Thomas Jefferson, one of America’s Founding Fathers, was a great
man, no argument there. But he was also a weird, quirky human being. The third
president, Jefferson was extremely intelligent and talented. He could play the
violin, design his own furniture, and build his own mansion.
He was also a walking paradox. He was an aristocratic elitist
who stood for the common citizen and state's rights. He almost invented the rules
of strict constructionism, but he increased the power of the president and the
federal government more than almost any other chief executive in our history.
He risked everything he had in the name of freedom, but he held hundreds and
hundreds of slaves.
In 1789, Jefferson became obsessed with shepherds’ dogs. He
believed they were the original dog breed and he went to extreme lengths to buy
one. While in France, he walked for miles in the wind and rain and even
stumbled across a suicide victim while searching for the perfect pet. According
to Jefferson, it was worth the trouble because sheepdogs were “the most
careful, intelligent dogs in the world.”
He bought a pregnant dog named Bergere and took her to Virginia
where he planned breeding the dogs (It was Jefferson who brought over
nightingales, hares, and Angora goats). However, they were to much trouble for
Jefferson to deal with so he killed the dogs he had raised and ordered his farm
foreman to execute all of his slaves’ dogs because he didn’t want them eating
his sheep.
Jefferson loved, absolutely loved, the works of William Shakespeare.
When he visited y Shakespeare’s house, he kissed the ground in reverence. When
he was shown Shakespeare’s writing chair, he cut off a piece of it as a
souvenir.
Jefferson didn’t believe in extinction. It was his opinion that
God made all species and since God was divinely perfect, the whole species just
didn’t die out because God made them.
In the 1780s, Jefferson was traveling through the Piedmont
region of Italy. He wanted to acquire some Italian rice and take it back to
South Carolina, but it was illegal to take rice outside the country. So when no
one was looking, Jefferson grabbed some rice seeds and stuffed them in his
pockets. Rice still grows very well in South Carolina.
Jefferson suffered from social phobia. John Adams once said
about Jefferson, “During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never
heard him utter three sentences together.”
When he was elected President, he wrote out his inauguration
speech but had someone else read it. He “made” only two speeches during his
presidency and both were inauguration speeches.
When he moved to the White House, Jefferson brought a herd of 40
sheep along with him and kept them in what is today’s President Square, the
park in front of the White House.
Among the herd was a large Shetland ram who was Jefferson’s
pride and joy, but no one knows why. The ram was a nasty, notoriously
aggressive animal. The ram had four horns instead of two. It was stubborn,
territorial, and threatening towards other sheep and people before killing a
young child.
He rammed one man so hard for trespassing through the
President’s Square, the guy couldn’t walk for a month. A local boy also made
the mistake of walking across the park and the ram crashed into him so hard, he
killed him.
After that incident, Jefferson sent the ram back to Monticello,
where the ram was kept separate from the other sheep. But it broke down the
fence and killed several of the other sheep, including his own lambs. Jefferson
finally ordered the ram killed.