Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1871-10-26
and lost it. Only a few years ago
the property was in litigation. -..l

and lost 1t. Only q few years ago
the property was in litigation.
~ We must not leave the reader un-
der 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 martyrdom, 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 Mansfield,
and preached to an open-air congre-
cation. The discourse was tedious
" lengthy, and unnecessarily severe
upon the sin of extrayagance, which
was beginning to. manifest itself
among the pioneers by an occasion
al indulgence in the carnal vanities
of calico and ''store tea." There
was a good deal of the Pharisaic
leaven in the preacher, who very fire.
quently emphasized his discourse
by the inquiry, "Where now is there
a man who, like the primitive Chris
.tians, is travelling to heaven bare
footed and clad in coarse raiment?
When this interrogation had been
repeated beyond all reasonable en-
durance, Johnny rose from the log
on which he was reclining, and ad-
yancing to the speaker, he placed
one of his bare feet upon the stump
which served for a pulpit, and point
ing to his coffee-sac garment, he
quietly said, "Here's your primitive
Christianr' The well-clothed mis-.
sionary hesitated and stammered
and dismissed the congregation. His
pet antithesis was destroyed by
Johnny's personal appearance,
which was far more primitive than
the preacher cared to copy.
Some of the pioneers were dis
posed to think that Johnny's humor
was the cause of an extensive prac-
tical joke: but it is generally con
|ceded now that widespread an
noyance 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
antimaiarial virtues. He procured
some seeds of the plant in Pennsyl-
vania, and sowed them in the vicin
ity Of every house in the region of
his travels. The consequence was
that successive fourishing crops of
the weed spread over the whole
country, and caused almost as much
trouble as the disease it was inten-
ded to ward off; and to this day the
dog-fennel, introduced by Johnny
Appleseed, is one of the worst
grievances of the Ohio farmers.
In 173S-thirty-seven years after
his appearance on Licking Creek
Johnny noticed that civilization,
wealth, and population were press
ing into the wilderness of Ohio.
Hitherto he had easily kept just in
advance of the wave of settlement; /;
but now towns and churches were
making their appearance, and even,
at long intervals, the stage-driver's
horn broke the silence of the grand
old forests, and he felt that his work
was done in the region in which he
had labored so long. He visited
every house, and took a solemn fare
well of all the families. The little
girls who had been delighted with
his gifts of fragments of calico and
ribbons had become sober matrons,
and the boys who had wondered at
his ability to bear the pain caused
by running needles Into his flesh
were heads of families. With part
ing words of admonition he left
them, and turned his steps steadily
toward the setting sun.
During the succeeding nine years
he pursued his eccentric avocation
on the western border of Ohio and
Indiana. In the summer of 1S47,
when his labors had literally borne
fruit over a hundred thousand
square miles of territory, at the close
of warm day, after travelling twen-
ty miles, he entered the house of a
settler in Allen county, 1ndiana,and
was, as usual, warmly welcomed.
He declined to eat with the family,
but accepted some bread and milk,
which he partook of sitting on the
doorstep and gazing on the setting
sun. Later in the evening he de-
livered his ''news right from heav
en- by reading the Beatitudes. De-
clining other accommodation, he
slept, as usual, on the floor, and in
the early morning he was found with
his features all aglow with a superna
turallight,and his body so near death
that his tongue refused its Office.
The physician, who was hastily sum
moned, pronounced him dying, but
added that he had never seen man
in so placid state at the approach
of death. At seventy-two years of
age, forty-si of which had been de
voted to his self-imposed mission,
he ripened into death as naturally
and beautifully as the seeds of his
own planting had grown into fibre
and bud and blossom and the ma-
tured fruit.
Thus died one of the memorable
men of pioneer times, who never in
ficted pain or knew an enemy-a
man of strange habits, in whom
there dwelt comprehensive love
that reached with one hand down
ward to the lowest forms of life, and
with the other upward to the very
throne of God. A laboring, self
denying benefactor of his race,
homeless, solitary, and ragged, he
trod the thorny earth with bare and
bleeding feet, intent only upon ma
king the wilderness fruitful. Now
"no man knoweth of his sepulchre;"
but his deeds will live in the fra
GRANGE of the apple blossoms he
loyed go we'll, and the story of his
lite, however crudely narrated, will
be perpetual proof that true hero
ism, pure benevolence, noble virtues
and deeds that deserve immortality
may be found under meanest ap-
parel, and far from gilded halls and