Algonquin (Roosevelt family pony)

The pony who rode the elevator. When Archie Roosevelt was stuck in bed with measles in 1903, his brothers Quentin and Kermit got his pony Algonquin into the White House elevator and up to the second floor of the residence to cheer him up. The White House Historical Association credits a footman, Charles Reeder, with the job of loading the pony into the elevator. Theodore Roosevelt's family kept a whole menagerie, and Algonquin is the best single window into it: a household where children treated the Executive Mansion as a family home and a president let them. Frances Benjamin Johnston's 1902 photograph shows Archie in the saddle on the grounds.