Fruit or fiction, did George Washington chop down that cherry tree and then fess up to his dad? And the doomed tree aside, the bigger question may actually be did cherry pie even exist in George’s day? With elections right around the corner, we may wonder about the real politics of the father of our country.
As the famous legend has it, upon discovering the chopped down cherry tree, George Washington’s father confronted the six-year old future leader. George’s response was, “I can’t tell a lie Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.” Was George a kid with a manic craving for cherries?
The truth is George may have liked fruit but he did not cut down the cherry tree. And perhaps even more unsettling, cherry pie didn’t exist in the 1700’s! So why the tree? Why the cherries? The short answer is that even fruit can get caught in the middle of politics. As we know well enough today, behind every good president is a good writer and this was true even in the beginning. The tall tale actually came from Mason Locke Weems, Washington’s biographer. In his best-selling book, The Life of Washington, Weems wanted to make a point of our first leader’s honesty and so the story. It seems Washington was more honest than Weems.
In The Life of Washington, Weems does not tell us if George even ate a cherry, however all evidence points to no. Around 1800, the time this story was told, cherries were being brought to this country by early French colonists who planted the pits in the regions of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. And while cherries were grown on American soil, they were not readily available and eaten until the mid-1800’s. For this, we can give thanks to Peter Dougherty, a Presbyterian missionary who started modern-day
consumption and inspired others in his community to do the same.
So while the story of George and the cherry tree is a tall tale, it is still no less an American patriotic obligation and tradition to eat and enjoy cherry pie, which may actually be more American than apple.
Photo credits go to my brother Scott Catania.
