(KGTV) — It has been passed down through the ages that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree as a child and confessed to his father.
But that is fiction.
The story was first published in the 5th edition of a book about Washington by Mason Locke Weems in 1806, nearly seven years after Washington died.
Weems claimed he got the story from an unidentified elderly woman who had been friends with the family.
But the tale has been debunked by contemporary historians.
The official word from Mount Vernon and Washington's childhood home Ferry Farm is that the cherry tree story is just that, a story.
