Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1879 — Locks of Hair from the Heads of the Presidents. [ARTICLE]

Locks of Hair from the Heads of the Presidents.

In the Patent-Office at Washington there are many objects of interest connected with the Government and those who administered its affairs in times gone by. While examining those objects of curiosity nothing struck us so forcibly as the samples of small locks of hair taken from the heads of different Chief Magistrates, from Washington down to President Pierce, secured in a frame covered with glass. Here, is, in fact, a part and parcel of what constituted the living bodies of those illustrious individuals whose names are as familiar as household words, but who now live only in history and the remembrance of the past. The hair of Washington is nearly a pure white, fine and smooth in its appearance. ’ That of John Adams is nearly the same in color, though perhaps a little coarser. The hair of Jefferson is of a different character, being a mixture of'white and auburn, or a sandy brown, and rather coarse. In his youth Mr. Jefferson’s hair was remarkable for its bright color. The hair of Madison is coarse and of a mixed white and dark. The hair of Monroe is of a handsome dark auburn, smooth, and free from any mixture. He is the only ex-Presi-dent, excepting Pierce, whose hair has undergone no change in color. - ? The hair of John, Quincy Adams is somewhat peculiar, being coarse and of a yellowish grav in color. The hair of General Jackson is almost perfectly white, but coarse in its character, as might be supposed by those who have examined the portraits of the old hero. < v The hair of Van Buren is white and smooth in appearance. - . The hair of (reneral Harrison is a fine white ’with, a slight mixture of black. • ■ ' The hair of John Tyler is a mixture* of white and brown. The hair of James K. Polk is almost a pure white. / 1 .. “ \

The hair of General Taylor la white, with a slight mixture of brown. The halrbf Millard Fillmore .is, on the other band, brown with a slight mixture of white. The hair of Franklin Pier*ce is a dark brown, of which he had a plentiful crop. It is somewhat remarkable, that since Pierce’s time no one has thought of preserving the hair of his successors. There are vacancies in the case; but there .is no hair either of Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson or Grant fqr the inspection of futurity.— N. Y. 'telegram.