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16th President (1861-1865)
Abe Lincoln
Abe Lincoln was the first President to bring a cat into
the White
House: When son Tad asked to bring his cat Tabby, Lincoln agreed. Later, on a
visit to General Grant's headquarters in the middle of
winter, Lincoln found three half-frozen kittens there and took them
back to the White House. |
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19th President (1877-1881)
Rutherford B Hayes
A gift
from the American Consul in Bangkok, Siam
was the first Siamese cat to
reach the United States. Also had a cat named Piccolomini
and a Siamese named Miss Pussy.
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26th President
(1901-1909)
Theodore Roosevelt
His gray, six-toed cat Slippers
would fall asleep in a hallway,
resulting in the guests at a state banquet detouring around her. The
Roosevelts also had a cat named Tom
Quartz. Tom Quartz was named after the cat in Roughing It by Mark Twain. [They
also had 9 dogs, a
garter snake, a pony, pig, badger, rat, guinea pigs, hen, macaw,
rooser, and a pony.]
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29th President
(1923-1929)
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin and Grace Coolidge pretty much had
a zoo at
the White House. Their cats were Smokey,
Blackie, Timmy and Tiger.
Timmy allowed Coolidge's canary to sleep between his paws. Tiger, a gray-striped stray, traveled around the White
House
around the President's neck. When Tiger went missing, Coolidge appealed
to the people by calling for their help on a radio address. |
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28th President (1913-1921)
Woodrow Wilson
President Wilson had a cat named Puffins. |
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35th President (1961-1963)
John F. Kennedy
Daughter Caroline Kennedy's Tom
Kitten
was removed from office when it was discovered that
President Kennedy
was allergic. When Tom Kitten died, it was
given an obituary in a Washington newspaper. |
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38th President (1974-1977)
Gerald Ford
Daughter Susan had a beautiful Siamese named Shan. |
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39th President
(1977-1981)
Jimmy Carter
Daughter
Amy
Carter owned a Siamese cat with the intriguing name
"Misty Malarky Ying Yang" who
lived with her in the White House. |
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42nd President
(1993-2001)
Bill Clinton
Socks moved to the
White House with the Clintons in 1993, and was the
first
cat to live in the White House since Amy Carter's cat. |
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43rd President
(2001-2009)
George W. Bush
India "Willie" Bush,
a beautiful black cat, had been a beloved member
of the Bush family for
several years when the family moved into the White House. |
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The 25th President (1897-1901)
William McKinley
and
the 40th President (1981-1989) Ronald
Reagan also owned cats, but
they apparently did not move into the White House. Ronald Reagan
owned Cleo
and Sara, tortoiseshell
strays, as well as several unnamed
cats.
Although it's
unknown if 13th President (1850-1853) Millard
Fillmore had cats in the White House, he was a founding member
and
president of the
Buffalo chapter of
the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. |
