If you're American, or even if you're not, you've almost certainly heard the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree.

Few figures in American history are as mythologized as George Washington.

He had wooden teeth, he wore a powdered wig, he could skip a silver dollar across the Potomac River, or he is currently buried under the U.S.

Capitol building.

Those are all myths, by the way.

But this cherry tree story is the most well-known tale involving George Washington.

It goes like this.

When George was six years old, his father gave him a hatchet as a gift.

When his father was away, young George went outside into the yard of his family's estate and chopped down one of his father's prized cherry trees.

When his father returned from business, he found the tree chopped down.

He was angry and immediately went to his son and asked, And George replied honestly, Mr. Washington was so impressed that his son would admit fault that he forgave George, embraced him, and declared that his son's honesty was worth a thousand trees.

Generations of American children have been told this story.

It presents our first president as a naturally honest and upright man, and that we too can be like him.

It teaches us that it's always best to be honest, and to admit fault when we've done something wrong.

It also shows Washington's father to be a lenient and kind-hearted parent, who does not punish his son severely for a careless mistake.

All fine lessons, I suppose, but did it actually happen?

Did young George chop down his father's tree, or is it just a legend?

If so, where did the story come from?

Let's find out.

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So, the short answer is...

Maybe?

But probably not.

So, where did this story come from?

Well, first let's give some background.

I assume most of you know George Washington.

He's the father of the country, first president, founding father, commander of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

He's on the one dollar bill, he has a state and a district named after him.

He's one of the most well-known and most celebrated figures in American history.

The reason I mention all of this is that the way we see him now is not too dissimilar to how he was seen during his lifetime.

And when he died, you can be sure his star continued to rise.

Now, we come to this man, Mason Locke Weems, also called Parson Weems.

He was a traveling minister and bookseller, and he realized after Washington's death in 1799 that the American public would be hungry for info about their beloved first president.

He wrote his publisher, So, Weems saw this opportunity and decided to write Washington's first biography, The Life of Washington.

He published it only a year after Washington's death, and it became an instant bestseller.

Weems was a smart and savvy writer, understanding that the public would want to know more about Washington's private life rather than his well-known public career.

So, the biography delved into his childhood and relationship with his father.

Funnily enough, the cherry tree story didn't show up until the book's fifth edition, published in 1806.

Also, in the original story, George doesn't chop down the tree, as that would be very difficult for a six-year-old boy.

He merely gouged it, and the tree later died.

Anyway, how do we know the story is likely false?

Well, we don't find the story mentioned or even referenced ever before 1806 in Weems' book.

There's no reference to it in Washington's letters or diary entries.

None of his friends or family seem to mention it.

So, it's difficult to see how Weems would have found out about this private information years after Washington's death.

Washington's father, Augustine Washington, died when George was only 11 years old.

So, it wasn't from him the story was told.

Weems claimed to have been told the story by an elderly woman, a cousin of some sort to the Washington family.

But since this woman was anonymous, it's a pretty unreliable source.

So, what happened?

Did he just make the story up?

Well, maybe.

Or maybe he really did hear the story from someone, but didn't confirm it.

Let's look at why he may have made the story up.

Remember that Parson Weems was a minister.

He was concerned with the moral character of the country, and he believed that books should not only be entertaining and informative, but that they should also communicate important life lessons and morals to the reader, especially to young people.

Weems was also a Federalist.

The Federalists were an early American political party that believed in order, a strong central government, and the importance of moral leadership.

Weems saw Washington as exemplifying these beliefs, and thought that the story of the cherry tree showed that Washington's political success was due to his private virtues and faith.

Lastly, Weems was not a historian, and many scholars believe he was motivated by money and fame, rather than telling a true picture of Washington.

He himself often said his writing was artful, and he even admitted that his approach was to throw facts together into a romance.

And he was known for exaggerating and embellishing certain facts in his work.

The book, and by extension the cherry tree story, were very popular and influential.

It was cemented in the minds of young Americans starting in the 1830s, when William Holmes McGuffey included the story in his McGuffey Readers, a series of elementary school textbooks that were used by most public schools in the country up until the early 20th century.

The story appeared outside of books as well.

P.T.

Barnum, no not him, the real one, yes him, he bought an enslaved woman in 1825 named Joyce Heath.

He made her a side attraction, claiming she was the woman who raised George Washington.

This was patently ridiculous, as she would have had to have been over 160 years old for this to be true.

But people believed it, and she told stories of George's childhood, especially the cherry tree myth.

I should make it clear that not all historians categorize this story as a myth, and say it's plausible it happened.

The popular fact-checking website Snopes categorizes the cherry tree story as unproven rather than false.

What's important though is there's no real way to know for sure, and that's not how the story has been presented to generations of Americans, who grew up believing the tale to be wholly true.

I think the history of this story is a fascinating look into how myths and legends are created, and how we're not immune to them in the modern age.

It's interesting that a relatively young country like the United States inevitably creates mythology around our long-dead leaders, similar to how old countries like England, France, or China do with their long-dead kings and emperors.

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