Did young George Washington use a hatchet to chop down one of his father's cherry trees, and then confess to the act because he could never tell a lie, even at the age of six? Did he throw a silver dollar across the Potomac River, perhaps half a mile wide? Folklorists refer to these stories as legends because many people believe them to be true, even though the stories cannot be authenticated.
Much about the life of America's first president seems prone to legend. After all, George Washington is the first of 45 U.S. presidents, the face on our most commonly circulated dollar bill, and the name of our nation's capital city. In many ways, he has become larger than life, especially when depicted bare-chested and extremely buff in a 12-ton marble statue inside the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
