The birthday’s of Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and George Washington (February 22) used to be celebrated separately. Now they’ve been folded together into President’s day. Millard Fillmore, anyone?
Other than both being honored by President’s day, the only thing that Lincoln and Fillmore have in common is that both have photographic portraits by Matthew Brady.
George Washington’s birthday used to be associated with cherry pie, thanks to the debunked story offered by his biographer Mason Weems. As the story was taught, when Washington was a little boy he was given a hatchet, which he used to cut down a cherry tree. When his father asked if he’d done it, he confessed, saying, “I cannot tell a lie.”
Here’s the money shot of the Weems account: “When George,” said she, “was about six years old, he was made the wealthy master of a hatchet! of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping every thing that came in his way. One day, in the garden, where he often amused himself hacking his mother’s pea-sticks, he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree, which he barked so terribly, that I don’t believe the tree ever got the better of it. The next morning the old gentleman finding out what had befallen his tree, which, by the by, was a great favourite, came into the house, and with much warmth asked for the mischievous author, declaring at the same time, that he would not have taken five guineas for his tree. Nobody could tell him any thing about it. Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance. 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; but 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. Such an act of heroism in my son, is more worth than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold.”
The “she” of the above paragraph, was an anonymous source to whom Weems attributed the information.
So the young Washington—according to Weems—hadn’t actually cut down the tree, but killed it by taking off its bark.
While the story was taught to children to teach them the virtue of truth-telling, the previous anecdote in Weems is a lesson to parents, not to punish children so harshly that the young ones learn to lie in order to evade beatings.
