It wasn’t until the book’s fifth edition in 1806 that the cherry tree story first made an appearance. Minister and itinerant bookseller Mason Locke Weems, more popularly known as Parson Weems, was more than willing to fulfill that need and in 1800 quickly wrote and published The Life of Washington, an immediate bestseller that cemented Washington’s legendary status. When Washington died in 1799, there was a great demand around the country to learn more about our first national hero.

That sounds like a nice, uplifting story, but did it happen? Nobody knows for sure. And with those brave words, father’s anger melted away and he embraced his son, exclaiming that his honesty was worth more than a thousand trees. When his father found out about it, he was understandably angry and confronted his son, asking if he had done it, to which little George replied that yes, indeed, he had done it.

The story goes that when Washington was six years old, he received a hatchet as a gift, after which he promptly went and cut down his father’s favorite cherry tree. What is perhaps the most enduring tale is he chopped down a cherry tree when he was a boy and told his dad the truth about it, in turn gaining the moral high ground that we should all aim for. 'Father, I Can Not Tell a Lie: I Cut the Tree,'įew figures in American history are surrounded by myth as George Washington: he had wooden teeth, he was so strong he could throw a silver dollar across the Potomac, or that he wore a wig.

Cherrytree app