Let me clarify one thing right at the beginning: six-year-old George Washington did not use his new axe to chop down his father’s black cherry tree (Prunus serotina) nor any other kind of tree. The entire episode was pure fantasy from the imagination of Parson Weems in his 1800 biography of Washington, published the year after the first president’s death. But that fable, as well as Washington’s prayer at Valley Forge—another Weems invention—morphed into one of the most-believed stories of United States presidential history. Now that we’ve dispensed with the fiction, let’s get down to facts.
The popularity
