Presidents' Day: 7 myths about George Washington
Prayer at Valley Forge
One of the most iconic images of George Washington is that of him kneeling down in the snow at the winter camp at Valley Forge during the darker days of the Revolution and praying to God.
The kneeling prayer of Washington is a disputed one, with some attributing it to an eyewitness account from local Quaker Isaac Potts, whose account first appeared in 1816 in the 17th edition of The Life of Washington by Mason Locke Weems.
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It must be noted, however, that Weems was the same person who included the mythical story that Washington had cut down his father’s cherry tree as a boy and confessed to it.
In a 1945 essay on behalf of the Valley Forge Historical Society, Gilbert Starling Jones wrote that while Potts’ account has multiple supporters and was plausible, an effort to confirm the event back in 1918 failed.
“In 1918, the Valley Forge Park Commission refused a request by a patriotic organization for permission to erect a monument or marker on the spot where it was claimed Washington was seen kneeling in prayer,” Jones recounted.
“The Commission's report … concluded by observing ‘in none of these were found a single paragraph that will substantiate the tradition of the Prayer at Valley Forge.'”
