#dick the mockingbird

[sulestarlight]

Alexander Hamilton: Is that a mockingbird?

Thomas Jefferson: Yes, his name is Dick. I named him after you.

[realthomasjefferson]

This is what I'd like Dick the Second the look like

[headoverhiddles]

Thomas Jefferson, original birdwatcher.

As some of you may know, Jefferson used to have a mockingbird named Dick. They would do everything together, play the violin, climb the stairs, eat, nap. 

But Thomas loved birds so fucking much.

He even kept observations of area birds in a journal around the white house, and was so enthusiastic about them that he told a friend “children should treat them as a superior being, and you should tell them [the bird] will haunt them if any harm comes to them or their eggs.” 

[macaron-n-cheese]

@asica-black‘s minecraft is dead now we can never finish building Monticello’s basement :(((((

[sorcerer-supreme-pizza]

Writing from Monticello in May 1793, Thomas Mann Randolph informed Jefferson in Philadelphia of the advent of the first resident mockingbird, and Jefferson responded with his well-known tribute to Mimus polyglottos: "I sincerely congratulate you on the arrival of the Mocking bird. Learn all the children to venerate it as a superior being in the form of a bird, or as a being which will haunt them if any harm is done to itself or it's eggs. I shall hope that the multiplication of the cedar in the neighborhood, and of trees and shrubs round the house, will attract more of them: for they like to be in the neighborhood of our habitations, if they furnish cover."

From the article, "Mockingbird" Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, primary resource Lucia Stanton, "Snowbirds and Superior Beings," Monticello Keepsake, November 4, 1988.

[humbleegomania]

[humbleegomania]

Just realized that Jefferson was totally a Disney Princess singing duets with his pet bird.