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The Presidential Reason Fido Became the Default Name for a Generic Dog · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Holy smokes. Before we begin today's episode, we have a
0:03
Speaker 1: special announcement. Ben and I are going on tour. That's right,
0:07
Speaker 1: we're hitting the road, nol. We're heading to Philadelphia for
0:10
Speaker 1: a live show at Philly's Podcast Festival. Okay, so it's
0:13
Speaker 1: less of a tour and more of an appearance. I
0:16
Speaker 1: feel like it still counts though. This is so exciting.
0:18
Speaker 1: It's our first time out of the studio. We literally
0:21
Speaker 1: have never left the studio where they're finally going to
0:23
Speaker 1: let us out. We're gonna do this show for you. Um.
0:26
Speaker 1: Joining us will be our pals Will and main guest
0:28
Speaker 1: from Part Time Genius. They're gonna do like this really
0:30
Speaker 1: cool trivia show, which they are famous for their world
0:33
Speaker 1: famous trivia show. We're gonna hang out with them. It's
0:35
Speaker 1: gonna be some special guests. It's gonna be a lot
0:37
Speaker 1: of fun. It is July one, at four pm at
0:40
Speaker 1: the Trocadero Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You can find out
0:43
Speaker 1: ticket information at Philly Podfest dot com. Welcome to the show,
1:11
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians, and thanks for tuning in. Whether you have
1:15
Speaker 1: multiple PhDs in various specific aspects of the story of
1:19
Speaker 1: human civilization, or whether you consider yourself an armchair history enthusiasts.
1:24
Speaker 1: One thing's for sure, you've probably probably met a dog.
1:30
Speaker 1: Probably I've I've met at least two dogs that was
1:35
Speaker 1: the same dog, Though you think so, I think it
1:37
Speaker 1: was the same time. Why do you think that? Because
1:38
Speaker 1: you showed me the pictures and I think it's the angle. Yeah,
1:41
Speaker 1: that's weird. I'm more of a cat person. Um. But
1:44
Speaker 1: now I've met multiple dogs in truth, and I've also
1:48
Speaker 1: heard of Abraham Lincoln. Yes, And today's story is about
1:53
Speaker 1: the confluence of these two concepts. When we think about dogs,
1:58
Speaker 1: we always think about strange dog names too, right. And
2:02
Speaker 1: there's one thing that always baffled me when I was
2:04
Speaker 1: a kid, when I traveled abroad, I didn't understand that
2:08
Speaker 1: dogs who grow up in non English speaking countries don't
2:11
Speaker 1: speak English. It's a weird thing, you know. And you
2:15
Speaker 1: probably ran into dogs who spoke German when you were
2:17
Speaker 1: in Germany. Are you teasing me, ben? No? What you
2:20
Speaker 1: mean like like they when they bark, they do it
2:22
Speaker 1: with like a German accent. Is that what you're saying? Uh?
2:25
Speaker 1: They will, they wouldn't respond to command. There you go. Yeah,
2:29
Speaker 1: but I'll twisted around also and something that has nothing
2:32
Speaker 1: to do with this episode. I think it's hilarious the
2:35
Speaker 1: way that other languages will write the sound of a
2:39
Speaker 1: dog bark. You can look it up for yourselves, folks.
2:43
Speaker 1: I think you'll enjoy it. Oh, I forgot high. I'm
2:45
Speaker 1: Ben Whoa. That was the longest preamble pre name drop
2:49
Speaker 1: opening ever. My name is Nol And just to get
2:52
Speaker 1: it out of the way, and not get it out
2:53
Speaker 1: of the way, there is a cause for celebration. We'd
2:55
Speaker 1: like to welcome back with open arms. All right, super
2:57
Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegram. It's been too long, Casey, thank you
3:03
Speaker 1: so much for returning here to the States, here to
3:07
Speaker 1: the studio, here to ridiculous history. Casey's into dogs. You
3:11
Speaker 1: like dogs. I'm a dog person, absolutely yeah. What what
3:14
Speaker 1: would you say, you're more a dog person or a
3:17
Speaker 1: cat person? I'm pretty yeah, I'm both growing up, so
3:22
Speaker 1: I'm I'm pretty agnostic or ambidextrous with your animal affection.
3:29
Speaker 1: So it's it's interesting because we often hear of this
3:34
Speaker 1: divide between cats and dogs, and with just a brief
3:37
Speaker 1: nod to the science behind domestication, it's fascinating. Nul dogs
3:42
Speaker 1: were domesticated by people, like cats largely domesticated themselves. Cats
3:47
Speaker 1: do everything for themselves. Man, They're for nickety little creatures
3:51
Speaker 1: who don't need us, and they will eat us when
3:54
Speaker 1: we die in our apartments sat and alone, or if
3:57
Speaker 1: the size difference was reversed, they would also eat you totally.
4:00
Speaker 1: Have I told you about how my cat like brings
4:02
Speaker 1: little presents and like like just looks like they look
4:04
Speaker 1: like Satanic rituals laid out on my doorstep, like decapitated squirrels,
4:08
Speaker 1: and you know, with the guts in the shape of
4:10
Speaker 1: a pentagram and horrifying. Yeah, and I share a bed
4:14
Speaker 1: with this thing? What am I thinking? Colleague? And someone
4:18
Speaker 1: worked within the past, Lauren vocal Bomb has the same
4:21
Speaker 1: thing with her cats. That's because you guys have indoor
4:24
Speaker 1: outdoor cats. I finally put a bell on that little bastard,
4:27
Speaker 1: and now I'm hoping to give those things a fighting chance. See,
4:29
Speaker 1: I let my cats just be the agents of chaos
4:32
Speaker 1: they were meant to. That's true, and Lincoln appreciated cats
4:36
Speaker 1: in addition to dogs. He He referred to cats as
4:38
Speaker 1: like one of his hobbies, but his old pal, his
4:43
Speaker 1: trusty sidekick. They're thick and fan well up to a
4:46
Speaker 1: point was an old dog. Yeah, it was a dog.
4:49
Speaker 1: And today's episode that we're finally getting too is about
4:54
Speaker 1: this dog. It's also a way to answer a question
4:59
Speaker 1: about dog dog names, because when you think of a dog,
5:03
Speaker 1: you think of generic dog names, right, Spot, sparky, Yeah,
5:08
Speaker 1: things like that. And I don't know about you know,
5:11
Speaker 1: but it's it's strange to me when I meet a
5:13
Speaker 1: dog with a person named like Stephen or Ashley. I
5:16
Speaker 1: love it, though, I'm a fan of it. When I
5:18
Speaker 1: first heard of a pet that was named after a human,
5:20
Speaker 1: I thought that was the most clever thing in the world.
5:23
Speaker 1: I The first one I met was neither dog nor cat.
5:25
Speaker 1: It was a turtle, and I was so impressed. His
5:29
Speaker 1: name was Robert Louis Stevenson. That's great. He was a
5:31
Speaker 1: very trepidacious, explorative turtle, very slowly exploring his surroundings. He
5:38
Speaker 1: was tentative. But with dogs, there's one name that always
5:43
Speaker 1: feels like the generic, the quintessential name for a dog,
5:47
Speaker 1: like a Kleenex, yeah yeah, or z Rock, but you know,
5:50
Speaker 1: for a dog, right or Google. But for a dog,
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Speaker 1: it's Fido right out here, boy here, Fido here Fido.
5:57
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard that? In the Looney Tunes cartoon?
6:00
Speaker 1: Very popular and Looney Tunes, and I think some Disney
6:02
Speaker 1: stuff as well. These days, Fido isn't even in the
6:06
Speaker 1: top one common dog names. They're all named Stephen and
6:09
Speaker 1: stuff right there. They're all named George Ashcroft or something.
6:14
Speaker 1: But now, even with the popularity of Fido declining, everybody
6:20
Speaker 1: in the English speaking world at least associates the name
6:23
Speaker 1: Fido specifically with a dog like let me get a coke,
6:27
Speaker 1: you mian Anesota, right, let me see that Fido? You
6:30
Speaker 1: mean that dog like that? And it turns out right
6:33
Speaker 1: that there's a reason for this. There is a traceable,
6:35
Speaker 1: specific reason that Fido became known world over as a
6:41
Speaker 1: dog's name, and it goes back to our boy, young
6:44
Speaker 1: rail splitter himself, Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, yeah, um, the that
6:49
Speaker 1: old yellow dog we were talking about. His name was Fido,
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Speaker 1: and he was a mongrel, kind of a mixed breed,
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Speaker 1: um yellow, floppy eared fellow that Lincoln just adored and
7:02
Speaker 1: he loved to play with Fido around his home in Springfield,
7:07
Speaker 1: Illinois with his sons Tad and Willie, who are stories
7:12
Speaker 1: of their own believe you me. Uh. Yeah, as he
7:15
Speaker 1: before he became president, he had several dogs and cats
7:20
Speaker 1: in his home in Illinois, and it seems like the
7:23
Speaker 1: crowd favorite was Fido. At least Lincoln's favorite was Fido.
7:27
Speaker 1: We'll get into a little bit more of the Fido
7:30
Speaker 1: lore later, but for now, in his heyday, Lincoln, before
7:34
Speaker 1: he became elected president, Fido he would walk around town.
7:37
Speaker 1: He would go get a little trim at the barbershop,
7:40
Speaker 1: and Fido would wait patiently outside for him, untied, just
7:44
Speaker 1: perfectly loyal. Um. What's the word? Fido is short for
7:48
Speaker 1: what fidelity? Right? Uh? The name is Latin for faithful.
7:54
Speaker 1: And for about five years before Abraham Lincoln became president,
7:59
Speaker 1: he was a lawyer and Fido would just follow him
8:03
Speaker 1: everywhere that keeps seeing mentions of Fido would even carry
8:06
Speaker 1: parcels for Lincoln in his mouth. Yeah, and he became
8:09
Speaker 1: sort of this walking business card for Lincoln as well
8:12
Speaker 1: in town because they would see the little yellow dog
8:15
Speaker 1: and they wouldn't know that the lawyer Lincoln was around.
8:18
Speaker 1: It was about yeah, but fame changes things. Right. In
8:21
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty three, as he was preparing to move to
8:24
Speaker 1: the White House to serve as commander in chief of
8:26
Speaker 1: the US. People started to think that Fido was maybe
8:30
Speaker 1: a little too friendly, a little too outgoing, not even that,
8:33
Speaker 1: maybe even a little fragile, right, because when in his hometown, um,
8:38
Speaker 1: you know, when the president won the election, there were
8:41
Speaker 1: you know, all kinds of all kinds of commotion, right,
8:43
Speaker 1: we had cannon fire, fireworks, screaming politicians, people farting. Yeah,
8:49
Speaker 1: oh that various noises. And Fido was spooked by this.
8:55
Speaker 1: He was not he was not excited about this. It
8:58
Speaker 1: made him very uncomfortable and he, you know, totally kind
9:01
Speaker 1: of Withdrew. Yeah, he was described as a frisky mongrel
9:07
Speaker 1: in a Life magazine profile of him at the time.
9:10
Speaker 1: So he did not accompany originally the Lincoln's to d C. Instead,
9:17
Speaker 1: they picked up a dog named Jip and two goats,
9:22
Speaker 1: Nanny and Nanco, and get where the goats to mow
9:26
Speaker 1: the lawn at the White House. You know, my old
9:29
Speaker 1: co host, Scott Benjamin is all about that. Well, there's
9:31
Speaker 1: a service here in Atlanta where you can rent a
9:33
Speaker 1: goat that will clean up your their foliage. Yet, and
9:35
Speaker 1: it's not just in Atlanta. When Scott recommended to me
9:39
Speaker 1: that I instead of repairing my lawnmower rent a goat.
9:42
Speaker 1: I thought he was joking, but he doesn't joke about
9:45
Speaker 1: stuff like that. He doesn't really joke. He's a very
9:48
Speaker 1: sincere dude. That's true. Shout out to Scott Benjamin or
9:51
Speaker 1: is I like to refer to him f Scott Benjamin? Um? So, yeah,
9:55
Speaker 1: Fido stayed behind and it took a while, but the
9:58
Speaker 1: president it was very important for him that that his
10:01
Speaker 1: his old trusty yellow dog, Fido, had a suitable home
10:06
Speaker 1: with suitable affections and spoilage. Right, yeah, exactly, And that's
10:12
Speaker 1: why he decided to have another person, a person who
10:16
Speaker 1: could trust, take care of Phido. Back there in Springfield.
10:19
Speaker 1: He contacted John Roll, who was a carpenter, and said, hey,
10:23
Speaker 1: you and your family, could you take care of Fido.
10:26
Speaker 1: He's he's a great dog. You've seen him around town.
10:29
Speaker 1: He's the one who carries parcels. They were old pals. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: And so he was already familiar with Fido. But just
10:35
Speaker 1: like any helicopter dog parent. As Lincoln left to pursue
10:40
Speaker 1: the presidency, he also left behind detailed instructions for Phido's
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Speaker 1: day to day care and spoiling and the stuff he likes,
10:50
Speaker 1: stuff he doesn't like. Dare we say conditions, yes, yea, yeah?
10:55
Speaker 1: What were some of those hit us? Whenever the role
10:57
Speaker 1: family was eating, they had to have scraps from the
11:00
Speaker 1: table to Fido. Also, he could never be yelled at
11:05
Speaker 1: or scolded for having muddy paws in the house. This
11:08
Speaker 1: becomes a theme with Fido always having muddy paws and
11:11
Speaker 1: being a little too eager to hop up on people.
11:15
Speaker 1: And they gave him some equipment to write, gave the
11:17
Speaker 1: rules some equipment. Yeah, it was a custom couch that
11:21
Speaker 1: Lincoln himself had built because, as we know, unlike the
11:25
Speaker 1: myth of of Napoleon being extra mega super short, he
11:28
Speaker 1: was just sort of an average high maybe a little
11:30
Speaker 1: shorter than average. Lincoln was in fact quite tall, yes,
11:33
Speaker 1: and some people have speculated is due to a condition
11:36
Speaker 1: known as Marfan syndrome. But regardless of the cause, Lincoln
11:41
Speaker 1: himself was one heck of a scarecrow. He was six
11:44
Speaker 1: ft four, very skinny, looked like you could uh tie
11:48
Speaker 1: a kite to him and he would fly away. And
11:51
Speaker 1: so a couch that you would buy at the store
11:54
Speaker 1: was not going to accommodate a man of his height.
11:57
Speaker 1: His his his lanky frame, his legs to just be
12:00
Speaker 1: hanging off the side if he wanted to have a
12:01
Speaker 1: nice lie down, right. Um, so yeah, I say this
12:04
Speaker 1: custom couse was made of horse hair, and it was
12:06
Speaker 1: also Fido's favorite piece of furniture. And I'm sure you know,
12:10
Speaker 1: had familiar smells and all that. And he made sure
12:14
Speaker 1: that the family that was taking Fido got this piece
12:17
Speaker 1: of furniture so that he could lounge around on it
12:19
Speaker 1: and feel super duper at home. And it's tough to
12:23
Speaker 1: overstate the importance of this sofa to Fido himself, because
12:28
Speaker 1: when he was frightened, this is the sofa he hid under.
12:32
Speaker 1: When he was happy, this is the sofa he lounged upon.
12:38
Speaker 1: In a very real way, the sofa, second to Abraham
12:41
Speaker 1: Lincoln is the most important thing in the home to
12:44
Speaker 1: fight him. We mentioned earlier Lincoln's sons, right Tad and
12:49
Speaker 1: wheeie ye Tad Willie, And they were of course hit
12:52
Speaker 1: by this. This was their childhood dog. They're saying, Ah, chucks,
12:57
Speaker 1: good on Dad for being the president, But why can't
12:59
Speaker 1: Fido come the end of an era? You know? But
13:01
Speaker 1: they I'm sure Dad, all honest Abe explained it to
13:04
Speaker 1: the boys very gingerly, and I'm sure they came to understand.
13:08
Speaker 1: I'm speculating here a little bit, but they seemed like
13:11
Speaker 1: good boys. You might have said, look, I can do
13:14
Speaker 1: two goats. That's the best they could do. Well. Yeah, hey,
13:17
Speaker 1: that's a good deal, though, man, one dog for two goats.
13:19
Speaker 1: I don't know. Dogs don't don't mow your lawn either.
13:22
Speaker 1: Those goats, though, apparently, were were hell raisers in the house.
13:26
Speaker 1: The staffers did not like them because they would like,
13:28
Speaker 1: not only chew up the grass like, they would chew
13:30
Speaker 1: up like everything. Have you ever hung out with the
13:32
Speaker 1: goat with their weird octopus eyes? You mean, greatest of
13:34
Speaker 1: all time? I'm I'm flattered, nol thank you know, the
13:39
Speaker 1: physical goat Now I have not the I'd be afraid
13:42
Speaker 1: they'd buck. Yeah, they're weird. They can be affectionate, but
13:46
Speaker 1: they will eat darn near anything. Yeah, like you know,
13:49
Speaker 1: your fist or your heart. But that's just with their
13:52
Speaker 1: cuddly nous. Yeah. So yeah. So despite all the gestures
13:58
Speaker 1: and all the reassurances you can ache. Anybody who has
14:02
Speaker 1: been a parent who had to explain the loss of
14:04
Speaker 1: a pet to a child understands that it's heavy and
14:07
Speaker 1: deep stuff, whether it's just moving or whether the pet
14:10
Speaker 1: has passed away, and perhaps ridiculous historians. As you're listening,
14:15
Speaker 1: you're thinking of moments in your life when you were
14:17
Speaker 1: a child and you lost a pet or you were
14:21
Speaker 1: somehow put out of contact with it. It's very psychologically trying,
14:26
Speaker 1: and Lincoln gon go with allegedly here allegedly Lincoln attempted
14:32
Speaker 1: to combat this by resorting to a relatively new technology
14:36
Speaker 1: at the time. Yeah, he wanted to, you know, have
14:39
Speaker 1: a nice family portrait of of Fidoh, and we've got
14:43
Speaker 1: these images around today. It's great. You can see him
14:46
Speaker 1: like lounging on what is it like I throw rug
14:48
Speaker 1: kind of situation. What do we got here? Yeah, it
14:50
Speaker 1: looks like he is on a on a table with
14:53
Speaker 1: a nice rug or heavy tablecloth, and he's got his paws,
15:00
Speaker 1: uh just rogueish lye hanging off like he's ready to jump,
15:03
Speaker 1: but he's comfortable. This is back when you would have
15:05
Speaker 1: had to stand really still. Doesn't it seem like taking
15:08
Speaker 1: a picture of a dog would be challenging and best, Yeah,
15:11
Speaker 1: it would have to be a super chill dog. But
15:14
Speaker 1: be that as it may. Turned out it worked, and
15:17
Speaker 1: there's a pretty good photograph of Fido which you can
15:21
Speaker 1: you can find if you just google Fido, Abraham Lincoln.
15:30
Speaker 1: We did find one wrinkle to the story here, at
15:34
Speaker 1: least in terms of chronology, right, Yeah, and this is
15:37
Speaker 1: how we start getting well, I think we can use
15:39
Speaker 1: this as a jumping off point into the kind of
15:41
Speaker 1: sad part of this story. Um, there is a story
15:44
Speaker 1: and by the name of Dr James Cornelius, who curates
15:46
Speaker 1: the Abraham Lincoln Collection at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library
15:51
Speaker 1: and Museum, who says there are some issues with the
15:54
Speaker 1: chronology of of when this photograph was taken. Original reports
15:57
Speaker 1: suggested that Lincoln himself commissioned and uh, it seems maybe
16:02
Speaker 1: a little more likely that it was done in the
16:05
Speaker 1: aftermath of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination, when Fido would have
16:09
Speaker 1: been a very famous dog and some eagle eyed photog
16:13
Speaker 1: around Springfield thought it might be a hot ticket item
16:18
Speaker 1: to have photographs of the dog that that they could
16:20
Speaker 1: sell to mourners. Yeah, so you'll hear two different versions
16:25
Speaker 1: of the chronology here. You'll hear that the photo was
16:29
Speaker 1: made after the assassination, or you'll hear that it was
16:33
Speaker 1: made beforehand, and regardless either way, this photo gets into
16:40
Speaker 1: newspapers and Fido, the dog himself, and just the name
16:44
Speaker 1: Fido becomes universally acclaimed in the US and probably a
16:49
Speaker 1: little bit beyond the US as well. So this is
16:53
Speaker 1: when people start naming their own dogs Fido. Right, A
16:57
Speaker 1: kid sees the dog in the newspaper and the dog's
17:00
Speaker 1: name is Fido, and they think, I'm gonna name my
17:02
Speaker 1: dog Fido, just like President Lincoln's dog. And when Lincoln
17:07
Speaker 1: was assassinated in eighteen sixty and the Ford Theater, this
17:13
Speaker 1: did very little to quell Fido's popularity. In fact, it
17:18
Speaker 1: added to it isn't that correct, Yes, Ben, that's exactly right.
17:21
Speaker 1: People would line up to take, you know, to meet
17:25
Speaker 1: the presidential dog. And um, here here's a little bit
17:28
Speaker 1: of a breakdown of the story of this photograph, as
17:31
Speaker 1: it kind of like weaves into this part of the story.
17:35
Speaker 1: So this guy by the name of F. W. Ing
17:37
Speaker 1: Meyer had a photo studio in Springfield, UM And according
17:43
Speaker 1: to the original story, it was in late eighteen sixty
17:46
Speaker 1: or early eighteen sixty one. They're actually three shots of Fido,
17:50
Speaker 1: one nice from the front, shot, and then two profile
17:53
Speaker 1: shots where he's a little bit more kind of hunkered down,
17:55
Speaker 1: like he's swimming, you know, he's trying to afford a
17:58
Speaker 1: stream of some kind, right, And the exposure makes them
18:01
Speaker 1: all look radically different. Yeah, it's true. The one from
18:04
Speaker 1: the front it is very sepia looking um the and
18:07
Speaker 1: then there's another cpo looking one from the side that
18:11
Speaker 1: is very um high contrast, kind of like the what
18:15
Speaker 1: the background is totally white and you can't see any textures,
18:18
Speaker 1: almost blown out. And then the last one, which I
18:20
Speaker 1: think is by far the most successful of the photographs aesthetically.
18:24
Speaker 1: You can see that the wall has kind of a shaded,
18:27
Speaker 1: shadowy look to it, and the dog's fur is properly exposed,
18:31
Speaker 1: and you can see the texture of the rug, and
18:34
Speaker 1: there's a lot more um detail in this one. Yeah,
18:37
Speaker 1: there's also the first detailed that it almost looks like
18:41
Speaker 1: Phido might have some German shepherd in them. So ing
18:44
Speaker 1: Meyer fw ing Meyer has also become the subject of investigation,
18:50
Speaker 1: especially by a guy named Dick Hart in his book Springfield,
18:55
Speaker 1: Illinois Nineteenth Century Photographers. But the problem is that apparently
19:00
Speaker 1: between eighteen sixty and eighteen sixty one. Um ing Meyer
19:04
Speaker 1: wasn't didn't have a photography studio. Um. He was actually
19:08
Speaker 1: working as a minister in the Baptist faith. Um. I
19:12
Speaker 1: guess that was his weekend job. And then he was
19:16
Speaker 1: also a sewing machine salesman. Yeah, he was selling sewing
19:20
Speaker 1: machines and probably preaching on the side as well. Uh.
19:24
Speaker 1: He ran a bunch of ads in various papers for
19:30
Speaker 1: his sewing machine agency. But he didn't even start paying
19:35
Speaker 1: for a photographer's license until eighteen sixty two. I'm sorry,
19:39
Speaker 1: a photographer's license. It was a different time, that seems yeah. Wow. Well, also,
19:44
Speaker 1: it's a really new technology, so you probably it's a
19:47
Speaker 1: new technology. You probably them just spitballing here. Man. You
19:52
Speaker 1: probably have to have some sort of training, safety training.
19:56
Speaker 1: They got those flashbulbs. They can take your eye out,
19:59
Speaker 1: burn your your He's at the best. I mean, new
20:02
Speaker 1: technology is always a pain. Have you ever watched videos
20:05
Speaker 1: of someone attempting to start a model t It's crazy.
20:09
Speaker 1: You can break your arm. I just would like the
20:11
Speaker 1: You gotta like pull it like a lawnmower, like to
20:14
Speaker 1: crank it. Yeah, you have to. You have to starting
20:17
Speaker 1: a chair crank, crank, and if it gets cantankerous. It
20:21
Speaker 1: will fly back with such force that will break your form.
20:25
Speaker 1: So probably I would like to think taking a photograph
20:28
Speaker 1: was not that dangerous or didn't have that possibility for danger.
20:32
Speaker 1: But you have to have some training. And what you
20:34
Speaker 1: brought up here is really important because we're looking again
20:38
Speaker 1: at the timeline. So that's eighteen sixty two, right, that's right.
20:43
Speaker 1: That is allegedly when he began to pay for this,
20:46
Speaker 1: uh license and installments I'm imagining, uh, And that's that's
20:49
Speaker 1: ten dollars total for the license UM, which was you know,
20:54
Speaker 1: a pretty penny back in eighteen sixty two. And he
20:58
Speaker 1: first ran an ad for or his photography business in
21:02
Speaker 1: October of eighteen sixty four because there were a lot
21:06
Speaker 1: of soldiers passing through nearby Camp Butler, it's important to
21:11
Speaker 1: say that this chronology of the license and the advertisements, UH,
21:17
Speaker 1: this chronology does not prove that Ingmar did not take
21:22
Speaker 1: those pictures of this pooch in eighteen sixty or eighteen
21:26
Speaker 1: sixty one, but it calls it into question, you know,
21:30
Speaker 1: that's right. And this is all from a fantastic post,
21:34
Speaker 1: you know, speculating on this chronology, because again, a lot
21:36
Speaker 1: of this stuff is is just that speculation, but it
21:39
Speaker 1: comes from a pretty solid source. The guy by the
21:42
Speaker 1: name of Dr James Cornelius, who's the curator of that
21:44
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln Collection UM at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library
21:49
Speaker 1: and Museum. So if anyone knows, you know he oh
21:50
Speaker 1: he ought to know. Yeah, he's he's the lading expert. Literally,
21:56
Speaker 1: he sold a matched set ing mar that is sold
22:00
Speaker 1: a match set of four photos with identical backmarks, which
22:05
Speaker 1: are think of it like you may have seen your
22:08
Speaker 1: parents do this writing on the back of a photograph
22:10
Speaker 1: with the name and date, the time or description. Yeah, yeah,
22:14
Speaker 1: like like a time code that you would see cameras
22:16
Speaker 1: these days, actually not so much, but like they used
22:19
Speaker 1: to be when you get the prints, maybe that annoying
22:21
Speaker 1: little water mark in the bottom left hand corner that
22:24
Speaker 1: was the time in the day. There's something kind of similar,
22:26
Speaker 1: if not more analog at play here, right, yeah, exactly.
22:31
Speaker 1: And in this book that we mentioned by Heart, there's
22:35
Speaker 1: this match set of four photographs that Mr sold with
22:39
Speaker 1: these back marks, and in the Heart book they're dated
22:42
Speaker 1: back to eighteen sixty five and eighteen sixty six. The
22:47
Speaker 1: four photographs are the following a hillside tomb at oak
22:50
Speaker 1: Ridge Cemetery. Photograph of Lincoln's old home. Photograph of a
22:56
Speaker 1: horse known as Old Bob, which I think is a
22:59
Speaker 1: cool horse name. Is that the same as old Robin?
23:02
Speaker 1: Is that as short for because I've seen it both ways?
23:05
Speaker 1: Did you have two horses? Because Rob could be short
23:07
Speaker 1: for Bob, could be short for Robin, Bob could be
23:10
Speaker 1: short for yeah, yeah, because Robin is. I don't know
23:13
Speaker 1: the photograph that I'm seeing is actually captioned President Lincoln's
23:17
Speaker 1: horse Old Robin. It's gotta be the same horse, because
23:20
Speaker 1: I've seen the same photograph. And then I'm looking at
23:23
Speaker 1: the description from Dr Cornelius. So maybe Dr Cornelis is
23:27
Speaker 1: just so familiar with him that he calls him Old
23:29
Speaker 1: Bob Bob. He's been a lot of time researching this.
23:32
Speaker 1: Also in the photograph of might maybe they were more formal,
23:35
Speaker 1: you know, that was the that was the horse's Christian name,
23:37
Speaker 1: but if you were familiar, you could call him all Bob.
23:40
Speaker 1: But most importantly, that fourth photograph is the high quality
23:45
Speaker 1: profile snap. And you know these look like ben These
23:50
Speaker 1: look like the kinds of postcards you would buy at
23:53
Speaker 1: a gift shop for like the Grand Canyon or President
23:56
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln's boyhood home or what have you. Right, So
24:00
Speaker 1: the theory here is that no, these photos were not
24:03
Speaker 1: commissioned by Lincoln himself during his life. They were done
24:07
Speaker 1: as a kind of get rich quick scheme by this
24:10
Speaker 1: guy Igmire when Lincoln's death brought droves of of mourners
24:14
Speaker 1: and uh and um people paying their respects to Springfield.
24:18
Speaker 1: So why do we believe Dr Cornelius is a version
24:22
Speaker 1: of the events. Well, that's primarily because he has matched
24:28
Speaker 1: times and dates into a single, unified chronology. And the
24:32
Speaker 1: story about Lincoln commissioning the photographs actually comes to us
24:37
Speaker 1: through John Role primarily. And you can't really like, we're
24:43
Speaker 1: not saying Role was lying, But it's very easy for
24:45
Speaker 1: him to be mistaken. You can't really blame someone forgetting
24:48
Speaker 1: the details of a dog picture a little bit off,
24:52
Speaker 1: you know, decades and decades later, I have heard of
24:54
Speaker 1: worst historical blunders, my friend. So Dr Cornelius finds a
25:01
Speaker 1: kicker a nail in the chronological coffin. Here he says
25:07
Speaker 1: that if the Lincoln boys Tadam Willie had a photograph
25:11
Speaker 1: of Fido in the White House, why does it not
25:14
Speaker 1: have that same back mark, the mark that ing Meyer
25:18
Speaker 1: used to distinguish his photographs, right, why doesn't have one
25:22
Speaker 1: from eighteen sixty eighteen sixty one. The thing is, the
25:25
Speaker 1: one surviving copy today is identical to the images from
25:29
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five in both the label and the back mark.
25:33
Speaker 1: That indicates the providence of the photo. If someone took
25:37
Speaker 1: a photo of Fido for the boys in eighteen sixty one,
25:41
Speaker 1: why would it have needed the label President Lincoln's Dog.
25:45
Speaker 1: You can find the family's photo album today in the
25:49
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum or apple Blum. That's
25:55
Speaker 1: the acronymic. That's a literal mouthful of word salad. Yeah,
26:00
Speaker 1: but you can, you know you you can find the
26:03
Speaker 1: photo album today and it doesn't have all of the photos.
26:08
Speaker 1: About half of them are missing, but the other half
26:11
Speaker 1: are in the Lincoln Financial Foundation collection in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
26:17
Speaker 1: And so to Cornelius, to Dr Cornelius, all of this
26:21
Speaker 1: evidence points to the photo being taken in eighteen sixty.
26:26
Speaker 1: I think that's some good detective work there from the
26:28
Speaker 1: good doctor. I agree he is the Sherlock Holmes of
26:32
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln. Uh dog photos, dog photos, Yeah, guys, you
26:43
Speaker 1: might be saying, Look, I get it, the dog picture
26:46
Speaker 1: was probably made in sixty five, not sixty one. But
26:49
Speaker 1: for Pete's sake, for Phido's sake, can't you just let
26:52
Speaker 1: me enjoy a cute picture of a doggo? Yeah? I
26:55
Speaker 1: mean seriously, it was like one of the original doggo memes. Um.
26:58
Speaker 1: But also, you know, we really had spent a lot
27:00
Speaker 1: of time talking about those pictures. I'm fascinated by the
27:03
Speaker 1: whole the mystery of it. And then when, when, when
27:05
Speaker 1: things make their way into official accounts, that that then
27:10
Speaker 1: proved to not be the case. But um, this story
27:12
Speaker 1: does take an interesting turn, Dare I say, a pretty
27:15
Speaker 1: sad turn for old Fido. Yeah, yeah, you're right. So
27:20
Speaker 1: obviously it's a national tragedy when Abraham Lincoln is assassinated
27:26
Speaker 1: and it turns out the Fido also met an unfortunate end.
27:31
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty six, about a year after Lincoln's assassination, Fido,
27:35
Speaker 1: again very much a dog of the people, never met
27:38
Speaker 1: a person he didn't like. Fido is walking along mind
27:42
Speaker 1: in his own business, and he sniffs across somebody who
27:45
Speaker 1: appears to be sleeping on the sidewalk. I thought you
27:47
Speaker 1: were gonna say, sniffs a crotch of someone who appeared
27:50
Speaker 1: to be sleeping on the side, possibly both. I bet you.
27:52
Speaker 1: I bet you if you if a friendly dog met
27:55
Speaker 1: you didn't move, the first thing you would do is sniff.
27:57
Speaker 1: But he wants to be sure if you're cool. Um,
27:59
Speaker 1: but the sky was not cool. As it turns out,
28:02
Speaker 1: there's a couple of accounts of this story, um, conflicting accounts.
28:06
Speaker 1: We'll go with the most sensationalized, depressing account, which is
28:10
Speaker 1: that first? That is, which is that this intoxicated, uh gentleman,
28:15
Speaker 1: this roused about this, this kind of delinquent guy woke
28:20
Speaker 1: from his drunken stupor and stabbed the dog, you know,
28:25
Speaker 1: to death with with a knife in a panic attacked. Yeah,
28:30
Speaker 1: well the yeah, and I've even seen that it was
28:32
Speaker 1: even written up that it was more malicious that he
28:34
Speaker 1: was just like in his drunken rage. Should probably read
28:36
Speaker 1: that one. Actually it was a letter that came from
28:39
Speaker 1: um the caretaker of the dog. Yes, in nineteen John Rolled,
28:45
Speaker 1: the caretaker of Phido, himself, related the following information to
28:48
Speaker 1: Time magazine. Okay, so more of an interview than a letter,
28:51
Speaker 1: but here we go. Um, I didn't realize this came
28:53
Speaker 1: so late in the game. He must have been quite old,
28:56
Speaker 1: so you can see how he can get some facts roll. Yeah, so,
28:58
Speaker 1: but the way he tells it is a little bit
29:00
Speaker 1: more the This is the most malicious account of this
29:03
Speaker 1: this guy. Um, he says, quote, we possessed the dog
29:06
Speaker 1: for a number of years until one day the dog,
29:08
Speaker 1: in a playful manner, put his dirty paws there's dirty
29:11
Speaker 1: paws again upon a drunken man sitting on the street
29:14
Speaker 1: curbing which I think that means like whittling, and in
29:17
Speaker 1: a drunken rage, thrust his knife into the body of
29:20
Speaker 1: poor old Fido. So Fido, just a poor yellow dog,
29:24
Speaker 1: met the same fate as his illustrious master assassination. So
29:29
Speaker 1: that's that's the most sensationalized version. But as as we've
29:33
Speaker 1: established earlier, that may not be entirely accurate, and even
29:37
Speaker 1: today people disagree on the specifics. We're talking about this guy, right,
29:43
Speaker 1: who's who's on the street whittling his pine stick or whatever.
29:47
Speaker 1: But we haven't given him a name yet, No, we haven't.
29:51
Speaker 1: And that's the thing about the way these kinds of
29:53
Speaker 1: stories get passed around. Um, it's really easy to want
29:56
Speaker 1: to demonize the man who murdered Abe Lincoln's old yellow
30:00
Speaker 1: mongrel dog in the streets in a drunken rage um,
30:04
Speaker 1: but a little less cut and dry when you actually
30:08
Speaker 1: realize that this so there was a human here with
30:10
Speaker 1: the with the story. Another spin on this story that
30:12
Speaker 1: you can find comes from a story in the Illinois
30:16
Speaker 1: State Journal from eighteen ninety three, and here is a
30:20
Speaker 1: quote from that that also gives some pretty pretty sad
30:23
Speaker 1: details to the end of old Fido's life, whichever way
30:26
Speaker 1: he ultimately went, whether by force or by accident. Quote
30:31
Speaker 1: he Fido was exceedingly friendly and had a habit of
30:33
Speaker 1: showing his congeniality by depositing his muddy yellow four paws
30:37
Speaker 1: plump on the breast of any who addressed him familiarly. Oh,
30:41
Speaker 1: and you can't yell at him for his pause. Yeah,
30:44
Speaker 1: that's another one of Lincoln's conditions to the royal family.
30:47
Speaker 1: M I continue, his excessive friendliness eventually caused his death
30:51
Speaker 1: in a very unique way, and that Fido suffered the
30:53
Speaker 1: fate of his master assassination. Uh. The dog, which was
30:57
Speaker 1: a yellow fellow of moderate size, ran again Charlie Plank,
31:01
Speaker 1: who was whittling a stick with a sharp, long bladed knife.
31:05
Speaker 1: By an accidental move while the dog was expressing himself
31:08
Speaker 1: in caresses, the blade was buried deep in his body.
31:12
Speaker 1: He shot out the door like a flash and was
31:15
Speaker 1: never seen again alive. Apparently it was a week or
31:19
Speaker 1: more before they found his body. Yeah, behind the old
31:24
Speaker 1: chimney stack of the Universalist Church there in Springfield. So
31:28
Speaker 1: he got stabbed and ran in fear, right, That is
31:32
Speaker 1: what animals tend to do when they are mortally wounded.
31:34
Speaker 1: This want to go die alone. I think the house
31:38
Speaker 1: or something, and I think humans qualifies animals. That part
31:43
Speaker 1: Charlie plank story doesn't end with this murder of Fido.
31:49
Speaker 1: We know a little bit more about him. He had
31:53
Speaker 1: a couple of other encounters with law enforcement after he
31:56
Speaker 1: was Oh, we didn't mention it. He was a veteran, Yeah,
31:59
Speaker 1: that's right. He was a are in of the Civil War.
32:01
Speaker 1: He was a member of Company G of the fourteenth
32:04
Speaker 1: Illinois Infantry Regiment, which was considered a pretty illustrious company
32:09
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, And we know that he
32:14
Speaker 1: had been beaten and robbed by two men on North
32:17
Speaker 1: Seventh Street in eighteen sixty five. We know he got
32:21
Speaker 1: an argument with a guy named Peter Burns in eighteen
32:24
Speaker 1: sixty eight, ending the argument by drawing a revolver with
32:30
Speaker 1: small shot and shooting Burns in the shoulder. Again, it
32:34
Speaker 1: was a different time he also got he He also
32:40
Speaker 1: was involved in a court case. Burns was fined at
32:43
Speaker 1: the sum of three dollars quote for using language to
32:46
Speaker 1: Charles Plank calculated to provoke a breach of the piece
32:50
Speaker 1: language you say fighting words said you was strol, you
32:55
Speaker 1: dunderhead castrol is that like a wascally wabbit. It's a
32:58
Speaker 1: wasteful or good for nothing in person as that must
33:01
Speaker 1: have fallen out of out of popularity that one. Uh
33:05
Speaker 1: so we we know what roughly happened to Plank. He
33:09
Speaker 1: had his up seat, his downs, He had been in
33:13
Speaker 1: some legal altercations. Uh. He moved to Michigan, eventually worked
33:18
Speaker 1: as a clerk and expressman, and passed away in March
33:22
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventeen. He is buried on the grounds of
33:27
Speaker 1: the Grand Rapids Veteran Home. Now this this sounds like
33:31
Speaker 1: it's all ending on a downer, but this is that's
33:34
Speaker 1: not the case because when we look at Phido, you
33:39
Speaker 1: know it reminds me of It reminds me of how Max,
33:43
Speaker 1: the guerrilla in South Africa grabbed such attention and really
33:47
Speaker 1: locked into the zeitgeist. The photography is a relatively new medium.
33:53
Speaker 1: People love animals. There's a picture of an animal that
33:58
Speaker 1: is published and syndicated papers across the nation. People are
34:01
Speaker 1: against stabbing animals, thank God, generally speaking. That's part of
34:06
Speaker 1: the story. I didn't know though. I knew about Fido,
34:08
Speaker 1: and I knew he was Abe Lincoln's old yellow mongrel
34:12
Speaker 1: um best friend for life. Um, I didn't know that
34:16
Speaker 1: that kind of more melancholy part of the story. So
34:18
Speaker 1: it's interesting. Um. But yeah, and to this day, I mean,
34:21
Speaker 1: like you said, Fido equals dog, like Xerox equals you know,
34:26
Speaker 1: photocopy right right right? Or Google equals Internet search you
34:30
Speaker 1: mean web crawler when you talking about Google. What are
34:33
Speaker 1: the other ones? There's Prodigy? Uh like yeah, and uh,
34:39
Speaker 1: you know lactose and that's a different that's the different
34:42
Speaker 1: thing entirely. You might still have your A O, L, C.
34:44
Speaker 1: D S friends and neighbors. I keep a stack of
34:47
Speaker 1: them to use as coasters and just to hand out
34:49
Speaker 1: to people as party gifts when they come by the house.
34:52
Speaker 1: I always love to frisbee the huh me and my
34:55
Speaker 1: old dog would uh would frisbee those things? Oh, man,
34:58
Speaker 1: tell us about your old dog. It's too soon, man, really, yeah,
35:03
Speaker 1: pet a beloved pet very much. So I love pets
35:06
Speaker 1: and we hope you do too. Yes, Fido became the
35:11
Speaker 1: world's most famous dog for a time because they of
35:14
Speaker 1: a more famous one, because mass media was going out.
35:17
Speaker 1: Let's see, there's that one that shot into space, right, No,
35:21
Speaker 1: the Russian dog, and then there were um, I can't remember,
35:26
Speaker 1: we can find it. His name is on record, and
35:28
Speaker 1: we should do a thing on animals in space. But spoiler,
35:31
Speaker 1: there are a couple of doubters, and that one, especially
35:35
Speaker 1: if you're again like you should be against animal cruelty,
35:38
Speaker 1: right right. And so, although Fido's life ended too soon,
35:43
Speaker 1: he remains immortal as a symbol v symbol, at least
35:47
Speaker 1: in American English, for all things cannot. He is the
35:52
Speaker 1: quintessential I believe we used the word earlier, the quintessential
35:56
Speaker 1: image of a faithful, friendly dog, a good boy, a
36:01
Speaker 1: good boy with bo y e. It comes that good
36:05
Speaker 1: boy a snap? What up? Look at it for yourself. Uh. So,
36:11
Speaker 1: here ends our story of the rise and fall and
36:15
Speaker 1: immortal fame of the most famous presidential dog, the frisky
36:20
Speaker 1: yellow Fido. But the story doesn't stop there, and it
36:24
Speaker 1: doesn't stop with Fido. If you haven't checked it out yet,
36:27
Speaker 1: do check out our community page Ridiculous Historians, where I
36:32
Speaker 1: believe Noel. Was it you or was it one of
36:35
Speaker 1: our fellow listeners who started that awesome threat about Pat
36:39
Speaker 1: there's a cat threat. I think it's specifically about cats,
36:42
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, I posted a picture of my my
36:45
Speaker 1: good boy, bad boy Robert Fernando. Um, because he's you know,
36:50
Speaker 1: like I said at the top of the show, always
36:51
Speaker 1: bringing creepy little uh tribute dismembered tributes. Not not a fan.
36:58
Speaker 1: He might be trying to teach you to hunt. Yeah,
37:01
Speaker 1: but uh but do let us know about the dogs
37:05
Speaker 1: in your life. Send Casey and Nolan I some pictures,
37:09
Speaker 1: find us some Ridiculous Historians. You can also find us
37:12
Speaker 1: on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, where we are Ridiculous History
37:17
Speaker 1: or some variation thereof. It's true and as always, thank
37:20
Speaker 1: you to our super producer Casey Pegram are super researcher
37:24
Speaker 1: Christopher Hastiotes and Alex Williams, who composed our banging theme
37:29
Speaker 1: and uh super special thank you to our returning contributor
37:33
Speaker 1: Lori L. Dove. We worked on a sound cue for you, Lori.
37:36
Speaker 1: Here we go like that, and please don't forget to
37:44
Speaker 1: join us next time when we talk about historical mooning.
37:47
Speaker 1: We're so proud of it. Yes, yeah,