Mason Locke Weems, generally known as Parson Weems, was an American printer and author. He is best known as the source of some of the apocryphal stories about George Washington, including the famous tale of the cherry tree ("I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet"). The Life of Washington, Weems' most famous work, contained the story. Creating a moral tale to emphasize a character trait was a commonly used literary device in 18th century biographies.

PropertyValue
dbpprop:abstract
  • Mason Locke Weems, generally known as Parson Weems, was an American printer and author. He is best known as the source of some of the apocryphal stories about George Washington, including the famous tale of the cherry tree ("I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet"). The Life of Washington, Weems' most famous work, contained the story. Creating a moral tale to emphasize a character trait was a commonly used literary device in 18th century biographies. Weems was born on 11 October 1756 (1759, by some accounts) in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. He studied theology in London and was ordained in the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1784. From about 1800 to 1817, he served as a part-time minister of Pohick Church, part of Truro Parish, in Lorton, Virginia, where both George Washington and his father Augustine had served on the vestry. Financial hardship forced Weems to seek other employment, leading to his second career as a book agent and author. He had a small bookstore in Dumfries, Virginia, that now houses the Weems-Botts Museum. Other notable works by Weems include Life of General Francis Marion (1805); Life of Benjamin Franklin, with Essays (1817); and Life of William Penn (1819). He was also an accomplished violinist.
  • Mason Locke Weems, était un imprimeur et auteur américain célèbre pour ses histoires mettant en scène George Washington, dont la plus célèbre est l'épisode du cerisier. Ces récits inventés sont écrits dans The Life of Washington (1800), et participèrent au mythe de Washington.
  • Mason Locke Weems, kjent som Parson Weems, var en amerikansk forlegger og forfatter. Han er mest kjent for å stå bak noen av apokryfene om George Washington, inkludert den velkjente talen om kirsebærtreet («I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet»), som er å finne i Weems' mest kjente verk, The Life of Washington.
dbpprop:alternativeNames
  • Parson Weems
dbpprop:birthPlace
dbpprop:dateOfBirth
dbpprop:deathPlace
dbpprop:hasPhotoCollection
dbpprop:id
  • M.+L.+Weems
dbpprop:name
  • Parson Weems
  • Weems, Mason Locke
dbpprop:reference
dbpprop:shortDescription
dbpprop:wikiPageUsesTemplate
rdfs:comment
  • Mason Locke Weems, generally known as Parson Weems, was an American printer and author. He is best known as the source of some of the apocryphal stories about George Washington, including the famous tale of the cherry tree ("I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet"). The Life of Washington, Weems' most famous work, contained the story. Creating a moral tale to emphasize a character trait was a commonly used literary device in 18th century biographies.
  • Mason Locke Weems, était un imprimeur et auteur américain célèbre pour ses histoires mettant en scène George Washington, dont la plus célèbre est l'épisode du cerisier. Ces récits inventés sont écrits dans The Life of Washington (1800), et participèrent au mythe de Washington.
  • Mason Locke Weems, kjent som Parson Weems, var en amerikansk forlegger og forfatter. Han er mest kjent for å stå bak noen av apokryfene om George Washington, inkludert den velkjente talen om kirsebærtreet («I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet»), som er å finne i Weems' mest kjente verk, The Life of Washington.
rdfs:label
  • Parson Weems
  • Mason Locke Weems
  • Parson Weems
owl:sameAs
skos:subject
foaf:page
is dbpprop:disambiguates of
is dbpprop:redirect of