Theodore Roosevelt’s taxidermy kit Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children and elder son of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831–1878) and Martha “Mittie” Bulloch (1835–1884). Roosevelt had an older sister, Anna “Bamie” Roosevelt, and two younger siblings: Elliott Bulloch Roosevelt (the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt) and Corinne Roosevelt.
Sickly and asthmatic as a child, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early years, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was hyperactive and often mischievous. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal’s head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the “Roosevelt Museum of Natural History”. Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled “The Natural History of Insects”.