Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-05-03

action and conversation, nervous and rest
less He had gray eyes, which were piercing.
and wore his hair and scanty beard long.
His diet usually consisted, when he could
get 1t, of milk, fruits. vegetables, seldom
meats and never veal, as he said this should
be a land flowing with milk and honey, and
therefore the calves should be spared. He
believed it was sinful to kill for food"
The years on either side of 1872 were full
of excitement to the sturdy men and women
| who were planting an empire in the
wilderness. While the settlers were being
tortured and killed by the savages, Johnny
Appleseed went to and fro unharmed, Even
the wild beasts and the treacherous reptiles,
even the rattlesnske. of which the section of
country spoken OF was the home, seemed to
have an understanding as to Johnny. Once,
and once only, did the snake venture to pun
ish him, and the accident is told thus:
Regretted Killing a Snake.
prairie preparatory to starting a nursery
when rattIesnake bit him. Describing
the event, with sigh, he said: Poor fel-
low; he only touched me, when /, in an un-
godly passion, put the heel of my scythe on
him and went home. When / went back
for my scyths there lay the poor fellow
dead"
Johnny slept in the woods oftener than in
the cabin. One autumn night while lying
before fire in the forest he noticed that the
mosquitoes flew into the blaze and perished.
He arose, filled the tin mush, or coffee, pot
which he wore on his head, with water and
quenched the fame, remarkIng: tGod ior-
bid that should build fire for my COM
fort that should be the means Of destroying
any of His creatures"
Once he went bare-footed, carrying the
shoe for weeks, because the foot had acci-
dentally stepped upon snake, On an
other occasion he had built fire at the end
of a hollow log intending to camp there for
the night, but finding the log inhabited
by bear and her cubs removed
the fire to the other end and slept
in the snow in the open air rather than dis
turb her. 1t is also told that during one of
Johnny's sojourns a Mansfield an itinerant
preacher was delivering sermon in the
open air with lis congregation scattered
ground. The preacher had become very
severe on the growing extravaganza of the
pioneers and exclaimed several times:
where is the primitive Christian travel
ing to heaven barefooted and in coarse raj
ment?" Finally, even Johnny's patience
wore out, and raising his bare feet and
pointing to his coffee sack, he answered,
much to the confusion OF the speaker:
Here, here's your primitive ChristianI"
Warning of Massacre.
have said the Indians treated johnny
with great kindness. The DeIawares had
been located in villages at JeromeYille and
Greentown, Ashland county, and although
the Greentown Indians numb bered several
hundred, were Christians and half-civilized,
living in some 60 log cabins, the military
tore them from their homes and, notwith-
standing the promise to Captain Pipe to
preserve their village, the soldiers put
flames to the huts of Greentown and it was
totally destroyed, including the large coun-
Gil house.
The result wase the massacre of several
families, and the settlers for many miles
around fled to the block houses at Mans
field. Mt Vernon and elsewhere for pro-
lection.
Johnny Appleseed conveyed information
of the uprising from cabin to cabin as far
south as Mt. Vernon, refusing food and
denying himself all rest, tramping night
and day. As he approached cabin he
shouted: "The tribes of the heathen are
around about your doors, and devouring
flame followeth after him." and with few
words of explanation he was off again.
Judge G. s. Cofinberry. late of Cleveland,
thus recounts one of Johnny's midnight
visits: Although 1 was but mere child,
can remember, as it it was but Yesterday,
the warning cry of Johnny Appleseed as he
stood before nv fathers log cabin door on
that awful night. The cabin stood where
now stands the old North American Hotel in
the city of Mansfield. 1 remember the
precise language, the clear loud voice, the
deliberate exclamations, and the fearful
thrill it awoke in my bosom: "Flyl fyi
for your 1vesi the Indians are numbering
and scalping the Seymour, and the Copuses."
"These were his words. My father sprang
to the door, but the messenger was gone and
midnight silence reigned without"
A Regularly Constituted Minister.
John Chapman was regularly constituted
minister of the Church OF the New Jerusa-
lem, and constituted missionary of that
faith under the authority of the association
at Boston. He had credentials to that
effect. He was also supplied with tracts OF
that church, which he distributed, and when
he didn't have sufficient to go round be tore
them into pieces and left a part at one house
and a second part at another, and so on, and
after being welcomed to the frontier home
he would lie down upon the floor. open the
New Testament and eloquently read "some
news right fresh from heaven" as be put it,
surrounded by the pioneer household hushed
In awe.
Whereas this eccentric person benefited
mankind by planting fruit trees he also
mistakingly thought to. in the same man.
ner, bless him by spreading the medicinal
herbs of the other sections of the country.
Thus he dropped a handful of dog feanel,
pennyroyal, catnip, hoarhound. mullen or
rattle-root seed or the seed of some other
medicinal plant of the houswfe, along his
path in his journeys. especially at the way
side near dwellings. In fact he inflicted an
evil, when he sought to do good, for the
rank fennel lines our highways and borders
our lands and steals into our dooryards and
has become pest.
The year 1865 years after his first ap-
pearance in the Ohio Valley, the country
had grown too densely inhabited for this
child of the forest, and two years later we
find him permanently removed to Indiana.
Death of the Old Benefaotor.
In the spring of 1847, being within Is
miles of one of his nurseries on the St.
Joseph river, he was informed that cattle
had broken into his nursery, and were de-
stroying his trees. He started Immediately
for the place. 1t was a warm day. and at
and was cordially received, but decliued to
eat anything except some bread and milk,
which he ate sitting on the doorstep gazing
on the setting sun.
Before retiring he for the last time read
in an eloquent voice, "fresh newsright from
heaven" and declining a bed lay down
upon the floor as had been his custom
through life.