Parson Weems
American ministerWikipedia
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Search complete. 7 mentions across 7 episodes found for "Parson Weems".
Oct 22, 2026
Aaron McCallHOST
So I'm going to ask that you give me a little grace as I try and give us the context to hear the echoes of the past in the sound bites of today.
Aaron McCallHOST
Storytelling is more American than apple pie, don't believe me? The well-known story about George Washington cutting down the cherry tree was a myth created by one of Washington's first biographers, a traveling minister and bookseller named Mason Locke Weems.
Aaron McCallHOST
But founding fathers and trees aside, our nation's founding is a result of a story that our founders told themselves and others, that we were endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, liberty, life, and the pursuit of happiness.
Aaron McCallHOST
Now, there was a giant asterisk written above in invisible ink on the Declaration of Independence.
John BatchelorHOST
However, he's had a lot of protectors.
John BatchelorHOST
Mason Weems, Parson Weems, the first and most influential of the biographies of the hagiography of George Washington, would not have entertained that Washington participated.
John BatchelorHOST
Did he mention the fire at any point in his correspondence?
Benjamin L. CarpGUEST
I don't remember.
speaker_0HOST
It's the single most repeated anecdote about this man's entire childhood, and it is, as far as any actual historian has ever been able to determine, completely made up.
speaker_0HOST
It comes from a man named Mason Locke Weems, who published a hero-worshiping biography of Washington the year after he died, in 1800.
speaker_0HOST
Explicitly designed to manufacture patriotism and morality, out of a national icon the country desperately wanted a clean origin myth for.
speaker_0HOST
There's no contemporary source for the cherry tree story anywhere.
EricAUDIENCE
They want to make sure they get a green light from Texas and Florida.
EricAUDIENCE
These two states essentially demand, no, we want our textbooks to eviscerate, neuter, dumb down, have more Parson Weems than Howard Zinn.
EricAUDIENCE
Because the last textbook, the last history book many, if not most, Americans look at is history textbook in high school.
EricAUDIENCE
And if you want to find out anything about, as an example, American labor movement, do not look in a textbook in a high school textbook because, well, it's not really there.
Wilfred McClayGUEST
Um, what he did read, though, is, uh, and I can't remember whether I talk about it in the book or not.
Wilfred McClayGUEST
They, they read, uh, uh, the, uh, Parson Weems's, uh, biography of George Washington, which was, the, had the cherry tree story in it, so it's always dismissed.
Wilfred McClayGUEST
But he gave a speech in, um, uh, Trenton, New Jersey.
Wilfred McClayGUEST
Um, i- you know, he was on his way from Springfield to be inaugurated.
Rosemary ArmaoHOST
Yeah, that's-
John OliverGUEST
A complete, complete lie made up a couple years after George died by a itinerant, um, [tsking] um, uh, biographer called Parson Weems.
John OliverGUEST
And Weems didn't have much to go on, so he made a lot of stuff up, and one of the things he made up was this, um, was this cherry tree story.
John OliverGUEST
But what's, what's telling, I think, about that story is it reveals the way E- early Americans thought of George.
Andrew M. HenryHOST
Moreover, the story doesn't come from the most trustworthy of sources.
Andrew M. HenryHOST
Mason Weems, the evangelical bookseller who first records the story, was also the originator of apocryphal stories like Washington refusing to lie about chopping down a cherry tree.
Andrew M. HenryHOST
Taking this evidence together, most historians regard the story as a legend.
Andrew M. HenryHOST
Nevertheless, the image of Washington deep in prayer communicates a mythos, or a vibe about Washington as a deeply religious man.