Lincoln Beard

Do you know the story behind Abraham Lincoln's Beard? On October 15, 1860, Grace Bedell (age 11) wrote a letter to the Republican nominee outlining her plan to help him win the upcoming presidential election. It reads, in part:

'I have yet got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a greal better for your face is so thin.'

Until then, the frontier lawyer had lived a clean-shaven life, apparently aiming for a statelier look than Bedell gave him credit for.

He bagan growing his facial hair shortly after.

The whiskers have since become inseparable from the memory of the man; no card-carrying Lincoln impersonator leaves home without them!