How George Washington’s teeth — from animals and maybe slaves — became an American legend
NEW YORK — Sometime in the 1790s, George Washington journeyed by horse-drawn carriage from Philadelphia to lower Manhattan. It would’ve been a miserable three-day trek over 100 miles of dirt and rock, but not as dreadful as what awaited him at the end of the road.
There, at a home on William Street, the roughly 60-year-old president would have sat before a sunlit window, opened his mouth wide, and had his last remaining tooth twisted out by a dentist who later turned it into a trinket.
No anesthesia. No comfortable dentist chair. Pliers. A rocking motion, a twist or two. Out.
The tooth survives to this day — the one piece of Washington, aside from hair clippings, that’s still above ground — as does a denture that was crafted with a hole to accommodate
