As students of American history, most children learn about the heroes of the Revolutionary War, the discovery of the American continent, and other stories that illuminate the courageous people who contributed to the formation of the United States. In learning about Christopher Columbus, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington, we’re regaled with stories of their personal valor—how Washington chopped down his cherry tree, how Columbus proved the flat-earthers wrong, and how Franklin discovered electricity in a lightning storm.
We learn all these quaint and quixotic stories, despite the fact that not one of them is true. George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree; geological evidence from his boyhood home shows that no cherry trees have ever grown there. A preacher looking to sell books propagated the story. As we prepare for our country’s 233rd birthday, we should think about the fact that many of the stories sold as historical fact would be better categorized as sheer fiction.
The Ride of Paul Revere
This Boston silversmith was virtually unknown until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized him in his 1863 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Actually, Revere didn’t make that trip alone. He rode from Boston to Lexington and then Concord, MA with two other men, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock of the British army’s impending arrival. They never would have shouted, “The British are coming!” because it would have alerted the king’s patrols. Besides, most of the colonists at the time still considered themselves British, too. The poem turned Revere into a hero when in reality, he was arrested along the way and forced to walk home horseless. Prescott was the only man who actually completed the journey.
Columbus Proved the Earth Was Round
Contrary to the popular wisdom, no one in 1492 thought that the earth was flat. Navigators knew that the earth had a curvature since at least the fourth century B.C. Washington Irving, writing 450 years later, started the myth when he misrepresented the truth in his book On the Cosmographical Ideas of the Church Fathers. Columbus only wanted to prove that Asia was closer than previously thought. He did run into land, all right, but it wasn’t Asia or America. Columbus made landfall in the Bahamas, and never actually set foot on the North American continent. Furthermore, Columbus can hardly be credited with discovering a continent that Europeans had been exploring and trading on ever since the Vikings landed circa 1,000 A.D.
Molly Pitcher on the Battlefield
The heroic story of Mary Hays McCauley, who supposedly brought water to thirsty and dying men during the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, endures as a tale of how women contributed to the Revolutionary cause. Too bad that most historians now regard the story as mere folklore. There are tales of female water-bearers during many battles of the war, and the military gave many of them pensions for their service, but the water was more likely used for cleaning cannons, and not refreshing exhausted soldiers. The Molly Pitcher story is likely to be a composite of all these helpful women.
Benjamin Franklin’s Kite Experiment
Ben Franklin was a true renaissance man … statesman, writer, and inventor. Therefore, we can assume that he was smart enough not to intentionally get himself struck by lightning. Scientists have known of electricity since the 1600s, and Franklin himself only wanted to know if our atmosphere carried a charge. He theorized an experiment wherein he could fly a kite with a key attached to try to collect ions and generate static. The idea of flying the kite in a thunderstorm is a dramatic exaggeration, and luckily, there’s no evidence that he ever performed either version of the experiment. If he did ever try to fly the kite in a thunderstorm, he would probably have died, as that kind of strike would most likely have been fatal. Modern-day scientists who attempt to re-create the experiment can vouch that it’s a decidedly bad idea.
Pilgrims Founded the First American Settlements
The Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth on the Mayflower in 1620. The Puritans, a completely different group of settlers, also arrived in 1620, and started their colony in Massachusetts Bay. Many people, and even historical sources, confuse these two separate groups of people, and claim that they were the first settlers to reach the New World. But they weren’t. King James I sanctioned the Jamestown colony and settled in Virginia in 1607 as an investment to find new trade routes. Even before that, the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke was settled in North Carolina in 1587, organized by Sir Walter Raleigh to enrich the coffers of Elizabeth I. The Spanish may still take offense to Roanoke being labeled the first colony, since they settled the city of St. Augustine, Florida, twenty-two years earlier in 1565.
While these stories tell about our nation’s struggle to create its own folk heroes, they mix in a great deal of hearsay, speculation, and rumor. Unfortunately, these tall tales have longevity because they’re more sensational and exciting than actual history. Despite having little to no basis in truth, they persist because Americans love a good story, and when it comes to history, an exciting fabrication is sometimes just as good as the truth. As they say in the John Wayne movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “When legend becomes fact, print the legend.”