Madam DeVere

When Jane DeVere's beard was measured in 1884 at fourteen inches, it set a record that still stands. She was born in Brooksville, Kentucky in 1842. When a beard sprouted on little Jane's face, the Dime Museums beckoned and she set off on an exhibition career. She went out on the road in 1884 with Sells Brothers Circus and again in 1891. She joined the Sells' Australian tour the following year. After the turn of the century she toured with Campbell Brother's Circus (1906) and the Yankee Robinson Show in 1908.

from Michael Mitchell's Monsters: Human Freaks in the Gilded Age, published in 2002.