More than a dozen locks of Presidential hair

Before the Smithsonian Institution, the Patent Office in Washington, D.C., housed a well-known museum of American artifacts. The museum, which is officially called the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, attracted visitors who were interested in its numerous patent models and other items.

Abraham Lincoln enjoyed going to the Patent Office while he was president, frequently with his younger kids. John Varden, a museum employee, started gathering hairpieces from notable figures around 1850, including General Winfield Scott, Sam Houston, and all the Presidents from George Washington to Franklin Pierce. Varden placed newspaper ads requesting donations from people carrying hairpieces. The locks were mounted on a plaque and put on display at the museum in 1853.

Varden made a new plaque that held the presidential hairs and removed them from the original one around 1855. The Smithsonian still holds the hair plaques after receiving them from the Patent Office in 1883 along with a large portion of its museum collections. They can be viewed online, just like a lot of the collection, and are housed in the Museum of American History. The results of DNA testing on the locks have not been released, so it is unclear if they truly belong to the men they represent.