Did George Washington really have wooden teeth?
The 1st President of the United States was a man of mystery, but did George Washington really have wooden teeth? How much truth is there to this peculiar rumour?
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Many of us are familiar with the iconic image of George Washington on the United States one-dollar bill. The 1st POTUS’s tight-lipped grimace and jutting chin appear to epitomise the steely resolve long associated with the hero of the American Revolution.
However, there’s a darker, more tragic truth behind this distinctive pose. For decades, Washington suffered a litany of dental problems - from toothache to inflamed gums. By the time of his presidency, he was wearing full dentures so ill-fitting they distorted the shape of his face.
Washington lost so many teeth, it gave rise to a peculiar myth - one taught as fact to generations of schoolchildren. So, did George Washington really have wooden teeth? We at Sky HISTORY cannot tell a lie, so we decided to see if we could trace the origin of the legend.
Washington’s early dental struggles
Washington was highly conscious of his dental health from an early age. From his twenties onwards, he splashed out on toothbrushes, toothpastes, tooth powders and mouthwash. Still, his dental health could only be as good as his dentist and contemporary dentistry was a very different beast to that of today.
If a patient complained of problems with a particular tooth, the go-to solution would be to have it removed. The concept of adding caps and fillings to restore damaged teeth to their former glory simply wasn’t a thing back then. And so it was that Washington had his first tooth extraction at 24.
At the time, Washington was a member of the Virginia Regiment fighting for British interests in the French and Indian War. Over the course of the war, Washington continued to suffer dental issues. An aide remarked in 1760: ‘His mouth is large and generally firmly closed, but which from time to time discloses some defective teeth’.
Why were the young soldier’s pearly whites so brittle? Washington himself reportedly blamed a childhood habit of cracking walnuts with his teeth. Washington also contracted smallpox in 1751, when the condition was commonly treated with mercury, notorious for its terrible effect on the teeth.
Washington turns to dentures
In an age when physically unattractive people were often assumed to be morally dubious, Washington couldn’t simply leave his gappy teeth exposed. So, did Washington have wooden teeth to fill those gaps? Not quite. By the 1780s, he was wearing partial dentures, but no wood was involved.
Instead, the dentures Washington wore throughout his later life comprised a mixture of gold, brass and lead. As gruesome as it may sound today, the dentures also included actual teeth from both humans and animals along with ivory from hippopotamuses.
On the day of George Washington’s first inauguration as President of the United States in 1789, only one of his original teeth remained in place. As a result, he wore dentures made with a hole designed to accommodate this extant tooth. Overall, Washington is known to have had at least four sets of dentures during his life.
Did George Washington have wooden teeth at all?
There is certainly no evidence that he did. Even in the 18th century, wood would not have been considered the most practical choice of material for fake gnashers. However, there have been a few theories about how the myth of Washington’s wooden teeth originally sprung up.
One is that it is derived from the surname of John Greenwood, the dentist responsible for many of Washington’s dentures. Over time, references to ‘Greenwood’s teeth’ may have been misinterpreted as ‘wooden teeth’.
Another, more widely accepted theory is that, as Washington was fond of drinking port, this wine could have increasingly stained his dentures. To casual observers’ untrained eyes, these darkened dentures may have looked wooden, especially if the wine seeped into hairline cracks, creating a ‘woodgrain’ effect.
When Washington’s dentures needed adjustment, he tended to send them to Greenwood. In 1798, Greenwood wrote back insisting that the dentures needed cleaning more often, as they had become ‘very black’. He warned the president that ‘port wine being sour takes off all the polish’.
Where can you see George Washington’s dentures today?
So, there you have it - the whole story of Washington’s wooden teeth was likely just down to a simple misunderstanding. You can see one complete set of Washington’s dentures on display today at Mount Vernon, the president’s former residence turned historical landmark in Virginia.
Did George Washington have wooden teeth? We now know that he didn’t, but you can delve into true stories about the 1st POTUS by subscribing to the Sky HISTORY newsletter.
