NOT EXACTLY HISTORY

George Washington Threw What Across What River?

What do you call it when false history is debunked with more false history?

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

If you search for anything involving George Washington and throwing things across a river, you will find many articles that supposedly tell the real story. Most will tell you that it wasn’t a silver dollar, but a piece of slate. Some will say that his son or grandson witnessed the toss.

Most of these stories are as apocryphal as the story they want to debunk. Let’s do the tiny bit of research that most neglect.

The river

In case you have somehow convinced yourself that the river was the Delaware or the Potomac, the stories will explain that it was the Rappahannock. Many will smugly finish by noting that there were not any silver dollars to throw until 1794 when the U.S. Mint first produced them.

Few mention any dates for the slate toss, though 1775 and 1779 do turn up, and others insist it took place in his childhood. George was born in 1732; one would think that at least some physical maturity was necessary for this feat, so let’s assume that whatever happened, it wasn’t before 1744.

G.W.P Custis

If the story isn’t just copying someone else, it might tell you that the grandson who reported the toss was George Washington Parke Custis. They did get the name right, but in fact, G.W.P Custis was the grandson of Martha Washington from her previous marriage and the adopted son of George Washington; he and a sister grew up at Mount Vernon from 1759 on. He wrote a book that included this short paragraph:

The power of Washington’s arm was displayed in memorable instances ; in his throwing a stone from the. bed of the stream to the top of the Natural Bridge ; another over the Palisades into the Hudson, and yet another across the Rappahannock, at Fredericksburg. Of the article with which he spanned this bold and navigable stream, there are various accounts. We are assured that it was a piece of slate, fashioned to about the size and shape of a dollar, and which, sent by an arm so strong, not only spanned the river, but took the ground at least thirty yards on the other side. Numbers…