Our Collections

Grace Bedell was born November 4, 1848. On October 15, 1860, Grace wrote a letter to the Republican presidential candidate from Illinois, urging him to grow a beard to improve his appearance.

In her letter, she wrote, “My father has just home from the fair and brought home your picture. I hope you won’t think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are… I have got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better for your face is so thin… All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.”

Lincoln responded to Grace in a letter on October 19, 1860, making no promises. However, within a month, he grew a full beard that he wore for most of the remainder of his life. During his inaugural train ride from Chicago to Washington, D.C., he made a point to stop in Westfield where he met with the 11-year-old and gave her a kiss on the check. A statue depicting the meeting is in the center of the village.

Bedell wrote a second letter to Lincoln in 1864, asking for help in gaining employment so she could support her parents. She later married George Billings, a Union veteran and moved to Kansas, where she died in 1936.

The site was about fifteen acres in size and included elm bark longhouses surrounded by a stockade, small structures, and corn fields. It had a nearby water supply and overlooked Lake Erie from its location on a high hill.

When the Erie settlement was excavated in the early 20th century, hearths, fire pits, food storage pits, single graves, and ossuaries were uncovered. Clay vessels that had been used for cooking, storing, and serving food and as containers for special burial items, were also found. The largest vessel could hold two bushels; the smallest, a teaspoon of material. The vessels were reconstructed from fragments.

It was the custom for this indigenous tribe to have two burials. The dead were first buried individually. About every fifteen years afterward, the graves would be dug up and a second burial in an ossuary was accompanied by ceremonial dancing and feasting. One Westfield ossuary contained over 100 skeletons, and another contained 50 skulls.

In addition to the pottery, hammerstones, anvils, pestles, net sinkers, gorgets, broken pipes, and beaver tooth chisels were recovered.

Also found were preserved burned corn kernels, beans, corn cobs, wild rice, acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts, chestnuts, and plum pits. Bones from deer, bear, beaver, and small mammals suggest they were meat sources.

Unlike many artifacts made by human beings in the past, projectile points were made from durable materials. Flint or chert are the most common lithic (stone) materials used in eastern North America to create projectile points – but quartz, quartzite, and obsidian were also used. The forms of these artifacts are recognizable through stylistic changes, both geographically and temporarily.

Many of the artifacts in the Heath Collection were found simply by walking through farmers’ fields after plowing. Others might have been found eroding out streambeds.