Your TR Source
Writing from Dresden, Theodore Roosevelt informs Godey that he has not written sooner because he does not have much to write about and describes life in Dresden as monotonous. He comments on Godey’s letter about mountain climbing and also discusses his living conditions. Roosevelt also mentions an incident when he forgot his keys and had to go two days without a change of clothing.
1873-09-23
President Roosevelt is glad that his goat head is in a good place.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-01-01
William Loeb encloses a check for $568.70 for payment of New York City-based taxidermist William W. Hart’s bills for President Roosevelt, and notes that the president does not need anything else to be done at the moment.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-12-17
William Loeb asks Sagamore Hill superintendent Noah Seaman to look over the enclosed bill. Loeb also asks if the taxidermist used cloth or canvas while relining the polar bear rug.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-12-08
Rowland Ward sends a new list of publications and says Theodore Roosevelt will be interested to know they recently had a pair of Sable Antelope horns.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-02
Jesse D. Langdon wishes to give President Roosevelt a Rocky Mountain goat head and asks for instructions on where to send it.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-01-21
C. G. Gunther’s Sons provides Sagamore Hill Superintendent Noah Seaman with a list of regular prices they charge to customers, but says that they have done the work for President Roosevelt’s house “at a special price and more for the pleasure of the President than for what profit there is in it at such rates.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-11-07
Joel Chandler Harris tells President Roosevelt, “You see–It’s this way about a rabbit–” In Harris’s pocket is the “Story of the Dog Flash.” By Roosevelt’s chair is the book, “Nature Faking by T. Roosevelt,” and behind his chair are two men: “fakir” and “nature fakir.” There are mounted animals: a bear, a moose, a raccoon, a deer, and a mouse. They say, “What’s that?” “Gee whiz!” “Did you hear what that man said?” “The biggest one I ever heard” and “You don’t say so!” respectively. In the foreground is a turtle that says, “I’m a nature fakir myself!”
Theodore Roosevelt was exceedingly taken with the writings of Joel Chandler Harris, an editor of the Atlanta Constitution who was active in Southern journalism and literature from the Civil War days until just after the turn of the century. Roosevelt’s mother was from Roswell, Georgia (her childhood plantation was believed to be the model for Tara in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind) and he often referred to himself as a Southerner (and as a New Yorker, which he was; and also a man of the West, which he was). The president also at times was especially solicitous of writers and editors whose opinions held sway. Harris’s editorials were distributed throughout the South; political satirist Finley Peter Dunne (“Mr. Dooley”) was another writer to whom Roosevelt displayed deference.
President Roosevelt sits at his desk writing an extensive message as a young body turns a large wheel of paper. On the wall are mounts of a “black bear” and a “bob cat” and beside Roosevelt’s desk is his suitcase and his rifle.
President Roosevelt returned to Washington from a speaking tour of the Midwest and South, punctuated by a two-week bear hunt, on October 19, 1907. At the tail end of his railroad swing north, “short selling” by men who had hoped to corner the copper market resulted rather in their bankruptcy, and that of brokerage houses, other commodity firms, and banks.
Theodore Roosevelt writes his son Kermit on a number of topics including thanking him for visiting Quentin Roosevelt, hanging the Devon stag’s head, congratulating him on joining the Pudding Club at Harvard, his grades, running races and dreading the rest of his Western trip. He adds that Mother is enclosing a poem that reminds them of Edwin Arlington Robinson.
1911-02-28
Theodore Roosevelt writes to his son Kermit to congratulate him on his successful hunting trip and talk about sending the skins to the National Museum. He says Mother is still in bed after falling off the horse with three slightly dislocated neck vertebrae. They have a nurse and Ethel Roosevelt has been helping too.
1911-10-05
President Roosevelt tells his son Kermit he plans to publish the articles he wrote for Metropolitan magazine as a book entitled Fear God, and Take Your Own Part. He also wrote a review of Men of the Old Mine Age by Professor Osborn. Roosevelt hopes the Republicans will nominate someone to run against President Wilson that the Progressives can support. Roosevelt says Archie is visiting General Wood in the interest of the Harvard movement for military training. He also says he moved around the moose heads in the house.
1915-03-05
Photograph of a taxidermied bighorn sheep head; taken in the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
1969-04
George B. Cortelyou informs C. G. Gunther’s Sons that President Roosevelt would like the skull removed and the entire bear skin mounted as a rug. When it is done, Roosevelt would like it sent to Oyster Bay.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902-08-30
Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary asks William T. Hornaday to respond to a letter requesting the best books on taxidermy.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1913-03-20
Theodore Roosevelt’s assistant secretary reports that Roosevelt cannot give Edwin E. Paulet the information he desires, but suggests that any taxidermist may be able to do so.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-08-02
Theodore Roosevelt gives Frederic A. Lucas, Director of the American Museum of Natural History, consent for a case to be given to the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Roosevelt mounted the Egyptian birds in winter 1873 and 1874 and an owl at the time it was shot.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-07-28
Theodore Roosevelt tells Charles D. Walcott that he is glad James L. Clark will be working on the taxidermy of some of the groups of specimens he brought back from his African Safari. He asks for clarification about the funding from Congress for the work of mounting the specimens, and about whether Edmund Heller has sent the pamphlets dealing with the giant eland and white rhino yet.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-08
Theodore Roosevelt writes to James L. Clark acknowledging receipt of the elephant tusks and offering to do all that is necessary to get the “groups at Washington for mounting.” Roosevelt encourages Clark to mount the giant eland if he is able.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-06
Theodore Roosevelt is happy with the elephant tusk gong and compliments James L. Clark on a white rhinoceros head that he had mounted.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-02