"[5] Instead, the story seems to have originated in the 1876 play Washington: A Drama in Five Acts, by the English poet Martin Farquhar Tupper, and was further popularized through repetition in the children's magazine St.

[3][4] The Washington family traces its roots to Sir William de Hertburn who was granted the lordship of Wessyngton in northeast England and adopted the name of the estate.

In 1346, a new design with two horizontal bars below three mullets, though with the tinctures reversed from the later arms, is recorded for Sir William de Hertburn/de Wessyngton's great-grandson.

The President used the coat of arms in many places around his home at Mount Vernon including on several personal items as well as on the livery uniforms of his servants, as this was a common practice prior to the American Revolution among wealthy plantation owners.

An almost identical coat of arms was used by the Le Moyne family, who were described as landowners at Grafham in Huntingdonshire in the reign of Henry II.