Q&A with Jack: How come Mr. Lincoln's bed is so tall??

I recently received a reader Letter:

Hey Jack,

I recently was a guest at the White House and stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom. You know how it features a bed that's about 12' tall?? What gives?

Curious

Well, Curious, that's a great question. I did some crack research and if you're ready.... boys and girls, here's the story:

It turns out that after several years of saving, Mary Todd Lincoln bought a very nice bed at a fine bed mercantile and as the mattress quickly got a dip in it, was forced to use her warranty to replace it with another mattress. The Lincolns returned to the mercantile to choose another bed.

Soon after, that mattress got a lump in the padding and had to be replaced as well. The Lincolns had to trudge to the mercantile to find a replacement and were required to find a different brand as the original mattress was no longer manufactured.

A third mattress got a dip that exceeded the standard and was replaced shortly with an exact model replacement.

The fourth mattress got a lump in the padding and was replaced when, yet again, the Lincolns were forced to choose a new model.

The fifth was fantastic. Both Mary and Abe loved the bed and had a good few years of nice sleeping on it until one day, dammit, someone spilled coffee on it and the mattress cover company was unable to remove the stain so they replaced the mattress (much to the chagrin of the Lincolns who cried the night they found out).

Once more the couple went to the mercantile, forced to find another model with which to replace the beloved bed. They found a lovely one that came from the Simmons Beautyrest Black line... a top of the line plush pillowtop with the most incredible support, yet due to the top it felt as if they floated on it each night.

Then they got a job in Washington and had to move.

When they got to the new digs (which you'd have figured someone could've taken the time to paint some color other than white!!) they found the sidewall of the mattress had popped out a bit. They each knew it would be an easy fix that either could have done with a simple needle and thread, but alas, to fix it would be to void the ever-important warranty.

With much hesitation, they contacted the store whose service area they now were no longer in and who told the Lincolns that they had to contact the manufacturer directly.

The manufacturer sent a representative to the bland house to make a report on the bed and he concluded that, indeed, the warranty would replace the mattress.

The kicker this time, however, was that the manufacturer told the Lincolns that they would not be swapping out the mattresses - but rather they could keep and/or dispose of the mattress in question at their leisure. 

The Lincolns, knowing a good thing, decided that a $3000 mattress is nothing to toss away so they got out the needle and thread, fixed the mattress, and had the new mattress (complete with warranty intact) delivered to them.

As they had no spare room at the time (no, they could not use the 'blue room') they had no idea what could be done with the (now) extra mattress and so they decided rather than risk bed-bugs or other storage woes, they would simply stack the mattresses until another solution presented itself.

The result of stacking two 16" mattresses on one another (on top of an 8" foundation) was a bed that required step ladders to get into.

Alas, dear reader, the worst part was the gag that the kitchen staff at the white house played on Mrs. Lincoln when they put a pea underneath the mattress robbing her of at least three nights' sleep before she realized the problem.

And that is how the Lincoln bed came to be so tall.

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