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CHALLENGE MATCH THE TRESSES Unlock the puzzle of presidents' hair

February 18, 2007 12:50 am

(Story contains clues.)

The hair looks a bit like a bird's nest, a rusty red clump.

Once this hair blazed atop the presidential head of Thomas Jefferson. But at his death a lock was clipped off and wrapped in white parchment.

A note was made in fine handwriting, in iron gall ink:

Thomas Jefferson

Monticello July 4th 1826

cut by Nicholas Philip Trist immediately after T.J.'s death

Eventually, the hair came to reside in Fredericksburg, where it was labeled, catalogued, placed in a plastic bag and stored in a drawer at the James Monroe Museum.

It's just one of several presidential hair samples to be found in city museum collections.

In honor of Presidents Day, we give you this short summary of the other First Locks of Fredericksburg :

George Washington's hair sleeps here.

There's a Washington hair brooch in the collection at historic Kenmore, the mansion of George Washington's Fredericksburg Foundation.

And Fredericksburg Masonic Lodge 4, A.F. & A.M., owns a strand of Washington hair, currently on display at the Fredericksburg Area Museum.

James Monroe is rightly represented in the Monroe Museum's hair archives. Clippings of his brownish hair, and the darker hair of his wife, Elizabeth, rest in gilded wooden frames.

Also at the Monroe Museum is a lock of John Tyler's smooth gray hair. It was made into mourning jewelry with overlapping loops enclosed in a postage stamp-size brass frame with corner studs of jet or onyx.

And finally, the Monroe Museum owns a few wispy strands from Millard Fillmore's salt-and-pepper head. There's not much Fillmore hair, but what's there is carefully gathered into a piece of green ribbon and crimped with brass.

The hair samples aren't big tourism draws, museum officials say.

They're not even on regular display at the Monroe Museum, said curator Meghan Budinger, though Jefferson's and Monroe's locks probably will be included in a display of collection curiosities to open this spring.

The existence and careful preservation of early presidential hair is only partly because of the prominence of the heads on which it grew.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, locks of hair cut from living heads were commonly bestowed as tokens of love and remembrance.

Sometimes hair clippings were gifts of romantic love, but not always. Parents treasured locks from their children, siblings from siblings and friends from friends.

People also cut strands from the heads of the recently deceased, and this hair was frequently made into mourning jewelry, worn close to the heart as a tangible reminder of the dearly departed.

The practice was popular because cut hair can last seemingly forever, retaining its color and condition.

"It's a tangible, personal and physical connection" to another, said David Voelkel, former curator of both the Monroe Museum and GWFF collections. He's now curator of the art collection of the commonwealth of Virginia.

By the beginning of the 20th century, hair jewelry was fading from vogue in favor of a more modern form of remembrance, the increasingly accessible photograph.

These days, carefully preserving locks of presidents past has a decidedly creepy vibe to it.

"It creeps a lot of people out," Voelkel said, "the Jefferson hair especially, because it's a big old ball."

Hair jewelry, presidential or otherwise, seems a little distasteful because it's meant to be worn next to the skin.

"We look at things from a sanitation standpoint," Voelkel said. But in earlier centuries, he said, "They didn't think about germs. For them, hair was not a waste product."

Laura Moyer: 540/374-
Email: 5417lmoyer@freelancestar.com