May it be long before Muff’s gracious personality requires an epitaph, but when that time comes, the following lines will apply to him as fitly as to the one for whom they were written, the poet Whittier’s cat, Bathsheba:“Whereat none said ‘Scat!’Better cat never satOn a mat, or caught a rat,Than this cat. Requiescat!”–Famous Pets […]
Archive for the ‘Featured Felines’ Category
1886: General Muff, the Sophisticated Literary Cat of New York’s Upper East Side
Posted: 28th August 2015 by The Hatching Cat in Cat Stories, Featured FelinesTags: 505 Park Avenue, Cat Stories, Henry Clay Overin, Mary Louise Booth, Mineola Garage, New York History, Upper East Side
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1914: Bendola Bailey, the Brooklyn Cat That Starred on Broadway
Posted: 2nd April 2015 by The Hatching Cat in Cat Stories, Featured FelinesTags: 88 Joralemon Street, Clara N. Bailey, New York History, Philip Livingston, The Garden of Paradise, William Nungasser
In Scene VII of The Garden of Paradise by Edward Sheldon, the Queen of the South asks her page to fetch her kitten, Pandora, from the garden. In this cameo role, the kitten is carried on stage, placed on a thrown, and almost stepped on as the Queen tries to escape from a planned marriage […]
1893: The Tombs’ Black Cat That Befriended Prisoners on Murderers’ Row
Posted: 12th October 2014 by The Hatching Cat in Cat Stories, Featured FelinesTags: Carlyle W. Harris, Collect Pond, Helen Potts, Murderers' Row, New York History, The Tombs
A creepy true tale of scandal, murder, and a cat that made his home at The Tombs prison in Old New York.
1916: The Feline Silent Film Stars of Richmond Hill, Queens
Posted: 31st May 2014 by The Hatching Cat in Featured FelinesTags: Cat Stories, cats of silent film, Elizabeth Kingston, Empire Cat Club, Grand Central Palace, movie cats, New York History
A century before there was Grumpy Cat, Lil Bub, Street Cat Bob, and all the countless felines inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame, there were the “movie cats” that rose to stardom during the silent film era. I’m not talking about Felix the Cat, the cartoon cat that made his first appearance in 1919 […]
1904: Fitzsimmons and the Feline Police Squad of New York’s General Post Office
Posted: 13th April 2014 by The Hatching Cat in Featured FelinesTags: Cat Stories, City Hall Post Office, George W. Cook, Mullet Post Office, New York History, Old New York, post office cats, postal cats
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States government allocated funds to feed hundreds of cats that were “hired” to catch rats at post offices and other federal buildings.
