A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington

Most biographies become famous because of the impeccable writing style or the great amount of detail put into capturing the subject’s life. Parson Weems’ A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington became famous due to the author’s inattention to detail and fabrication of stories about the first President. Some of the stories from Weems’ untrustworthy biography are still around today. His most famous tall tale was the recounting of George Washington and the cherry tree. According to Weems, when Washington was a boy, he chopped down his father’s cherry tree. When confronted by his father, however, the young Washington reportedly cried, “I cannot tell a lie. I cut it with my little hatchet.” While the public loved the story, as it affirmed the popular belief that Washington was an extremely honest man, historians soon questioned the sources Weems claimed to have obtained the tale from and later dismissed his claim of being Washington’s cousin as utterly untrue. Despite the public outing of Weems’ fable, the cherry tree anecdote lives on in popular Washington history.