The girl who grew Lincoln's beard
The 16th president achieved follicular fame thanks to an 11-year-old girl
Abraham Lincoln is undoubtedly one of the most easily recognizable people in U.S. history. His height (6'4"), stovepipe hat, and beard made him stand out in a crowd and in the collective American consciousness.
Credit for part of his signature look goes to Grace Greenwood Bedell Billings. In October 1860, the 11-year-old Bedell saw a campaign photo of Lincoln and was inspired to write to him and urge him to grow a beard to improve his appearance.
Lincoln responded just a few days later.
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While he made no promises about the beard to Bedell, he stopped shaving and allowed the beard to grow not long after their exchange and was elected as the 16th president of the United States a few weeks later. On his inaugural train ride from Illinois to Washington, D.C., the president-elect stopped in Bedell's hometown of Westfield, N.Y., and asked to meet her.
As Bedell recalled the event, Lincoln "sat down with me on the edge of the station platform" and said, "'Gracie, look at my whiskers. I have been growing them for you.'" The February 19, 1861, edition of the New York World reported on Lincoln's visit, saying, "Mr. Lincoln stooped down and kissed the child, and talked with her for some minutes. Her advice had not been thrown away upon the rugged chieftain. A beard of several months' growth covers (perhaps adorns) the lower part of his face. The young girl's peachy cheek must have been tickled with a stiff whisker, for the growth of which she was herself responsible."
In 1864, when she was 15, Bedell wrote a second letter to Lincoln, asking for help getting a job with the Treasury.
Lincoln, with the Civil War weighing heavily on him by that time, either did not receive this letter or the job request mentioned in it, or simply ignored it. (Researchers found the letter above in 2007.) Bedell later married George Billings, a Union veteran of the Civil War and the couple moved to Delphos, Kansas, in 1870 or 1871. There, George farmed and later went into banking. He died in 1926 and Grace died 10 years later.
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A statue depicting Lincoln and Bedell's meeting was later erected in Westfield and a billboard placed along Highway 81 outside of Delphos, advertising it as the home of "Lincoln's Little Girl," where you can "view the Lincoln letters." In reality, Lincoln's letter to Bedell was passed to her son, George Jr. and, upon his death, was auctioned off to a private collector for $20,000. Bedell's first letter to Lincoln, meanwhile, is in the possession of the Detroit Public Library.
To mark the 150th anniversary of Bedell and Lincoln's correspondence, a short movie about Bedell was made in 2010.
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