Van Dyke beard style was worn by van Dyck himself and by many of the sitters for his portraits, including King Charles I of England. The Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin also wore a Van Dyke. The Van Dyke had a revival in the 19th century and was worn by several well-known figures, including General Custer (among other styles) and the actor Monty Woolley. Colonel Sanders would also qualify as having a Van Dyke. Van Dyke beard A Van Dyke (sometimes spelled Vandyke, or Van Dyck) is a style of facial hair named after the 17th-century Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641). A
John Wesley Van Dyke oil leases in Venango County, Pennsylvania. Van Dyke was hired as an engineer by Standard Oil’s Long Island Refinery in the mid-1870s. In 1879, Standard Oil purchased the Sone & Fleming Refinery in Brooklyn, New York and Van Dyke was made plant manager. John Van Dyke was sent to Lima, Ohio in 1886 to manage the newly formed Solar Refinery. Charged with finding a way to remove the sulfur from Ohio’s crude oil, John D. Rockefeller teamed Van Dyke with German chemist, Herman Frasch. Frasch successfully devised the necessary chemistry while Van Dyke invented a hollow water-cooled drive shaft for