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  • 2022-02-18 (xsd:date)
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  • Did George Washington Actually Chop Down a Cherry Tree? (en)
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  • A great American tale about honesty may not be all that honest. A myth surrounding George Washington, the first U.S. president and Founding Father has been debunked by contemporary historians. One of the most popular stories about Washington’s childhood is often used to teach children about honesty. The story was first published in the fifth edition of The Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington by Mason Locke Weems in 1806. It did not make it into the first version of the book that was published in 1800. The story goes: According to research published by the National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon, Weems wrote the story after Washington’s death, anticipating readers’ demand to know about the leader’s childhood. He told a publisher in 1800, Washington you know is gone! Millions are gaping to read something about him...My plan! I give his history, sufficiently minute...I then go on to show that his unparalleled rise and elevation were due to his Great Virtues. The research argued that Weems was motivated by profit, and knew readers would be curious about Washington’s private virtues, including his relationship with his father, more than his well-known public life. He was also depicting Washington as the perfect role model for young Americans. The anecdote was recast as a children’s story in school textbooks by William Holmes McGuffey. By the 1830s, it had become entrenched in American culture. In 1835, circus entrepreneur P.T. Barnum purchased Joice Heth, an enslaved Black woman, and advertised her as being Washington’s childhood nurse. She told numerous stories as a sideshow attraction, including the one about the cherry tree. According to the National Mall and Memorial Parks Service, the cherry tree story is basically unproven because Weem relied on an anonymous source for it. Weems said he got the story from an elderly woman who had been friends with the family, they wrote. Since she chose to remain anonymous it is an unreliable source. The official answer from both Ferry Farm, Washington’s childhood home where it would have occurred, and Mount Vernon, is no, it’s only a story. But, really, does it matter? Phillip Levy, a historian who excavated Ferry Farm, Washington’s childhood home, wrote in his book, Where the Cherry Tree Grew: The Story of Ferry Farm, George Washington’s Boyhood Home, that he described the mystery of the cherry tree thus: He also revealed over the course of his excavations that no evidence was found of a rusty hatchet that people believed Washington used to chop the tree. While some call the tale of the cherry tree false, many others argue it simply hasn’t been proven to be true yet. As such, we rate this claim as Unproven. (en)
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