College finds president’s hair

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. » Tucked in the pages of a grimy, leather-bound almanac in the archives at New York’s Union College was a tiny envelope with the handscrawled words “Washington’s hair.”

A librarian who had been cataloging old books gingerly opened the yellowed envelope to find a lock of silvery hair tied with a thread.

“It was one of those mind-blowing moments that happen every once in awhile in a librarian’s life,” said John Myers, a catalog and metadata librarian at the college. “I thought, that doesn’t mean George Washington, does it?” It apparently does. While college officials can’t say for sure it’s the real deal, the historical evidence is there. The hair was discovered in a pocketsized almanac for the year 1793 that belonged to Philip J. Schuyler, son of General Philip Schuyler, who served under Washington during the Revolutionary War and founded Union College in 1795.

Susan Holloway Scott, an independent scholar and author, said locks of hair were frequently given as gifts during Washington’s day and it’s likely Martha Washington gave the snip of her husband’s hair to Eliza Schuyler, daughter of the general and wife of Alexander Hamilton.

Eliza passed it on to her son, James A. Hamilton, as noted by the handwriting on the envelope: “from James A. Hamilton given him by his mother, Aug. 10, 1871.”

A prominent collector of celebrity hair believes it’s truly a relic of the nation’s first president.

“There’s no doubt in my mind it’s genuine,” said John Reznikoff, founder of University Archives in Westport, Connecticut. And Reznikoff knows hair. His personal collection of 150 locks includes a brain-speckled strand plucked from Abraham Lincoln’ s fatal wound, a voodoo charm

made from Jimi Hendrix’s hair and sartorial samples from Albert Einstein, John F. Kennedy, Napoleon, Marilyn Monroe and, of course, George Washington.

India Spartz, head of special collections and archives at Union, called the hair “a very significant treasure” that will eventually be displayed at the liberal arts college.

Union has no plans to put the hair through DNA testing, in part because it could destroy part of the lock.

Reznikoff said hair locks are typically authenticated through examination of associated artifacts and historical connections rather than by DNA testing because genetic tests aren’t always reliable without the hair’s root attached and the possible contamination of DNA from multiple people who likely handled the hair.

“Most hair locks stand or fail on the basis of written provenance,” Reznikoff said. “So one needs really to consult with document experts rather than scientists.”

For librarian Myers, he’s still coming to grips with what he found during an otherwise mundane December day.

“It’s not nearly as significant as finding some obscure medieval manuscript from some important author,” he said. “But in the context of a small upstate college, this is, like wow! Kind of exciting!”

MARY ESCH — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS In this photo, an old almanac that contained a lock of George Washington’s hair lay open on a table at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. The hair was found by a Union College librarian who was cataloging books in the college’s archival collection.

MARY ESCH — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS In this photo, India Spartz, left, head of special collections and archives at Union College, and librarian John Myers look at an old almanac from the college archives in Schenectady, N.Y. The almanac was found to contain a lock of George Washington’s...

MARY ESCH — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS In this photo, a lock of George Washington’s hair and the envelope that contained it are seen on a table in the Union College library in Schenectady, N.Y. John Myers, the college’s catalog and metadata librarian, discovered the hair strands in a...

MARY ESCH — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS In this photo, a lock of George Washington’s hair discovered in an old book at Union College’s archives lay on a folded piece of paper at the college’s Schenectady, N.Y. campus. John Myers, the college’s catalog and metadata librarian, discovered the...