Grace Bedell

Correspondent with Abraham Lincoln

Grace Greenwood Bedell Billings (née Bedell; November 4, 1848 – November 2, 1936) was an American woman, notable as a person whose correspondence, at the age of eleven, encouraged Republican Party nominee and future president Abraham Lincoln to grow a beard. Lincoln later met with Bedell during his inaugural journey in February 1861.

Grace Bedell was born on November 4, 1848, in Albion, New York, U. S. Bedell grew up in Westfield, New York.

On October 15, 1860, a few weeks before Lincoln was elected President of the United States, Grace Bedell sent him a letter from her house at 34 Academy Street in Westfield, New York, urging him to grow a beard to improve his appearance. Lincoln responded in a letter on October 19, 1860, making no promises. However, within a month, he grew a full beard. In an 1878 interview with a local newspaper of Westfield, Grace Bedell Billings recalled what prompted her to write the letter: "We were at that time residing at Westfield, N. Y. My father, who was a staunch Republican, brought one day to me – who followed in his footsteps and was a zealous champion of Mr. Lincoln – a picture of 'Lincoln and Hamlin,' one of those coarse exaggerated likenesses which it seems the fate of our long suffering people in such contents. You are familiar with Mr. Lincoln's physiognomy, and remember the high forehead over those sadly pathetic eyes, the angular lower face with the deep cut lines about the mouth. As I regarded the picture, I said to my mother 'He would look better if he wore whiskers, and I mean to write and tell him so."

Shortly after this exchange, Lincoln allowed his beard to grow. By the time he began his inaugural journey from Illinois to Washington, D. C. by train, he had a full beard. The trip took him through New York state, and included a stop in Bedell's hometown of Westfield, New York, where thousands gathered to meet the president elect. Once there, Lincoln asked to meet Grace Bedell by name. The February 19, 1861, edition of the New York World recounted the meeting as follows: "At Westfield an interesting incident occurred. Shortly after his nomination Mr. Lincoln had received from that place a letter from a little girl, who urged him, as a means of improving his personal appearance, to wear whiskers. Mr. Lincoln at the time replied, stating that although he was obliged by the suggestion, he feared his habits of life were too fixed to admit of even so slight a change as that which letting his beard grow involved. To day, on reaching the place, he related the incident, and said that if that young lady was in the crowd he should be glad to see her. There was a momentary commotion, in the midst of which an old man, struggling through the crowd, approached, leading his daughter, a girl of apparently twelve or thirteen years of age, whom he introduced to Mr. Lincoln as his Westfield correspondent. Mr. Lincoln stooped down and kissed the child, and talked with her for some minutes. Her advice had not been thrown away upon the rugged chieftain. A beard of several months' growth covers (perhaps adorns) the lower part of his face. The young girl's peachy cheek must have been tickled with a stiff whisker, for the growth of which she was herself responsible." Bedell recalled the event years later: "He climbed down and sat down with me on the edge of the station platform," she recalled. "'Gracie,' he said, 'look at my whiskers. I have been growing them for you.' Then he kissed me. I never saw him again."

Bedell later married Union Army veteran George Billings. They eventually moved to Delphos, in Ottawa County, Kansas, in 1870 and had one son, Harlow Drake Billings, who was born on September 16, 1872. She died of natural causes at the age of 87 in 1936, two days before her 88th birthday. She was buried at Delphos Cemetery.

The anecdote became a popular children's story following Lincoln's assassination. A statue depicting a meeting between Lincoln and Bedell is located in the center of the village of Westfield, at the intersection of US 20 and NY 394. The Great Man's Whiskers, a 1972 American made for television drama film, features this story about Abraham Lincoln with Cindy Eilbacher as the young correspondent. Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers, written and illustrated by Karen B. Winnick (1996), tells the story of how 11 year old Grace Bedell wrote to Mr. Lincoln to "let (his) whiskers grow". The picture book includes the complete letters of both Grace and Lincoln. To mark the 150th anniversary of the events surrounding the letter, Mark Esslinger and Eric Burdett produced a short film, Grace Bedell (2010), starring Lana Esslinger as Grace Bedell.