Tag Archives: Campbell House is going to the dogs

Campbell Kids » Campbell House Goes to the Dogs

James’ young col­lies in Cam­bridge, MA. The sol­id brown one on the right is named Guy.

This Fri­day is Bring Your Dog to Work Day, and although we don’t want our staff’s pooches traips­ing through the rose gar­den, track­ing mud through the house and drool­ing on guests that come to the door, dogs have a long his­to­ry at Camp­bell House.

The Camp­bells loved their dogs, par­tic­u­lar­ly the youngest adult son James. He immor­tal­ized them not only in his Jules Lefeb­vre (pro­nounced “luh-FEV-ruh”) por­trait that hangs in the Library, but he also had pic­tures tak­en of them. Lots of pic­tures. After grad­u­at­ing from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty, James attend­ed Har­vard from 1886 through 1888 for law school. The pic­ture to the right cap­tured his beloved pair of col­lies in the dri­ve­way of his Cam­bridge home. (Awwww…)

After he grad­u­at­ed from Har­vard, James and his broth­ers Hugh and Hazlett took an extend­ed trip to Europe. Of course, the pups went along for the ride:

Pups on the bal­cony in Geneva.….

…stand­ing guard at the door­way to the Hotel Con­ra­di in Italy, and…

…sit­ting nice­ly for the cam­era in an unknown Euro­pean location.

The Camp­bells weren’t the only folks in his­to­ry who were wild about their pooches. A black New­found­land accom­pa­nied Lewis and Clark on their trek west. Cap­tain Meri­wether Lewis bought Sea­man the pup for $20 in Pitts­burgh before the expe­di­tion in 1803 while he was wait­ing for the boats to be completed.

The 1400-pound sculp­ture of Sea­man that sits at Sea­man’s Over­look in Wash­burn, North Dako­ta. (Sea­man is also fea­tured in a stat­ue of Lewis & Clark in St. Louis next to the Eads Bridge!)

Robert’s friend Ulysses S. Grant also owned a New­found­land named Faith­ful, and she lived in the White House while Grant was pres­i­dent! (Since the Grant and Camp­bell fam­i­lies were close friends, the Camp­bells sure­ly spent some time with Faithful.)

Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy owned sev­er­al dogs (Char­lie, Pushin­ka, Clip­per, Shan­non, Wolf, White Tips, Black­ie and Streak­er), and he was the first pres­i­dent to request that his four-legged friends be allowed to greet him on the lawn when he arrived at the White House in the pres­i­den­tial helicopter.

Do you have a spe­cial fur­ry canine friend at home? Grab your pen­cil, paper, mark­ers and paint and make your very own por­trait! After you’re done and show your fam­i­ly, email a pic­ture of it to shel­ley [at] camp­bell­house­mu­se­um [dot] org, and we’ll post the sub­mis­sions on our blog! And you nev­er know.…we may decide to bring Har­vey and Vio­let to work next year.