There Once Was a Hyena Named Bill - Tales of Presidential Pets
There Once Was a Hyena Named Bill - Tales of Presidential Pets
By a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
Dear Henry,
Have you ever seen the White House in person? I’ve passed it more than once, but never caught sight of a presidential dog—or cat, or goat—wandering the grounds.
Which is a shame, really, because for much of its history, the White House wasn’t the polished symbol we imagine today. It was closer to a working household. Sometimes even a barn.
Consider President Theodore Roosevelt. Larger than life in most things, he was also improbably the owner of a hyena.
In 1904, Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia sent Roosevelt a gift: a hyena named Bill. Roosevelt was no admirer of hyenas—he considered them cowardly animals—but Bill won him over anyway. The president fed him table scraps, taught him tricks, and tolerated the fact that the White House briefly echoed with an animal better suited to the savannah than Pennsylvania Avenue. Eventually, Bill grew too large and was moved to the National Zoo, where he could live more appropriately.
He wasn’t alone. The Roosevelt household included a chicken named Baron Speckle, a lizard also named Bill, a garter snake called Emily Spinach, a badger named Josiah, and even a bear cub named Jonathan Edwards—each eventually proving that some creatures, no matter how beloved, outgrow their surroundings.
Other presidents followed suit. Calvin Coolidge kept a raccoon named Rebecca, a goose called Enoch, a bobcat named Smoky, a hippopotamus whimsically dubbed William Johnson, and two lion cubs named Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau. Abraham Lincoln kept goats, Benjamin Harrison had opossums, Taft kept cows on the lawn, and Woodrow Wilson famously used a flock of sheep to mow the White House grass during wartime.
We like to think of the White House as a monument to American refinement—polished floors, careful protocol, Jackie O elegance. But history suggests something messier and more human. A place where families lived full lives, animals and all.
Maybe that’s the more honest version of America: grand ideals housed in rooms where mud tracked in, animals wandered, and life happened anyway.
About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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