didn't do anything outward
and horrific. He was just he was just a little
bit of a turd, you know. He was like a
bad outfielder, you know, he's just kind of it's kind
(22:15):
of stood around. He did he did the open trade
relationship with Japan, which was kind of a big deal. Right,
I don't know why I need the guy so are there.
That's a big deal. But he really isn't a president
that you know, comes to mind as like being like
one of the greats. Uh. He thought abolition was a
fundamental threat to the United States. So it's very pro slavery.
Just gonna pop that in there, whatever you think of
(22:37):
Franklin Pierce. Yeah, that's that's his that's where he's calling from,
as rum M Carver would say. But he did have pets,
didn't he. That's why we're talking about. Yeah, and and
then then you know, it seems like some of this
maybe stemmed from that that relationship with Japan. He had
He had dogs that were some of the earliest examples
of the breed known as the Japanese chin um, which
(22:58):
were huge in Japan. But they yes, right, they're they're
small everywhere, but they're very popular in Japan. And this
is like sort of an example of them coming over
here for the first time. Uh, they're which you would
call toy dogs, you know, um toy sized dogs, like
like miniature, which I believe is Isn't that a process
(23:18):
that requires some pretty gnarly in breeding and weird breeding pressing. Yeah, yeah,
it's kind of eugenics. Yeah, I mean, dog breeding in
general gets pretty crazy. And maybe we can do a
history of dog breeding in the future, but Yukonuba definitely
(23:39):
will not sponsor that because it gets dark really quickly.
You're you're right, No, you're absolutely right. Uh he he did,
as you said, open trade relations with Japan, and that
was quite a coupe because Japan had for many, many years, centuries,
they had closed their borders to almost every foreign trading party.
(24:04):
So he sends this guy named Matthew Perry, US representative,
also commodore. Commodore Matthew Perry goes back to the States
after cracking this deal with Japan, and he says, hey,
President Pierce, I got you something. Here are the seven
very tiny dogs. And they're not just tiny, their teacup size,
(24:25):
so any dog Fishionado knows that as the tiniest absolute
tiniest dog. And they were called I believe they were
called sleeve dogs because if you had the right kind
of outfit, like say a kimono. You could fit them
up in your sleeve. I guess they're you know what
(24:45):
they are. They're like a in my head, dude. They're
like a predecessor of the emotional support animal that is
so popular now. Yeah, um, you know it's funny. It's
just a back duck really quickly. It's a little trivia moment.
Not really trivia, I guess, but you I know you
from you're familiar with the Cohen Brothers anthology Western The
(25:07):
Ballot of Buster scrugs uh. And there's one of the
chapter is this that's one of the longer ones, and
it's it's really really good, incredible twist, very sad um
but excellence, called the Gal who Got Rattled, And in
it there is a dog named President Pierce. It takes
place presumably during this time. Um, so they knew about
(25:28):
Pierce and it seemed seemed fits. But I believe it
was even like it was her brother's dog and he's
kind of an idiot politically, and so I think there
was this this um the sense that Pierce wasn't a
particularly good president, but his brother like supported him and
therefore naing the dog after him. Uh, and it might
(25:49):
be I might be misreading that, but it did just
occur to me. Yeah, and so these dogs are not
universally loved. You could say, we'd like to introduce a
character named Verena Davis. She was the spouse of a
guy who was serving as the Secretary of War at
(26:11):
the time. One of Max's favorite political figures in US history,
guy named Jefferson Davis. Now, Max, you have a sound
cue for us. Yes. Also, I just want to stay
it very clearly that Ben was being sarcastic when he
(26:32):
said one of my favorite political figures. I really do
not want anyone out there thinking I like Jefferson Davis
of all people. So you've heard it conclusively. Uh. If
you are a fan of Jefferson Davis, then please follow
Max on Twitter. Uh, so you guys can talk about it. Uh,
he is are you trying to No? No, no, no, Max,
(26:57):
being a tremendously good person, also knows that Jefferson Davis
is a piece of wet garbage. So anyhow to his
friends j D to his friends, Yeah, they're all terrible people. Yeah,
you knail, you brought it home. Yeah. So now that
we're done dancing, on the grave of that terrible person.
(27:18):
Let's point out that his wife had some opinions regarding
Pierces dogs. She described the dogs, these seven dogs, who
are again tiny, as having quote head like a bird
with a blunt beak, eyes large and popped, and a
body like a newborn puppy of the smallest kind. And
then she said they can scamper around on a coffee sauce.
(27:42):
They're so tiny. And we don't know if she loved
them or if she hated them, but that gives you
a sense of how how small these sleeve dogs were.
Pierce loved them, by the way. He was over the moon. Uh,
nobody could say that, Like if you've ever hung out
with your friends who are clearly treating a small dog
(28:04):
as their child, and you know they're saying stuff like, oh, well,
you know, we shouldn't eat waffles in front of Rupert
because it offends his sensibilities. He's a sensitive boy. This
is how Pierces with his dogs. And he kept showing
like he One day showed up to talk with Jefferson
(28:25):
Davis more like Jevis to du Fis. He shows up
at the Davis place and he says, generally have a
dog for you. And then uh, Pierce gives one of
these seven tiny dogs to Secretary Jefferson Davis. You suck,
(28:56):
you sucked, Davis go home, turns and Davis Davis names
this dog. He accepts the dog, accepts delivery of the dog.
He names it bon In b O N I N
and named dogs by Bonin and Uh. He carries little
(29:19):
bon In around in his pocket. So we can only
imagine this is just us guessing, felt ridiculous historians. We
can only imagine that a multiple times during his life
someone asked, Jefferson Davis, is that a bone in your pocket?
Are you just happy to see me? Why? Why does
(29:39):
it have to be one or the other? Why? Why
does the why are those things mutually exclusive? Right? Good question?
Lost to history maybe, And so he gives the uh.
He only keeps one of these seven dogs. He gives
the others to his friends. Like we mentioned, uh, mr
boo hiss Davis. And we don't know much about how
(30:04):
these dogs lives went. We know that they were for
a time, they were kind of like an important political currency, right,
You were able to convey favor if you were Franklin
Pierce by saying, hey, here's one of my exclusive run dogs.
And uh. This did always remind people of trade relations
(30:28):
with Japan. As weird as it sounds, those very little
dogs made some very big history. So let's move on
to America's first and so far only bachelor president. Let's say, uh,
(30:50):
as as you noted Max, just because he didn't take
a spouse, I mean to have a partner, but an
official partner. Just because he didn't take a spouse didn't
mean he didn't enjoy some companionship. Walked through those multiple
negatives on your own, folks. He had a pair of dogs. Uh.
He also had eagles. He had a legit pair of
(31:13):
bald eagles. So America, man, I know, I know, uh,
and they would He was not one of those people
who were clipping the wings and keeping them in cages.
He attained these eagles. They were not domesticated, of course,
they're not domesticated animals, but he attained them to the
(31:33):
point where they would fly away from their cages and
then they would come back. They just liked hanging out.
They associated Buchanan with um with a good life, which
a lot of people in the US rightly did not
at the time. But now for a little bit of
a quick run trivia game or a laundry list, nol.
(31:55):
I propose that we just round robin the many many
pets A former president Rutherford B. Hayes. Great name, by
the way, I've always liked Rutherford. It's just an old
timey name, you know. It's a name you can't see.
This got a good mouth feel. It just kind of
(32:16):
rolls around in there. Yes, yeah, it really does. First off,
we have Hector. The Newfoundland dog is a breed of
of Newfoundland of Newfoundlandic origin, Duke possibly English Massiff, but
don't d us. Yeah, some of these they're there. You know,
(32:36):
there's some speculation as to the breed. We've got Grim.
I think it's a cool name for a greyhound, especially
they are very dire looking creatures. Otis mini toure full
are just too much too Germany. Yeah. Yeah. And then
we've got Dot, a Cocker Spaniel Juno and shep to
hunting dogs. Sheep is a great name for a dog,
(32:56):
by the way. Um, we've got Jeff is almost my name.
Thank god I got in a car accident on the
way to the Yeah true story anyway, Jet Wow, my
name was almost Lyle that's a good name. I know,
we we we we love a lile. He's a he's
a dear friend of us both. But it would have
been awkward if you had the same name. But I
think actually don't like crossed it off my birth certificate
(33:17):
or something. But that that's that. That could just be
Lower Noel Brown Lower. Next guy can call me Shepherd
if you want Jets. Yes, Jet is a mutton. Uh.
And I would like to propose that I remained the
primary shep of this show. Shepherd im in troubled Uh. Siam, who,
funnily enough is this is a cat fact hashtag cat fact.
(33:41):
Siam is the first Siamese kitten to reach North America. Wow,
and a burst of creativity, as you would say, really
really leaned into that one. Uh, that's one. I'm sorry
you gotta say this one with a mint. Julia Boys
Stewart miss pussy who was another sign he's cat. And
(34:02):
then there's Piccolini. Picco You've got to raise your fish
in like a little cadence, you know, with your touching
your middle finger to your thumb. Piccolomini is a cat.
It sounds like an Italian restaurant. I love it. And
then we just have a goat. Yeah, but who knows.
(34:26):
I want to know more about this mysterious goat. Mr President,
what's your goats name? Leave? You have to leave now? Uh? Yeah,
the goat probably had a big, big voice in policy.
Then he had a mocking bird, but that wasn't the
only bird he had. He had four canaries as well. Yeah,
he got some cows. That's how you know you're making it.
(34:46):
Back then he had Jersey cows. He also had Yeah,
they were they were pedigreed, by the way, not just
any run of the mill Jersey cows. These where these
were these were pure bred Jersey cows. And then he
also had several carriage horses. And this is even more
impressive when, as you pointed out, Max, we realized this
guy served only one term as president, so he was
(35:09):
spending a lot of time at the petting zoo basically.
And so now let's give an honorable mention to former
President Millard Fillmore. We don't know a ton about his
pets other than a couple of ponies he had Mason
and Dixon, get it. But he definitely cared about animals.
(35:30):
This was something new to me until I didn't know
this until we went into the research. But he helped
found a chapter of the American Society for Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals or ASPCA in his hometown in Buffalo,
New York, all the way back in March of eighteen
(35:50):
sixty seven. And this wasn't just a pr thing for him,
like he honestly cared about it. He led local meetings,
he would use he did this three was president. Obviously
he used his juice, his political capital too, like influence
the laws to change laws so that animals in Buffalo
(36:12):
would be treated better, which is that's cool, right? Yeah? Man?
You know. And one thing that's it's a commonality in
the in these cases is usually you see that the
presidents that had the most pets and that treated them well,
we're probably relatively not beastly human beings. And it's always
(36:34):
a little sketchy when you have a president that doesn't
take a pet, because it's such a tradition to have
a presidential pet. The ones that don't must really hate animals.
That's my theory. I don't know what you think about that. Okay,
we have to talk about it. Then we have to
talk about it. Because we looked into this, folks, there
(36:57):
is one president that may have not had a pet.
And now history is a little unclear on this, and
we have, you know, we have a silver lining at
the end of the show here. But of the few
presidents who were thought to have not had any pets
at all, one of the ones who stands out to
(37:20):
us is former US President James K. Polk. You won't
find any canonical historical mention of him being a pet guy.
A cat daddy, he is not. But we know he's
good with horses, so you would have to assume he
had some sort of relationship with various steeds. And then
of course there's Andrew Johnson. Now, Andrew Johnson is a
(37:44):
little bit of a in my head, he's a little
bit of a ratitude president. What do I mean by that, Well,
he never formally had pets, but the guy loved mice
and he didn't want to kill him, and he would leave,
you know, little like pieces of cheese out there. I
like the idea of him doing the radituy thing all
(38:05):
the way, you know what I mean? Like, I like
the idea of a mouse under a hat was president.
The mouse was the president the whole time. He was
the brains operation. No. I love that Ben. That is that.
I don't know how much brains was going into the
Johnston administration though, I'm clear not not much hot take
hot historical presidential take when it comes to Johnston. I
(38:26):
don't think it's really even that hot of a take. Honestly,
I just don't know. I just don't really know much
about him. He was, he was one of he was.
He was kind of a monster, right, He was a
known bad dude. He kind of killed reconstruction. Yeah, he
he was not what we would call a banger of
a president today. First president to be impeached. I'm not
sure if I mentioned this in the past, but even
(38:50):
if you go to his hometown and you ask people
about him, they'll say, yeah, not that, not that great.
He's not He's not anybody's favorite except maybe some some mice.
Maybe you know, it's really weird. Uh. I just looked
up some fun facts about President Andrew Johnson. Apparently he
(39:11):
escaped from indentured servitude. One would think someone who had
escaped from indentured servitude would have a unique position to
be anti slavery. He he was unique in many ways,
so like he was the only Southern senator who states
the seeded from the Union, who showed back up at
(39:32):
his job, like all of them just laughing. The seed
he was from Tennessee. He just showed back up and
just kind of he wasn't Abraham Lincoln's first um VP.
It was when leacoln won reelection, like, hey, this is
our it was coming becoming pretty clear how the war
was gonna go. This is our alive branch. We have
this guy who is flip parties. He's a Republican now,
(39:54):
but he's a Southerner. And then he Lincoln got assassinated,
which was actually a three prong assassination tamp It was Lincoln, Johnson,
and Seward they went after and Stewart survived. Lincoln obviously
did not. Johnson became president and uh yeah six temper
tyrannus and all that. Yeah, so funny story. Again, I
(40:18):
think I mentioned this on the air, but there's a
little town called Greenville, Tennessee that is very Andrew Johnson
branded of a treehouse there that I sleep in. Sometimes
true story. I'm not gonna explain it. And even if
you go there and you ask people about Johnson, they
will all say, uh yeah, I mean he was a president,
(40:42):
and as we closed today's episode, we do have to
have one last dubious mention. Uh that was very important
to our guest research associate, Mr Max Williams. That is
the most recent president, the president. How many how many
pets did have Max? We talked about this from part one. Well,
(41:03):
I mean he had Eric, he had I'm not gonna
stays gonna kiss some people. Now, he did not have
any pets. He was very adamant about not having a pet.
It's funny is when writing the stuff I had nature
to listen through the original episode and Mr No you
(41:23):
made you noted that You're like, yeah, it's really where
this guy dosn't have a pet. Maybe he maybe he'll
get one eventually, because like like when I was doing
the research, I was like, yeah, like you know, like
like some other people didn't have pets. No, it really
looks like every single of them in some sort of
way had some sort of pet. Again, if only because
of the tradition of it all. Yeah, right, It's like
(41:45):
there's some really cute ones that I left out, like
you know, H. W. Bush had his like bleep cocker
spaniel and then when w became president, he had one
of the puppies that his dad's cocker spaniel had had
while he was a white house. Look, it's just cute,
and it's a way to relate to them, to show that, like, hey,
they're humans. The publicity stun sometimes absolutely at this point,
(42:09):
want to thank you again, ridiculous historians for going on
this journey with us. Lincoln avowed cat Daddy. This has
been Presidential Pets Part two. Most importantly, folks, this is
the time when I revealed my ulterior motive. Get the
two ridiculous historians on Facebook and show us pictures of
(42:31):
your pets. I love when we get to do this.
Show us, yeah, listen, good ones out there for sure,
and also shout out to the Presidential Pet Museum, which
is the thing. Presumably most of these animals are there
in taxidermy form I would hope preserved for future generations
to enjoy. What's sales position on taxidermy. By the way,
(42:53):
taxidermy of of beloved pets maccabre or or or totally on.
It's hard to say goodbye to yesterday man Boy's memoir, right,
especially if you're yesterday was the name of your beloved
cocker span that'd be a good name for a dog. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know. It depends on whether canines uh fall
(43:14):
under the theory of nominative determinism. You know, if you
name a dog chomp, is it gonna bite someone? Well?
And and and then it begs the question, do in fact
all dogs go to heaven? Uh? And do all dogs go? Direct?
Video and all dogs go to Heaven? Part two m
And with this, with these weighty philosophical conversations, we are
(43:37):
going to uh. We are going to wait to hear
from you ridiculous historians. Will be back next week with
an episode on Pringles that you uh that it's gonna
surprise you. It's it's going really weird places. We're excited
for you to hear it thinks as always to you
for tuning in. Thanks to our super producer, Mr Max Williams,
(44:01):
our composer, we have one, Mr Alex Williams. And thanks
to let's see who else know who else? Who else?
Oh you know, Christopher hasciodes Us, Jeff Code here in
spirit elsewhere in the world doing great things. Our love
to you, bo uh. Jonathan Strickland, as you mentioned him,
I try not to It's okay because sometimes when you
say if you say his name too loudly into a glass,
(44:24):
darkly things happens. Sort of a candy man rules, you
know what I mean. I think we've passed the threshold
for his appearance and UH, special thanks, one last special
thanks to all of our fellow ridiculous historians who are
out there volunteering with animal shelters, with animal rescue. UH.
This is often a volunteer driven enterprise. It's a nonprofit UH,
(44:49):
and it can be really really tough work. But from
all of us to all of you, thanks for thanks
for being the good folks. We'll see you next time, folks. Yeah.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
(45:10):
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
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Ben Bowlin
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