About outstanding hair and true to his word Valentina Tapley (3 photos)

“A man’s beard adorns him.” So said the performer of a simple song. But many years after the death of this character. Which, of course, was decorated not only with outstanding vegetation, but also with loyalty to this word.





Valentine Tapley (1829-1910) was a wealthy Missouri farmer and a Democrat through and through. The man took an oath that if the Republican Abraham Lincoln, who he ardently hated, became President of the United States, he would not shave for the rest of his life.



Abraham Lincoln

It should be noted that the man began his outstanding project, which went down in history, long before the 1860 elections. According to Tapley himself, his stubble began to grow at the age of 13. The teenager refused to use the razor. And by the age of 20, he could already boast of such a long beard that while working he had to braid it and hide it under his shirt.

Then he began to wrap the braid around his waist. And as a result, he acquired a special silk bag in which he packed his outstanding vegetation.

By the time Lincoln was elected in 1860, Tapley's beard had already reached six feet (about 1.8 meters). Given this, his vow to never shave was hardly an ordeal. When Tapley's beard reached eight feet, it was recognized as the longest in the world. Tapley was offered to take part in an exhibition at a London museum for the impressive sum of 5 thousand dollars (or more than 125 thousand dollars in today's money). He proudly refused the generous offer.

Tapley was very proud of his unusual facial hair. True, it interfered with some types of work related to fire.

Interestingly, Tapley was not the only man in his area who took such astonishing measures with regard to his vegetation. A local judge who moved to the area after participating in the 1849 California Gold Rush, Elijah Gates, also grew a seven-foot beard.

Most of the time, bearded men kept the object of their justifiable pride under their clothes. But a couple of times a year they removed it to please the public.



Valentine Tapley

After Lincoln's election, Tapley kept his word. At the time of his death (the stubborn old man died in 1910 at the age of 80), the beard reached 12 feet (3.65 meters). And the farmer wore it, wrapping it around his waist or hanging it over his shoulders.

Shortly before his death, he developed paranoia. The only one sincerely believed that after death the object of his pride would definitely be cut off and stolen. And he demanded that his relatives promise that they would bury him in a specially reinforced coffin.