“I can’t tell a lie.I did cut it.” young Washington replied when his father questioned him about a cherry tree…or so the story goes. Parson Mason Weems wrote a biography of George Washington shortly after the President’s death. Washington was well-known for his heroism and highly esteemed, and the author sought to highlight the late President’s honesty and true principles with a presumed tall tale that many school children later read and often repeated from the McGuffey Reader textbook.

George Washington did not attend college, and his father died when the future president was a boy. He surveyed land at age 16 and became an avid and rather progressive farmer of his time. He served as general in the Continental Army and was instrumental in helping to secure America’s independence from Great Britain and proved to be quite dependable in battle and politics.