Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1871-11-01
A QUEER OHIO CHARACTER.


w. D. Haley contributes to Har.
peT'S Monthly, for November, an &C
count of Johnny Appleseed," s
remarkable character who roameC
about the State of Ohio from the open.
ing of the present century until his
death in 1S47. We quote:
The first reliable trace of our modest
hero finds him in the territory Of
Ohio, in 1901, with a horse load o.
apple seeds, which he planted in
various places on and about the Dor.
ders of Licking creek, the first orchard
thus originated by him being on the
farm of Isaac Stadden, in what is now
known as Licking County, in the
State of Ohio. During the five sue
ceeding years, although he was un-
doubtedly following the same strange
occupation, we have no authentic
account of his movements until we
reach a pleasant spring day in 1906,
when a pioneer settler in Jefferson
County, Ohio, noticed a peculiar craft,
with a remarkable occupant, slowly
dropping down with the current OF
| the Ohio river. 1t was Johnny
Appleseed, !" by which name Jonathan
Chapman was afterward know in
every log cabin from the Ohio river
to the Northern lakes, and westward
| to the pTaries of what is now the State
of Indiana. With two canoes lashed
| together, he was Transporting load
of apple seeds to the Western frontier,
for the purpose of creating orchards
on the furthest verge of white settle
ments. With his canoes he passed
down the Ohio to Marietta, where ne
entered the Muskingum, ascending
the stream of that river until he reach
ed the mouth of the Walhonding, or
White Woman Creek, and still on
ward up Mohiean, into the Black
Fork, to the head of navigation, in
the region now known as Ashland
and Richland Counties, on the line
of the Pittsburg and Fort Wayne Rail-
road, in Ohio. A long and toilsome
voyage it was, as glance at the map
will show, and must lhaye occupied q
great deal of time, as the. lonely
traveller stopped at every inviting
spot to plant the seeds and make his
infant nurseries. These are the first
well authenticated facts in the history
of Jonathan Chapman, whose birth,
there is good reason for believing,
occurred in Boston, Mass, in 17S5.
According TO this, which was his own
statement in one of his less reticent
moods, he was, at the time of his ap-
pearance on Licking creek, twenty
six years of age, and whether impelled
in his eccentricites by some absolute
misery of the heart which could only
find relief in incessant motion, or
governed by a benevolent monomania,
his whole after-life was devoted to
the work of planting apple seeds in
remote places. The seeds he gathered
from the cider presses of Western
Pennsylvania but his canoe voyage
in 1906 appears to have been the only
occasion upon which he adopted that
method of Transporting them, as all
his subsequent journies were made on
foot. Having planted his stock of
seeds, he would return to Pennsyl-
vania for fresh supply, and. as sacks
made of any less substantial fabric
would not endure the hard usage Of
the long trip through forests dense
with underbrush and briers, he pro-
vided himself with leathern bags.
Securely packed, the seeds were con-
Yeyed, sometimes on the back of a
horse, and not unfrequently on his
own shoulders, either over part of
the old Indian trail that led from Fort
Duquesne to Detroit, by the way of
Fort Sandusky, or over what is styled,
in the appendix to " Hutchins' His
tory of Boquet's Expedition in 1764, +"
the second route through the
wilderness of Ohio" which would
,.,1rnfra t,sr,, - Hfofonnn
of one hundred and sixty-six
miles in a west-northwest direction
from Fort Duquesne in order to
reach the Black Fork of Mohiean.
We must not leave the reader under
the impression that this mans life, so
full of hardship and perils, was a
gloomy or unhappy one. There is an
element of human pride in all mar
tyrdOm, which, if it does not soften
the pains, stimulates the power OF
endurance. Johnny's life was made
serenely happy by the conviction
that he was living like the primitive
Christians. Nor was he devoid of a
keen humor, to which he occasionally
gave vent. as the following will show.
Toward the latter part of Johnny's
career in Ohio an itinerant missionary
found his way to the village of Mans
field, and preach to an, opeD-air con-
gregatiOn. The discourse was tedi-
Ously lengthy, and unnecessarily Sc
we're upon the sin of extravaganza,
which was beginning to manifest
itself among the pioneers by an Oc-
casional indulgence in the carnal
vanities of calico and "store tea, I"
There was a good deal of the Pharisaic
leaven in the preacher, who very fire.
qnently emphasized his discourse by
the inquiry, "Where now is there a
man who, like the primitive Chris
tians, is travelling to heaven barefoot
ed and clad in coarse raiment ?"
When this Interrogation had been re-
peated beyond all reasonable of endur-
ance, Johnny rose from the log on
which he was reclinging, and advanc-
ing to the speaker, he placed one Of
his bare feet upon the stump which
served for pulpit, and pointing to
his coffee sack garment, he quietly
said, "Hers's your primitive Chris
tian !" The well clothed missionary
hesitated, and dismissed the congre-
cation. His pet antithesis was de-
stfoyed by Johnny's personal appear
ance, which WIS far more primitive
than the preacher cared to copy.
Some of the pioneers were disposed
to think that Johnny's humor was
the cause Of an extensive practical
joke; but it is generally conceded
now that a wide spread annoyance
was really the result of his belief that
the Extensively odored weed known
in the West as the dog fennel, but
more generally styled the May weed,
possessed valuable anti-martial Writ
ues. He procured some seeds of the
plant in Pennsylvania, and sowed
them in the vicinity of every house
in the region of his travels. The
consequence was that successive -four
ishing crops of the weed spread over
the whole country, and caused almost
as much trouble as the disease it was
intended to ward off; and to this day
the dog fennel, introduced by John
ny Appleseed, is one of the worst
grievances of the Ohio farmers.
%O$