That cheery tree rumor is fake news. Seriously, that story appeared in a posthumous biography of Washington. Parson Weems made the story up to embellish his book.
In 2004, I saw The Police in concert one evening at an Amphitheatre near the beach. A bus took people from the train station to the theatre and also picked up beachgoers to bring them back to the train station. As I was riding to the concert, some teenagers got on at the beach stop. One of them saw how crowded the bus was and asked, “Who’s appearing?” Someone replied, “The Police.” She then said, “Why? Are they expecting trouble?”
Earlier this year, I visited Sulgrave Manor, the ancestral home of George Washington’s ancestors in Northhamptonshire. That home was also restored in 1921 as a symbol of Anglo-American friendship. There is a large bust of George Washington in the garden.
I’d rather see his sister, Cura.