Historic documents are hard to interpret. Torn. Faded. Handwriting that is almost impossible to read. Washington's journal was no different. The cramped ant crawl of his penscript. Just a string of knots and loops. Cockled paper. Bleeding ink. But here's what we know. On many of the pages in which the word "tooth" or "teeth" also appears, graphologists have established the word "timber," often alongside a shorter word, of which only the first two letters, the "w" and the "o," are consistently legible (and which, in the past, was wrongly deciphered as the word "wood"). It is now known, unequivocally, that Washington's dentures were fashioned from animal teeth, which, becoming stained over time (not with wine, I assure you), acquired a grained, wood-like appearance, misleading later observers (just as the word "timber" maybe misled graphologists).
At various points during his presidency, Washington's mouth is said to have contained the wide, flat teeth of a cow, a camel, a horse, a sheep, and a goat. Herbivores, all. But in the summer of '77, the summer the fighting turned, the general's keen teeth came from but one beast. A four letter word beginning with w-o that is not wood.
They say, too, that Washington's dentures changed the shape of his face. This was never truer than during the latter half of the war. When those cursed canines made his lips curl, his ears prick, made the front of face slope forward like the snout of a dog.
