In my last post, I wrote about the famous pastor and orator of Plymouth Church who adopted a little boy’s cat from Indiana and named her Hoosier Cat. I also posted the words of an essay that he penned on cats in the Christian Union in 1870.
I just found another cat essay by Mr. Beecher from 1869 that I simply must share. I believe this essay is even better than the one he wrote in 1870.
Henry Ward Beecher was an American clergyman, social reformer, and speaker known for his support of the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, to name just a few of his passionate causes. Imagine my surprise when I learned that he was also a cat man!
Dr. Ralph Irving Lloyd was an eye doctor who also had an eye for cats.
In the early 1900s, Lloyd created dozens of lantern slides of cats in his Park Slope neighborhood, where he lived for a good chunk of his 93 years of life.
A librarian recently asked me what makes an old news story worthy of further research and posting on my website. I told her that not only does it need to be a great animal tale, but it must also be a good people story or have ties to interesting historical buildings or events. The following story about a deaf New York Post Office cat and the deaf postal worker who loved him meets all my criteria for a fabulous animal story of Old New York. Sit back and enjoy.
Join me on Wednesday, June 9, at 7 p.m. (ET), for a virtual trip back in time to explore New York City’s history via amazing stories about theatrical cats, flying feline mascots, famous hotel cats, and other fabulous felines that made the news headlines in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
