Why did Abraham Lincoln grow a beard?
Because in 1860, when Lincoln was running for President, an 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell from Westfield, NY, wrote him a letter encouraging him to (she said he thought it would make his thin face look better). Lincoln had never had a beard before, but he grew one. (And Grace actually got to meet him when Lincoln s train stopped in Westfield on the way to Washington after he was elected.) By the way, Lincoln was the first president to have a beard. Read more about Lincoln s beard and the girl who inspired it at the Abraham Lincoln Research Site.
