The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1871-11-17
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ious places on and about the boz
ders of Licking Creek, the first OF
chard thus originated by him beini
on the farm of Isaac Stsdden, il
what is now known as Licking coun
ty in the State Of Ohio. During th'
five succeeding years, although h'
was undoubtedly following the same
strange occupation, we have no au
thentic accounts of his movements
until we reach a pleasant spring day
in 1906, when a pioneer settler in
Jefferson county, Ohio. noticed
peculiar craft with remarkable oc-
cupant, and curious cargo, slowly
dropping down the current Of the
Ohio river. 1t was Johnny Apple
seed" by which name Jonathan
Chapman was afterWard known in
every log cabin 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
a load Of apple seeds to the Western
fronties, for the purpose of creating
oachards on the furthest verge Of
white settlements. With his canoes
be pressed down the Ohio to Mari
eta, where ne entered the Muskin-
gum, ascending the stream Of that
river until the reached the mouth Of
the Walhonding, or White Woman
Creek, and still onward, up the No.
hiean, into the Black FOrs, to the
head Of the 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 glance at the map will show,
and must have occupied a great deal
oftime as the lonely traveller stopped
at every inviting spot to plant the
seeds and make his infant nurseries.
These were the first well authentica-
ted facts in the history Of Jonathan
Chapman, whose birth, there is good
reason for believing, occurred in
Boston Mass, in 1857. According
to this, which is his own statement
in one of his less, ,reticent moods, he
was at the time of his appearance in
Licking county, twenty-six years Of
age, and whether impelled in his &C.
centricities by some absolute misery
ofthe heart which only could find re-
lief in incessant motion, or governed
by a benevolent monomania, his
whole after life was devoted to the
work of planting apple seeds in re-
mote places. The seeds he gathered
from the cider presses of Western
Pennsylvania, but his canoe voyage
In 1906 appears to have been the on
ly occasion 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 fresh supply, and
az sacks made of any less substantial
fabric would not endure the hard
usage of the long trip through for
ests dense with underbrush and bri-
ers, he provided himself leather bags.
Securely packed, the seeds were con
veyed, sometimes on the back of q
horse, and not unfrequently on his
own shoulders, either over a 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 Hutch
ms History of Boquet's Expedition
in 1872" ''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 direction from
Fort Duquesne in order to reach the
Black Fork of the Mohican. 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
which if it does not sOf.
ten the pains, stimulates the power
of endurance. Johny's life was
made serenely happy by the convic-
ton that he was living like the pri-
mitive christians. Nor was he de-
void of a keen humor to which he
occasionally gave vent as the follow
ing will show. Toward the latter
part of Johnny's career in Ohio an
ltinerant missionary found his way
10 the village of Mansfield, and
preached to an open air cOngrega-
5ion. The discourse was tediously
lengthy, and unnecessarily, severe
upon the sin ofextraysgance, which
was beginning to manifest itself
among pioneers by an occasional in
diligence in the carnal vanities Of
calico and "store tea" There was
a good deal of Pharisaic leaven in
the preacher, who very frequently
his discourse by the in
1uiry, where now is there q man
who like the primitive christians is
travelling to Heaven barefOoted and
clad in coarse raiment? When this
had been repeated be-
yond all reasonable endurance,
rose from the log on which
he was reclining, and advancing to
5he speaker, he placed one of his
bare feet upon the stump which
served as a pulpit, and pointing to
MS coffee sack garments, he quietly
said, ''Here's your primitive Chris
,ianP' The well-clothed missionary
lesitated, and stammered, and dis
missed the congregation. His pet
antithesis was destroyed by Joonny's
which was far more pri-
nitive than .hs preacher cared -
,opy.
Some of the pioneers were dispos-
ID to think that Johnny's humor
vas the cause of an extensive prac-
,ieal joke; but it is generally con-
,eded now that wide spread an
loyanee was really the result Of his
belief that the extensively odOred
weed known in the West as the dog
'ennel, but more generally styled
he May weed, possessed valuable
virtues. He procured
some seeds of the plant in Pennsyl-
7ania, and sowed them in the vicinity
If every house in the region Of his
ravels. The consequence was that
crops Of the weed spread
,ver the whole country, and caused