Hans Langseth

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Hans N. Langseth

Hans Nielsen Langseth (born July 14, 1846 in Eidsvoll , Norway , † November 10, 1927 in Barney , North Dakota , USA ) holds the record for the longest measured hair length on a beard .

Life

Hans Langseth was born on July 14, 1846, the fourth of five children to Nils Olsen Langseth and Marthe Gulbrandsen. In 1867 he emigrated from Norway to the USA. In 1870 he married Anna Benson and moved with her to Kensett Township , Worth County , Iowa . When his wife died at the age of 40, six months after giving birth to their youngest child, Peter, he and his children moved to Glyndon , Clay County , Minnesota .

He worked as a farmer for most of his life , but later in life toured the US with a circus . As “King Whiskers”, a so-called freak , he showed himself to the paying audience with his beard. After a while he got tired of people who questioned the authenticity of his beard, saying they had to pull on it.

In old age, Langseth decided to cut off his beard, but left a stately full beard about 30  centimeters long and two strands of full length. Langseth used to wear these wrapped around his body under a vest .

Langseth moved again to Barney, North Dakota, where he died on November 10, 1927 at the age of 81. He was buried in this place. His family had the strands of beard cut off and packed in a chest. The hair length is 5.33  meters and was bequeathed to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington in 1967 . Langseth's body was later reburied in Elk Creek Church Cemetery in Kensett, Worth County, Iowa.

According to his granddaughter Alma Langseth Richards, the beard had its origin in a bet between Langseth and a neighbor about who could grow the longer beard over the winter. Langseth won the bet and continued to grow his beard.

literature

  • Carolyn Mirich: Crown Prince of the Whiskerinos: Zachary Taylor Wilcox and the Days of '49 Celebration, Sacramento, 1922. BookSurge Publishing, North Charleston, SC 2006, ISBN 978-1-4196-3086-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ 1 June 1900 1900 Census, MN, Family History Center, LDS, ED 304, Elkton Township, sheet 11, line 53, taken 29 Jun 1900.
  2. ↑ Western Minnesota Steamthreshers Association and the Red River Valley Historical Society, Clay County Family Album: A History of Rural Clay County (Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing Company, 1976), "Elkton Township: Hans Nilson and Anna Langseth," p. 188.
  3. ↑ On June 29, 1900, he was a farmer in Elkton Township , Clay County, Minnesota.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Langseth, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Langseth, Hans Nielsen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bearer of the longest beard in the world
DATE OF BIRTH July 14, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Oathful
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 1927
Place of death Barney, North Dakota