Over two centuries ago, a myth was created about George Washington when he was six years old. Young George received a hatchet from someone, which seems to me a strange gift for a first-grader.

Nonetheless, young George was apparently both a precocious and honest child. The legend says he cut down one of his father’s cherry trees. His father was a bit peeved at George’s actions. When young George was confronted by his father, he stated, “I cannot tell a lie…I did cut it with my hatchet.” Young George’s honesty overwhelmed his father, who hugged the youngster and told him that his honesty was more precious than a thousand cherry trees.

Someone took this photograph of this father and son encounter.

A loving father of an Honest Son

George Washington grew up, commanded the Revolutionary Army, became the first president of the newly formed country, and served two terms. He retired and, two years later, passed away in 1799. All of America grieved the death of Washington.

Enter Mason Locke Weems. Weems was born in Maryland prior to the American Revolution. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and theology at the University of London. In the aftermath of Washington’s death, he wrote The Life of Washington, printed in 1800. It was an instant success. Over the next half dozen years, a new edition was annually printed.

However, the cherry tree legend didn’t appear until the 1806 edition. Interestingly, there is very little information about Washington’s parents. Weem became the father of the history of the father of our country.

William Holmes McGuffey, a Presbyterian pastor and college professor, wrote McGuffey's Readers, which also contained a version of the cherry tree legend. The McGuffey’s Readers continued to be printed for another century and amassed 120 million copies.

Today, over two centuries later, I had to cut down my flowering crabapple tree. I planted it when I moved into my new home. It grew from a six-foot-tall tree to a thirty-foot-one in those two decades. However, it had grown old and decrepit in the last few years. It was time that I chopped it down.

However, I had a 21^st-century version of Washington’s hatchet: an electric saw. I had to cut it down precisely where I wanted it to avoid hitting other trees and my house. Here are some videos of me in the later stages of acting like young Washington.

This video is my removing the rope from the toppled tree.

Finally, the daunting task of cutting up a huge tree.

After working several hours downing the tree and beginning to cut it up into pieces, I decided to quit for dinner. Then, I began the cleaning up effort. After another couple of hours, this is what it looked like. That evening, I went to dreamland and slept like the proverbial log.