The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1871-11-23
JOHNNY APPLESEED.
BY W. D. HAWLEY.

/ BY W. D. HAwLEY.
The "far West" is rapidly becoming
only traditional designation! rail-
roads have destroyed the romance Of
/ frontier life, or have surrounded it
with so many appliances of civiliZa-
/ ton that the pioneer character is rap
idly becoming mythical. The men
and women who obtain their groceries
and dry-gOOds from New York byrail
/ in few hours have nothing in COM
mon with those who, fifty years ago,
| ''packed" salt 8 hundred miles to make
their mush palatable, and could only
exchange corn and wheat for molasses
and calico by making long and per-
ilous voyages in f1at-bOats down the
Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New
/ Orleans. Two generations of frontier
lives have accumulated stores Of mar
rative which, like the small but beau
tiful tributaries of great rivers, are for
/ gotten in the broad sweep of the larg-
er current of history. The march Of
Titans sometimes tramples out the
| memory Of smaller but more useful
lives andsensatiOnal glare often eclip-
ses more modest but purer lights.
This has been the case in the popular
demand for the dime novel dilutiOns
of FenimOre COOper's rOmances of
border life, which have preserved the
records of Indian rapine and atroeity
as the only memorials of pioneer
history. But the early days Of West
ern settlement witnessed sublimer
I herOisms than those of human torture
and nObler victories than those of the
JOmahawk and scalping-knife.
| Among the heroes of endurance that
| was voluntary and Of action that was
/ creative and not sanguinary, there
was one man whose name, seldom
mentioned now save by some of the
few surviving pioneers, deserves to be
perpetuated.
The first reliable trace OfOur modest
hero finds him in the Territory of
Ohio, in 1901, with a hOrse-load of ap-
| pie seeds, which he planted in various
/ places on and about the borders 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 I'M
doubtedly following the same strange
occupation, we have no authentic ac-
count of his movements until we
reach pleasant spring day in 1906,
when a pioneer settler in Jefferson
County, Ohio, noticed a peculiar craft,
with a remarkable occupant and O
curious cargo, slowly dropping down
with the current of the Ohio River.
1t was ''JOhnny Appleseed," !" by which
name Jonathan Chapman was after
| ward know in every lOg-eabin from
the Ohio River to the Northern lakes,
and westward to the prairies 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 farthest
verge of white settlements. With his
canoes he passed down the Ohio to
Marietta, where he entered the Mus
kingum, ascending the stream of that
river until he reached the mouth of
the Walhonding, or White Woman
Creek, and still onward, I'D the
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 Railroad, in Ohio.
A long and toilsome voyage it was, as
q glance at the map will show, and
must have occupied a 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,
. I + r
believing, occurred In Boston, Massa-
ehusetts, in 1775. According to this,
which was bis own statement in one
of his less reticent moods, he was, at
the time Of his appearance on Licking
Creek, twenty-six years of age, and
whether impelled IN hist eccentricites
by some absolute misery of the heart
which could only and relief in inces-
SAINT motion, or governed by a benev-
Olent mOnOmania, his whole life after
was devoted to the work of planting
apple seeds in remote places. The
seed he gathered from the cider-press-
es of Western Pennsylvania; but his
canoe voyage in 1906 appears to have
been the only oecasi IN upon which he
adopted that method Of transporting
them, as all his subsequent Journeys
were made on foot. Having planted
his stock of seeds, he would return to
Pennsylvania for a 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 anu briers, he
provided himself with leathern bags.
Securely packed, the seeds were con-
veyed, sometimes on the back Of a
horse, and not unfrequently on his
own shoulders, either over the old In
dian trail that led from Fort Duquesne
to Detroit, by way of Fort Sandusky,
or over what is styled in theappendix
to "Hutchin's History OF BOguet's
Expedition in 1882 the ''secOnd route
through the wilderness of Ohio, "
which would require him TO traverse
a distance Of one hundred and sixty
six miles in a west-nOrthwest direct
ion from Fort Duquesne in order to
reach the Black Fork of the MOhican.
In personal appearance Chapman
was a small, wiry man, full of restless
activity; he had long dark hair, a
scanty beard that was never shaved,
and keen black eyes that sparkled
with a peculiar brightness. His dress
was of the oldest description. Gen.
orally even in the cOldest weather, he
went barefOoted, but sometimes, for
his longest journeys, he would make
himself rude pair of sandals; at 9TH
er times he would wear any cast-Off
fOOt-cOvering he chaneed TO find-a
boot on one foot and an old brOgan or
a moccasin on the other. 1t appeared
to have been a matter of conscience
I - -, II. 81
though he was rarely without money
enough to do so. On one occasion, in
an unusually cold November, while
he was travelling barefOOted through
mud and snow, a settler who happen
ed TO possess a pair Of shoes that were
too small for his own Use forced theiI
acceptance upon Johnny, declaring
that it was sinful for a human being
to travel with naked feet in such
weather. A few days afterward the
donor was in the village that has
since become the thriving city oi
Mansfield, and met his beneficiary
eontentedly plOdding along with his
feet bare and half frozen. With some
/ degree Of anger he inquired for the
cause of such foolish conduct, and re-
ceived for reply that Johnny had over
! taken a poor, barefOOted family NOV
ing Westward, and as they appeared
to be in much greater need OfclOthing
than he was, he had given them the
shoes. His dress was generally COM
posed of cast-oR clothing, that he had
taken in payment fOrapple-trees and
as the pioneers were far less extrava-
CANT than their descendants in such
matters, the hOmespun and buckskin
= garments that they discarded would
not be very elegant or serviceable. In
; his later years, however, he seems Il
! have thought that even this kind o.
secondhand raiment was too luxur.
ious, as his principal garment wa,
made of coffee sack, in which he GU
: holes for his head AMI arms to pas.
through, and pronounced it "a very