Johnny appleseed

This article is about the historical figure. For the film, see Johnny Appleseed (film).
Johnny Appleseed

Image from Howe's Historical Collection
Born
John Chapman

September 26, 1774

Leominster, Massachusetts, British America
Died
March 18, 1845 (aged 70)

Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.
Occupation
Missionary and gardener
John Chapman (September 26, 1774 – March 18, 1845), better known as Johnny Appleseed, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario, as well as the northern counties of present-day West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. He was also a missionary for The New Church (Swedenborgian) and the inspiration for many museums and historical sites such as the Johnny Appleseed Museum in Urbana, Ohio.

Contents

1Family
2Life
3Death
4Legacy
5Apple cider
6See also
7References
7.1Citations
8Further reading
9External links
Family[edit]
Chapman was born on September 26, 1774, in Leominster, Massachusetts, the second child of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Chapman (née Simonds, married February 8, 1770). His birthplace has a granite marker, and the street is now called Johnny Appleseed Lane.
Chapman's mother, Elizabeth, died in 1776, shortly after giving birth to a second son, Nathaniel Jr., who died a few days later. In 1780, his father, Nathaniel, who was in the military, returned to Longmeadow, Massachusetts, where, in the summer of the same year, he married Lucy Cooley.
Author Rosella Rice stated, "Johnny had one sister, Persis Broom, of Indiana. She was not at all like him; a very ordinary woman, talkative, and free in her frequent, 'says she's' and 'says I's.'"
According to some accounts, an 18-year-old John persuaded his 11-year-old half-brother Nathaniel Cooley Chapman to go west with him in 1792. The duo apparently lived a nomadic life until their father brought his large family west in 1805 and met up with them in Ohio. The younger Nathaniel decided to stay and help their father farm the land.
Shortly after the brothers parted ways, John began his apprenticeship as an orchardist under a Mr. Crawford, who grew apples, thus inspiring Chapman's life journey of planting apple trees. In 1800, at the age of 26, Chapman was in Licking River, Ohio. His first orchard was on the farm of Isaac Stadden in Licking County. In 1806, he embarked upon a canoe voyage down the Ohio, Muskingum, and Walhonding rivers, using two canoes lashed together to transport himself and his seeds.
Life[edit]he never wore shoes not even the snowy winter.

Johnny Appleseed Birthplace site in Leominster, Massachusetts
There are stories of Johnny Appleseed practicing his nurseryman craft in the area of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and of picking seeds from the pomace at Potomac River cider mills in the late 1790s. Another story has Chapman living in Pittsburgh on Grant's Hill in 1794 at the time of the Whiskey Rebellion.
The popular image is of Johnny Appleseed spreading apple seeds randomly everywhere he went. In fact, he planted nurseries rather than orchards, built fences around them to protect them from livestock, left the nurseries in the care of a neighbor who sold trees on shares, and returned every year or two to tend the nursery. He planted his first nursery on the bank of Brokenstraw Creek, south of Warren, Pennsylvania. Next, he seems to have moved to Venango County, along the shore of French Creek, but many of these nurseries were in the Mohican River area of north-central Ohio. This area included the towns of Mansfield, Lisbon, Lucas, Perrysville and Loudonville.
In 1817, a bulletin of the Church of New Jerusalem printed in Manchester, England, was the first to publish a written report about Chapman. It described a missionary who traveled around the West to sow apple seeds and pass out books of the New Church.
In 1819, Chapman was nearly killed in an accident in Ohio. One morning he was picking hops in a tree when he fell and caught his neck in the fork of the tree. Shortly after he fell, one of his helpers, eight-year-old John White, found him struggling in the tree. Unable to get him out of the tree, young John White cut the tree down, saving Chapman's life.[better source needed]
In 1822, the first known use of "John Appleseed" was written in a letter from a member of the New Church.
According to Harper's New Monthly Magazine, toward the end of his career he was present when an itinerant missionary was exhorting an open-air congregation in Mansfield, Ohio. The sermon was long and severe on the topic of extravagance, because the pioneers were buying such indulgences as calico and imported tea. "Where now is there a man who, like the primitive Christians, is traveling to heaven barefooted and clad in coarse raiment?" the preacher repeatedly asked, until Johnny Appleseed, his endurance worn out, walked up to the preacher, put his bare foot on the stump that had served as a pulpit, and said, "Here's your primitive Christian!" The flummoxed sermonizer dismissed the congregation.
Author Rosella Rice, who met Chapman in his later years, stated in the 1863 History of Ashland County, Ohio:
His personal appearance was as singular as his character. He was a small, "chunked" man, quick and restless in his motions and conversation; his beard, though not long, was unshaven, and his hair was long and dark, and his eye black and sparkling. He lived the roughest life, and often slept in the woods. His clothing was mostly old, being generally given to him in exchange for apple-trees. He went bare-footed, and often traveled miles through the snow in that way...[He] wore on his head a tin utensil which answered both as a cap and a mush pot...
Historian Paul Aron argues, "Chapman was actually a successful businessman. He bought many of the parcels of land on which he planted his seeds and ultimately accumulated about twelve hundred acres across three states...He wore pauper's clothing by choice and not out of necessity."
Chapman would tell stories to children and spread New Church gospel to the adults, receiving in return a floor to sleep on for the night, and sometimes supper. Rice stated, "We can hear him read now, just as he did that summer day, when we were busy quilting upstairs, and he lay near the door, his voice rising denunciatory and thrilling—strong and loud as the roar of wind and waves, then soft and soothing as the balmy airs that quivered the morning-glory leaves about his gray beard. His was a strange eloquence at times, and he was undoubtedly a man of genius. He made several trips back East, both to visit his sister and to replenish his supply of Swedenborgian literature.[citation needed]
He preached the gospel as he traveled, and during his travels he converted many Native Americans. The Native Americans[which?] regarded him as someone who had been touched by the Great Spirit, and even hostile tribes left him strictly alone.[failed verification]
He cared very deeply about animals, including insects. Henry Howe visited all the counties in Ohio in the early nineteenth century and collected several stories from the 1830s, when Johnny Appleseed was still alive:
One cool autumnal night, while lying by his camp-fire in the woods, he observed that the mosquitoes flew in the blaze and were burned. Johnny, who wore on his head a tin utensil which answered both as a cap and a mush pot, filled it with water and quenched the fire, and afterwards remarked, "God forbid that I should build a fire for my comfort, that should be the means of destroying any of His creatures." Another time, he allegedly made a camp-fire in a snowstorm at the end of a hollow log in which he intended to pass the night but found it occupied by a bear and cubs, so he removed his fire to the other end and slept on the snow in the open air, rather than disturb the bear.
In a story collected by Eric Braun, he had a pet wolf that had started following him after he healed its injured leg.
More controversially, he also planted dogfennel during his travels, believing that it was a useful medicinal herb. It is now regarded as a noxious, invasive weed.
According to another story, he heard that a horse was to be put down, so he bought the horse, bought a few grassy acres nearby, and turned it out to recover. When it did, he gave the horse to someone needy, exacting a promise to treat it humanely.
During his later life, he was a vegetarian. Chapman chose not to marry, as he believed he would find his soulmate in heaven if she did not appear to him on earth.
Death[edit]

Johnny Appleseed, Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1871

Possibly Johnny Appleseed's grave (disputed)
Different dates are listed for his death. Harper's New Monthly Magazine of November 1871 was apparently incorrect in saying that he died in mid-1847, though this is taken by many as the primary source of information about John Chapman. Multiple Indiana newspapers reported his death date as March 18, 1845. The Goshen Democrat published a death notice for him in its March 27, 1845, edition, citing the day of death as March 18 of that year. The paper's death notice read:
In Fort Wayne, on Tuesday, 18th, inst John Chapman, commonly known by the name of Johnny Appleseed, about 70 years of age. Many of our citizens will remember thiswy winter