The Founding Fathers and Their Pets

George Washington was one of the great dog breeders of the founding era. He crossed English foxhounds with French hounds given to him by the Marquis de Lafayette and created what became the American Foxhound. He kept meticulous records of his breeding program at Mount Vernon and named his dogs with characteristic flair: Sweetlips, Scentwell, Vulcan, Drunkard, Taster, Tipler, and Tipsy among them.

He also kept a donkey named Royal Gift, sent to him by the King of Spain, and a favorite war horse named Blueskin who carried him during the Revolutionary War. Washington's love of animals was practical and affectionate in equal measure.

Jefferson kept a mockingbird named Dick who became his constant companion at the White House. The bird rode on Jefferson's shoulder, hopped up the stairs after him, and even perched on the president's couch during meetings. Jefferson reportedly fed Dick from his own lips.

After the Lewis and Clark expedition, Jefferson briefly housed two grizzly bear cubs sent back as live specimens. He kept them in an enclosure on the White House grounds before sending them to Charles Willson Peale's museum in Philadelphia. He also owned a horse named Caractacus and, more tragically, a Shetland sheep that killed a boy on the President's House lawn in 1806.

Franklin had a pet squirrel named Mungo, and his affection for the creature was real. When Mungo was killed by a dog, Franklin wrote a touching letter about it to his friend Georgiana Shipley: "Few squirrels were better accomplished, for he had a good education, had travelled far, and had seen much of the world."

Franklin also kept a cat and famously argued that the wild turkey, not the bald eagle, would have been a worthier national bird. He called the eagle "a bird of bad moral character" and praised the turkey as "a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America."

John and Abigail Adams kept two dogs named Juno and Satan. Yes, Satan. The name raised eyebrows even then, but the Adamses were not easily swayed by convention. Abigail Adams wrote frequently about the dogs in her letters, describing their habits and personalities with genuine warmth.

The Adams family also kept horses, and their time in the President's House in Philadelphia and later Washington meant their animals moved with them across state lines. Abigail's correspondence remains one of the best records of pet life in the early republic.

James Madison kept a parrot named Polly. According to Dolley Madison, the green parrot was a lively presence in the household and outlived the fourth president himself. Polly reportedly could mimic voices and was a source of amusement during Madison's retirement years at Montpelier.

The Madisons were also known to keep sheep on their Virginia estate, but it is Polly who survives in the historical record as the household companion most people remember.

Hamilton left behind no great menagerie. He was building a financial system, fighting duels, and writing the majority of the Federalist Papers. His son Philip, however, kept a dog, and the Hamilton household in New York had animals in the ordinary way of any family of means in that era.

Hamilton's legacy is made of paper, not paw prints. But his son Philip's dog is a reminder that even the most driven founders lived in homes where animals padded through the rooms.