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FREE SHIPPING + 15% OFF orders over $150There is much that can be shared about the legends and festivals surrounding the flowering cherry also known symbolically as the tree of life, death and renewal, but the one I like most is the myth about the cherry tree and George Washington. When Washington was six years old, he was given a hatchet. Boys being boys, he used the hatchet and felled his father's favorite cherry tree. When his father discovered what he had done, angrily he confronted the boy. Young George bravely said, ‘I cannot tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet’. On hearing this honest response, Washington’s father embraced him and rejoiced that his son’s honesty was worth more than a thousand trees.
Research reveals that this iconic story about the value of honesty was invented by one of Washington’s first biographers, an itinerant minister and bookseller named Mason Locke Weems. After Washington’s death in 1799 people were anxious to learn more about him and Weems was ready to supply that desired. As he explained to a publisher in January 1800, ‘Washington you know is gone! Millions are gaping to read something of him. My plan! I give his history, and then go on to share that his elevation was due to his Great Virtues’. Weems’ biography, The Life of Washington, was first published in 1800 and was an instant bestseller. However, the cherry tree myth did not appear until the book’s fifth edition published in 1806.
The cherry tree myth and other stories showed readers that Washington’s public greatness was due to his private virtues. Washington’s achievements as a general and president were familiar to people in the early nineteenth century, but little was known about his relationship with his father, who died when he was only eleven years old. As one Pennsylvanian observed, ‘The facts and anecdotes collected by the author are well calculated to exhibit the character of that illustrious man, and Christian hero’. Weems knew what the public wanted to read, and as a result of his success, he is considered one of the fathers of popular history.
In the language of flowers, blossom represents life, death and renewal.
There is much that can be shared about the legends and festivals surrounding the flowering cherry also known symbolically as the tree of life, death and renewal, but the one I like most is the myth about the cherry tree and George Washington. When Washington was six years old, he was given a hatchet. Boys being boys, he used the hatchet and felled his father's favorite cherry tree. When his father discovered what he had done, angrily he confronted the boy. Young George bravely said, ‘I cannot tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet’. On hearing this honest response, Washington’s father embraced him and rejoiced that his son’s honesty was worth more than a thousand trees.
Research reveals that this iconic story about the value of honesty was invented by one of Washington’s first biographers, an itinerant minister and bookseller named Mason Locke Weems. After Washington’s death in 1799 people were anxious to learn more about him and Weems was ready to supply that desired. As he explained to a publisher in January 1800, ‘Washington you know is gone! Millions are gaping to read something of him. My plan! I give his history, and then go on to share that his elevation was due to his Great Virtues’. Weems’ biography, The Life of Washington, was first published in 1800 and was an instant bestseller. However, the cherry tree myth did not appear until the book’s fifth edition published in 1806.
The cherry tree myth and other stories showed readers that Washington’s public greatness was due to his private virtues. Washington’s achievements as a general and president were familiar to people in the early nineteenth century, but little was known about his relationship with his father, who died when he was only eleven years old. As one Pennsylvanian observed, ‘The facts and anecdotes collected by the author are well calculated to exhibit the character of that illustrious man, and Christian hero’. Weems knew what the public wanted to read, and as a result of his success, he is considered one of the fathers of popular history.
In the language of flowers, blossom represents life, death and renewal.
