George Washington, general and first president of the United States of America, died on December 18, 1799, plunging his countrymen into grief. One month later Elizabeth “Eliza” Wadsworth of Portland, ME, wrote to her father, Peleg Wadsworth, a Revolutionary War officer and Congressman in Philadelphia, “Papa I will tell you what I want-more than anything I think of at present – it is a scrap of General Washington’s hand writing… Papa, had he hair? A lock of that I should value more highly still.” Peleg Wadsworth conveyed his daughter’s wish to Martha Washington, “…will you admit the partiality of a father for his daughter in an apology for this intrusion?” Mrs. Washington complied with the request and sent Eliza the lock of hair. Eliza wrote to her father, “O Papa…My heart was so filled with thankfulness to you, and when I opened the Sacred paper with veneration and awe, that for a moment I could not even shed a tear … How shall I duly honor the relic? … I am singularly happy.”

Eliza Wadsworth died in 1802. She willed the precious relic to her sister Zilpah, requesting that it eventually be placed among the treasures of the people of Maine. Zilpah gave the lock of hair to her son, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 1850, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had the hair encased in a gold locket with an inscription about its provenance that reads “Washington’s hair given by Mrs. Washington to Miss Eliza Wadsworth April 5th 1800 Henry W. Longfellow 1850.