SCHENECTADY — Six-inch strands of white hair — looped and tied with a piece of thread, folded into a letter and sealed in an envelope — were tucked into a worn red leather almanac published in 1793, and closed with a metal clasp.

The hair went undiscovered for a century.

This hidden time capsule of ephemera sat unnoticed amid a large archival collection comprising old books and rare manuscripts tightly packed on shelves at Union College’s Schaffer Library.

The hair was found recently during an inventory review. Imagine the archivist’s surprise when the strands turned out to be the hair of George Washington, first president of the United States, whose likeness graces the $1 bill.

John Myers, catalog and metadata librarian, made the discovery. “He was very excited. It’s not the kind of thing you run into every day,” said Dan Michelson, a historical records project archivist who flagged the well-worn red leather almanac for further examination but did not open the clasp and unlock the mystery.

The hair was given as a keepsake to James A. Hamilton, third son of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and his wife, Eliza Schuyler Hamilton. The almanac also concealed a folded 1804 Schuyler family letter.

Alexander and Eliza Hamilton, popularized in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop Broadway hit “Hamilton,” were married in 1780 at the Schuyler Mansion in Albany’s South End. Washington was a close friend of the prominent family and spent several nights at the Schuyler Mansion. The envelope was inscribed: “Washington’s hair, L.S.S. & GBS from James A Hamilton given by his mother, Aug. 10, 1871.”

The keepsake Washington locks were later handed down from James A. Hamilton to his granddaughters, Louisa Lee Schuyler and Georgina Schuyler.

College officials sent photographs of the hair, letter, envelope and almanac to John Reznikoff, a noted manuscripts and documents dealer in Westport, Conn. He is considered the nation’s foremost authority on hair from historical figures. He had no doubt of its authenticity.

“Without DNA, you’re never positive, but I believe it’s 100 percent authentic,” Reznikoff told a college official. He is regularly called as an expert witness in legal proceedings regarding contested documents. He also is listed in the Guinness World Records book for owning the largest collection of hair from notable figures including Napoleon, Washington, Lincoln and Beethoven.

“There’s no reason to suspect the hair is not authentic,” said Heidi Hill, site manager of the state-run Schuyler Mansion. “The Washington and Schuyler families were close friends. Locks of hair were given out frequently as mementos in that era, the way you’d give a photograph today.”

In fact, a gold-trimmed glass pendant containing locks of Washington’s hair is displayed in the visitors center of the Schuyler Mansion. The historic site has enjoyed a surge of visitors due to the excitement generated by the record-setting Broadway musical. Hill calls it “the Hamilton effect.”

“I’m fascinated that they’re still finding historic artifacts like this, and it makes me wonder what else is out there,” said David Hayes of Loudonville, a collector who purchased an original letter by Alexander Hamilton at a Sotheby’s auction and loaned it to the Schuyler Mansion.

Hayes also commissioned an original painting by Len Tantillo that depicts a 1783 meeting at the Schuyler Mansion between Washington, Hamilton and his father-in-law, Gen. Philip Schuyler, which he also loaned to the mansion. “This is another great example of the rich history Albany has with the Founding Fathers.”

“The discovery is an affirmation of the richness of our archival collection and of Union’s link to the early history of America,” said India Spartz, head of special collections and archives at Union. Founded in 1795, Union became the first college chartered by the Board of Regents of New York and is one of the oldest non-denominational colleges in the country.

The Schuyler family patriarch, Revolutionary War hero Gen. Philip Schuyler, is one of Union’s founders. Schuyler lobbied to establish the college in Schenectady rather than in Albany. Schuyler’s portrait hangs in Hale House dining hall on campus. Schuyler’s great-grandson, Robert Livingston Schuyler, presented the painting at Union’s first Founders Day on Feb. 27, 1937.

One aspect of the mystery remains intact: There is no documentation as to when Union acquired the almanac that contained Washington’s hair and the family letter. The book is the “Gaines Universal Register or American and British Kalendar for the year 1793,” a compendium of population estimates for the American colonies, members of Congress and other measures of the young republic. The book is also filled with scrawled notations in the hand of Gen. Schuyler’s son, Philip Jeremiah Schuyler.

The book was inscribed to Schuyler as “a present from his friend Mr. Philip Ten Eycke New York April 20, 1793.”

College officials and Hill speculated that the items may have been donated to Union by Schuyler descendants in the early part of the 20th century, perhaps for the inaugural Founders Day that honored the Schuyler family.

“A lot of these objects were donated around that time because the families of the Founding Fathers were feeling squeezed out by nouveau riche American society,” Hill said. “Donating historic artifacts was a way for these families to reassert their prominence.”

Paul Grondahl is the director of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany and a former Times Union reporter. He can be reached at grondahlpaul@gmail.com