At his inauguration how many of his original teeth did George Washington have?

When George Washington opened his mouth 225 years ago at New York’s Federal Hall to take the oath as the first president of the United States, he wore awkward-fitting, painful, face-disfiguring dentures. For years, he had suffered from dental problems; that morning he had swollen, burning gums and only a single original tooth in his mouth that he lost in 1796. He wore a particular set of dentures during the last nine years of his life. They clacked and creaked open and shut on tight wire springs.

Folklore notwithstanding, Washington’s false teeth were not wooden but gold, ivory and human. Washington strove, in life, to resemble a monument. This was important to his self-esteem and, he believed, to the dignity and credibility of his fledgling nation. To him, the dentures were a mortifying sign of weakness. (For years, Washington’s dentures were kept out of public view to avoid marring his image; they are now a popular attraction at Mount Vernon’s excellent museum.)