The Legend Maker (February 1962 | Volume: 13, Issue: 2)

The Legend Maker

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Authors: David D. Van Tassel

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February 1962 | Volume 13, Issue 2

 

There is no more famous American legend than the story of George Washington and the cherry tree that first appeared in 1806 in a little book on Washington by Mason Locke Weems. According to Weems, one day little George, armed with a new hatchet, “unluckily tried the edge … on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree, which he barked … terribly.” The next morning his father discovered the tragedy, and the “old gentleman” demanded “with much warmth” the name of the culprit.

“George,” said his father, “do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?” This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment: hut quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, “I can’t tell a lie, Pa: you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.”—“Run to my arms, you dearest boy,” cried his father in transports, “run to my arms: glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold.”

Thus George escaped a whipping, the country gained a national legend, and parents were armed with an impeccable example of honesty, the purpose which the author hoped it would serve. This story for decades has been the favorite target of debunkers and sophisticates; yet it is the most durable of Weems’ anecdotes about Washington, and no scholar has succeeded in proving it false. Generations of Americans, if they knew little else about their heritage, knew that George Washington never lied and that he was the brave, honorable, and supremely virtuous father of his country —the portrait that Weems created. For decades teachers, historians, and biographers have labored, largely in vain, to substitute a more lifelike and credible image in the public mind and to lay forever some of the apocryphal anecdotes related by the good Parson Weems.

Whether George actually cut down the cherry tree or not is of little consequence; but the fact that the story endures, along with the image of our first President that Parson Weems popularized, tells a great deal about the character of the American people then and now. In order to understand a little better the durability of the legend, one must become acquainted with Mason Locke Weems, his times, his people, and his work. Weems did a far greater service to his country than simply originating a famous anecdote. He created a national symbol and a model hero for a democracy.

At the time Parson Weems wrote his life of Washington (1799—1800), the United States was sixteen years old and had survived just ten years under the Constitution. The new republic was still an unproven experiment in democracy, and many thoughtful men doubted that it would survive much longer as a single