WASHINGTON, D.C. — No doubt it was an odd thing to do after a funeral. Instead of having open-faced sandwiches and coffee in the church basement, Hans Langseth’s children took out a pair of scissors and cut off their dead father’s beard before his casket, with him in it, was lowered into the ground. (As good Norwegians, the coffee and sandwiches, no doubt, came later).
Cutting the beard and saving it for posterity was actually Hans Langseth’s last wish. After all, he pretty much dedicated his entire life to growing it. Now the time had come to see just how long it had gotten.
After 62 years of growth, Langseth’s beard was measured at 17.6 feet long - a Guinness World Record for “The Longest Natural Beard Locks ever (male)” which still stands today.
A beard so long you could jump rope with it
The cut beard was tucked away in an attic for 40 years before Langseth’s family donated it to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in 1967. The beard was on display for years at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum, before it was retired and packed away again.
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But this fall, some of Langseth’s relatives will get to see those locks again. Great-great-grandson Dan Backer of New Ulm, Minnesota, along with his wife, Jeanine, plan a visit to the Smithsonian where they have received special permission to view the beard.
Backer, who is descended from Hans' daughter Emma, says he doesn't remember the first time he learned about his famous ancestor, but Hans has been part of family lore for a long time.
"When I was a fifth grader we had a show-and-tell and were supposed to say something interesting about our families. Well, I must have used this story hundreds of times. People are like 'No way!' and I have to say 'No, this is legit.' We actually have a big picture of him in our dining room on the wall because it's a great story and a great conversation piece."
So what exactly is the story of Backer's great-great-grandfather Hans Langseth, the man better known by some as "King of Whiskers?"
From Norway to North Dakota
Langseth was born in Norway in 1846 and immigrated to the United States when he was 21. He settled in Iowa, where he built a life with his young bride Anna Berntsen, The couple had six children before Anne died in 1891. She was only 40. For whatever reason, the family moved north. The 1900 census shows Langseth and at least one son living in Elkton Township in Clay County, Minnesota (about 20 miles southeast of Moorhead).
By 1910, they had moved to Antelope, Richland County, North Dakota (about 20 miles west of Wahpeton), where Langseth farmed. But Hans was getting known for more than growing crops. That beard of his was something else. It had been growing since he was 19 and had entered a beard-growing contest back in Norway.
There is no information on whether he won anything in that contest but he never stopped trying. Backer says he doesn't know what motivated his great-great-grandfather to keep growing his beard.
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"I don't remember anyone in the family really talking about that," he says.
By the turn of the 20th century the beard was getting to be several feet long. In a story about Langseth in Smithsonian Magazine , physical and forensic anthropologist Dr. David Hunt said because beard hair can only grow about 4 or 5 feet before dying off, Langseth matted the dead hair together in a coil, like dreadlocks, to further lengthen and strengthen the beard. Then he’d roll it around a corncob and carry it in a pouch around his neck or tuck it into his clothing.
In this rare film of Langseth, he demonstrates how he rolled up his beard, played jump rope with it, and even used it for fishing line.
He eventually toured with a sideshow exhibition, where he went by the name of "King of Whiskers." The show traveled throughout the United States and Backer says it appears the show even visited Europe. According to family members, Langseth later quit his sideshow job because he didn’t like people pulling on his beard insisting it was fake. But he did like it when the Fat Lady washed it.
In 1922, Langseth entered another “Longest Beard” contest in Sacramento, California. He finished first. The beard measured 17 feet at that point. Langseth died just 5 years later and seemingly his beard had grown another 6 inches to reach the record-breaking mark of 17.6 feet.
However, Backer and the rest of the family say his beard was actually closer to 18-and-a-half feet long, since the son who cut the beard left his dad with about a 12-inch beard as he lay in the casket. Backer doesn't quite know why, but perhaps the family didn’t want him buried clean shaven as they only knew him with a beard.
"Maybe it was a sign of respect to leave him with a beard of some kind," Backer says.
While he spent his final years in Barney, North Dakota, Langseth is buried alongside his wife in Kensett, Iowa.
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The Smithsonian Institution, one of America's greatest museums, might be the perfect resting place for Langseth's beard. After all, it's a physical manifestation of history itself - an actual timeline of one pioneer's life. The dark hair at the tip reflects his days as a young farmer. Smithsonian anthropologists actually found little wheat kernels in some of the dreadlocks.
Then the beard lightens as it reaches his face - the stark white hair of an old Norwegian-American farmer who endured the challenges of life working prairie land through drought, infestation and flooding.
Backer says he's looking forward to visiting the Smithsonian this fall, where officials have been nice enough to get them special access to see the famous locks up close. He says knowing about the beard and even seeing it in person is one more step in keeping this family tradition alive.
"For Christmas a couple of years ago, I gave all three of my kids a photograph of him in a frame, " Backer says. "I put who he is on the back because I want this to live on. We don't tell stories anymore. They get forgotten. This is a great, fun piece for my kids to talk about their great-great-great-grandfather. We need to remember our history."
STEP BACK IN TIME WITH TRACY BRIGGS
Hi, I'm Tracy Briggs. Thanks for reading my column! I love going "Back Then" every week with stories about interesting people, places and things from our past. Check out a few below. If you have an idea for a story, email me at tracy.briggs@forumcomm.com.
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