Theodore Roosevelt Signed Manuscript on Hunting For His Famed Book On Outdoor Exploration and Adventure, With a Very Rare Sketch of His Favorite Hunting Rifle

Plus a very rare sketch of what he considered the symbol of hunting and shooting: his rifle and antlers of a moose he himself had shot

Theodore Roosevelt loved the outdoor life, and felt the most alive when out in the open air of the wilderness. Born with physical ailments, he saw these as a challenge. His son Kermit tells of TR’s trips with his children, in which he would challenge them to get from point A to point B moving only in a straight line, going around nothing, not even a river or mountain, to arrive at the destination.  In crucial moments of his life, he sought the solace of the outdoors.  When his wife and mother died, he looked to a rancher’s life in the West.  And when the tumult of politics was over and his second presidential term had passed, he again turned to the outdoors and hunting for reinvigoration. He hunted all over the world, from the old American West to the heart of Africa to Amazonia, looking for large and wild game.  On African safari immediately after leaving the White House, he gathered specimens for the Smithsonian.   In 1913, after his failed 1912 bid for the Presidency at the head of the Progressive Party ticket, Roosevelt again looked to outdoor exploration, a trip into one of the least hospitable, least known regions of the world – the heart of the Amazon. In each of these places, he took his trusty Springfield Rifle, which he had acquired as President in 1904 and which was delivered to him at the White House.

This rifle traveled with him across the Old West, on safari in Africa, and down the Amazon River

In 1916, Roosevelt wrote “A Book-Lovers Holiday in the Open,” about hunting and the strenuous life outdoors in North and South America, and Africa, which he dedicated to his sons Archie and Quentin.  In the forward, he said, “The man should have youth and strength who seeks adventure in the wide, waste spaces of the earth….He must be a helmsman and chief, the cragsman, the rifleman, the boat steerer.”  The forward is a challenge to embrace the outdoors life and live unencumbered.  “The beauty and charm of the wilderness lie close beside the beaten roads of present…The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.”

This book was a tour de force, a testament to his accomplishments as hunter and explorer.  He discussed cougar hunts, travels across the Navajo desert, his wild hunting companions, and animals he had hunted.  He listed only two illustrations inside the book and they related to each other: one is an image of antlers of a moose he had shot in September 1915, and the other of him proudly holding his Springfield Rifle, which he listed by serial number as 6000.   This is the rifle he took with him to Brazil and also to Africa, as well as the West.  It traveled the world with him.

This is his original signed manuscript created for his book, in which he sketches the antlers and the rifle (as included in the book), and below describes the rifle and the game he has used it to hunt.

Autograph Manuscript Signed, no date but late 1915, entitled “Tail Piece” with instructions below, “ Photo of moose antlers with Springfield rifle across them”. Under this appears the sketch of the rifle and antlers, and below that the main text relating to the rifles and the animals.

“Antlers of moose shot September 19, 1915, with Springfield rifle No. 6000, Model 1903.

“This rifle, now a retired veteran, is not heavy enough for steady use on heavy game; but it is so handy and accurate, has such penetration, and keeps in such good order that it has been my chief hunting-rifle for the last dozen years on three continents, and has repeatedly killed heavy game. With it I have shot some three hundred head of all kinds, including the following:

“Lion, hyena, elephant, rhinoceros (square-mouthed and hook-nosed), hippopotamus, zebras of two kinds, wart-hog, giraffe, giant eland, common eland, roan antelope, oryx, wildebeest, topi, white-withered lechwe, waterbucks, hartebeests, kobs, impalla, gerenuk, gazelles, reedbucks, bushbucks, klipspringer, oribis, duikers, steinbok, dikdik, monkeys, jaguar, tapir, big peccary, giant ant-eater, capybara, wood-deer, monkey, cougar, black bear, moose, caribou, white-tail deer, crocodile, cayman, python, ostrich, bustard, wild turkey, crane, pelican, maribou, ibis, whale-head stork, jabiru stork, guinea-fowl, francolin.”

This is a remarkable testament to the breadth of his hunting experience and skill, and is also the first manuscript from one of TR’s books that we have ever carried in all these decades.