The Real Johnny Appleseed!

Sept. 26, 1774 - Mar. 18, 1845

It's that time of year when I think about apple cider and when I do I can't help thinking about the man responsible for creating a chain of nurseries in NW Ohio; Johnny "Applseed Chapman." 

What Did Johnny Appleseed Look Like?

While there are disagreements as to what John Chapman looked like, the picture above seems to be the most widely accepted. Johnny "Appleseed" Chapman was described as small and wiry, average height, quick in speed and restless in motion. His cheeks were hollow and his body spare because he walked so much and ate so little. His face and neck were bronzed and lined with wind and sun. His eyes were dark and piercing.

You may be asking yourself, "What does Johnny Appleseed have to do with local history." Easy, Johnny "Appleseed" Chapman spent a lot of time in Allen and Auglaize Counties in the 1820's. In fact if you had lived along Fort Amanda road during that time, you probably would have seen him as he traveled that road frequently.

So who was Johnny Appleseed

The most common perception of Johnny Appleseed is that of a tall, lanky individual of limited education or possibly mentally challenged, walking through the countryside wearing a tin pan for a hat flinging apple seeds helter-skelter along the way hoping they would grow into apple trees. The fact is, nothing could be further from the truth.

In reality, Johnny Chapman was a very intelligent individual.  He was professionally trained as an Orchardist named Mr. Crawford.  Johnny was an skilled negotiator and a businessman who developed a strategic business plan that made him a very wealthy man. His skills along with a business strategy helped him create a chain of orchards throughout the Midwest that provided him with an income that sustained him all his life.

The Beginning

Johnny Chapman, son of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Simons) Chapman, was born near Leominster, Mass. on September 26, 1774.

Boyhood home of John Chapman - Leominster, Ma.

Johnny's father was was a member of a militia group that fought the British at Concord Bridge on April 19, 1775. 

On July 18, 1776, John's mother died in childbirth. Three weeks later the baby died. The family eventually moved to Longmeadow, Hampden County, Massachusetts where Nathaniel met and married Lucy Cooley on July 24 1780. Together they ten children.  Johnny was 6-years old at the time.  

The family eventually moved to Longmeadow, Mass. where Johnny learned to read and write his name. As a small boy he worked on Mr. Crawford's farm near his home, on which there was a large apple orchard. Mr. Crawford is credited with giving John his first training in the care of trees and fruit. It's said he received above average opportunity for formal education for this period. He read extensively and was familiar with the Bible from cover to cover. Its said that his speech was that of a "man of letters." Johnny became a member of a small religious group known as the Swedborgians, a faith later called Church of New Jerusalem).

With his Bible, his religious texts and his seeds, Johnny went ahead of the great immigrant flood ever sweeping westward. With his earnings, he purchased a fertile piece of land near Pittsburg and built a cabin near a spring, where he became a well-known resident. General Harris who was in command of the fort at Pittsburgh owned a large farm with an apple orchard. Harris hired him to care for the orchard and with seeds from the Harris orchard, he soon had an orchard started on his own land.

He practiced the Van Mons theory of improving fruit by seedling rather than by grafting or budding. Chapman wasn't unique in that he planted seedling nurseries, many early nurserymen planted seeds. What made Chapman unique is that he moved from place to place with an eye for future markets. He was almost possessed with the idea that every pioneer going west should have an apple tree. He collected seeds from the cider mills, and after cleaning, sorting, drying them thoroughly, packaged them in little buckskin bags to give to every family moving west.

After the excitement of the War of 1812 died down, Johnny worked his way over into the Maumee Valley. A treaty was made at the foot of the Maumee rapids in 1817 which opened new lands to settlers. While buyers were reluctant to buy there, Johnny went ahead to plant for the market that he believed would surely develop. 

He took advantage of the construction of the Miami Canal in 1824, and planted nurseries along the proposed route to Toledo.  In 1828 he started a nursery about one mile from Defiance, Ohio. 

A Businessman with a Strategic Business Plan

To be clear, Chapman planted nurseries rather than orchards. He built fences around them to protect them from livestock and left them in the care of neighbors who sold trees on shares and returned every year or two to tend to the nursery. 

After creating several nurseries in Pennsylvania, he moved onto Ohio where he created them in Mansfield, Lisbon, Lucas, Perrysville and Loudonville. By the 1830's he was operating a chain of nurseries from Pennsylvania through Ohio and into Indiana. His business plan was basically this:
1. Negotiate with a land owner to lease land on which to plant apple trees.
2. The landowner would care for the trees.
3. The land owner sold the apples and set aside Chapman's share of the profits. 
4. Johnny would return to the farm periodically and collect his money. It was a very well thought out  business plan and a win-win for everyone involved.  

No Stranger to Fort Amanda

During his wandering throughout the Midwest, Johnny was no stranger at Fort Amanda. In fact he visited Fort Amanda several times during his life and helped start several orchards in the area, one near Shawnee High School. A marker on Defiance Trail west of Lima was the site of another of his orchard projects.    


A Historical marker on located on Defiance Trail, 1/2 mile north of Rt. 117 tells us Johnny helped create an orchard nearby.
 

A Religious Man

During his travels, John would tell stories to children and spread the gospel to the adults.  In return, he was offered a bed or a place on the floor to sleep on for the night.  Ocassionally he would receive the bonus of a free meal.  He is also credited for converting many Indians to Christianity.  Indians, including hostile tribes admired Chapman who regarded him as someone who had been touched by the Great Spirit.  

Attitude Toward Animals 

Johnny Appleseed cared very deeply about animals, including insects. Henry Howe who visited all the counties in Ohio in the early nineteenth century, collected stories from locals who had met Johnny "Appleseed."  The following are two examples.

  "Another time he made a campfire in a snowstorm at the end of a hollow log in which he intended to pass the night but finding it occupied by a bear and cubs, he removed his fire to the other end, and slept on the snow in the open air rather than disturb the bear." 

The next story was shared with me by an individual whose ancestor, as a child at Fort Amanda, actually witnessed Chapman's love of animals

    "One cool autumn night, while lying by his campfire in the woods, Johnny 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 after wards remarked, "God forbid that I should build a fire for my comfort, that should be the means of destroying any of His creatures."

 

Records show that in the course of his long wanderings, Chapman owned either by deed or long-time lease, no less than 22 properties, nearly 1200 acres in several counties in Ohio and Allen and Jay counties in Indiana. One of his orchards had15,000 seedlings at the time of his death. . His lands were carefully chosen on sights where land values would increase. He cultivated his large plantings of seedlings, carefully re-setting the little trees in rows. He built brush fences around the tracts of land to keep deer and other wild animals from eating the seedlings. While animals were troubling, Chapman treated them the same as he would any human being.

For months Johnny went about his business, planting in Indiana and lower Michigan localities which were attracting settlers. But whenever he returned to Fort Wayne he saw changes, and to match its growth, he started additional nurseries on the St. Marys and St. Joseph Rivers. It is said that he planted in eastern Iowa where Indian lands had been released and offered for sale. In 1843 he paid his last visit to Ohio. In 1836, when he was 62 he began expanding his real estate enterprises in Indiana.

Death of Johnny "Appleseed" Chapman

In the spring of 1845 when Johnny was in his 72nd year, word came that cattle had broken into a certain nursery in a northern Indiana county and he felt he must go to his trees. He returned sick and weary and sought the home of his old friend William Worth on the St. Joseph River. He had contracted pneumonia known then as the winter plague. A few days later William Worth reported the "little old man died last night," it was March 18 1845.

At the sawmill of Richard Parker, a plain walnut coffin was made for Johnny, and he was buried by his friends in a burial plot in David Archer's graveyard, two and a half miles north of the city of Fort Wayne.   David Archer Cemetery is in Johnny Appleseed Park on the east side of Parnell Avenue, just south of the Allen County Memorial Coliseum.

 It is the burial site for early pioneer Johnny Appleseed  (The estate papers show that Samuel Fletter was paid $6.00 expense for a coffin.)

Death and Obituary 

There are several variations on the actual date of his death but the most reliable claim Johnny died on March 18, 1845 near Fort Wayne, Indiana. His obituary in the Fort Wayne Sentinel printed March 22, 1845 read:

"Dies in this city on Tuesday last, Mr. Thomas McJanet, a stone-cutter, aged 34 years, a native of Ayrshiere, Scotland, and on the same day in this neighborhood, at an advanced age, Mr. John Chapman (better known as Johnny Appleseed)." "The deceased was well known through this region by his eccentricity, and the strange garb he usually wore. He followed the occupation of a nurseryman, and has been a regular visitor here upwards of 20 years. He was a native of Pennsylvania, we understand, but his home - if home he had - for some years past was in the neighborhood of Cleveland, 0., where he has relatives living. He is supposed to have considerable property, yet denied himself almost the common necessities of life - not so much perhaps for avarice as from his peculiar notions on religious subjects. He was a follower of Swenbog and devoutly believed that the more he endured in this world, the less he would have to suffer and the greater would be his happiness hereafter he submitted to every privation with cheerfulness and content, believing that in so doing he was securing snug quarters hereafter." "In the most inclement weather he might be seen barefooted and almost naked except when he chanced to pick up articles of old clothing. Notwithstanding the privations and exposure he endured he lived to an extreme old age, not less that 80 years at the time of his deity - though no person would have judged from his appearance that he was 60." "He always carried with him some· work on the doctrines of Swedenbourgh with which he was perfectly familiar, and would readily converse and argue on his tenants, using much shrewdness and penetration. His death was quite sudden. He was seen on our streets a day or two previous."

 

Famous In His Own Time

It is said that when news of Johnny's death reached Washington, D. C., General Sam Houston, hero and one of the first two United States Senators from Texas, stood in Congress and said, "This old man was one of the most useful citizens of the world in his humble way. He has made a greater contribution to our civilization than we realize. He has left a place that never can be filled. Farewell, dear old eccentric heart, your labor has been a labor of love and generations, yet unborn, will rise up and call you blessed."

When General William Tecumseh Sherman, one of the famous generals of the Civil War, heard of Appleseed's death at Fort Wayne, he was deeply affected, according to accounts in old publications. The general had lived in Mansfield and Ashland, Ohio during the years of Johnny's wanderings and work there. General Sherman said, "Johnny Appleseed's name will never be forgotten in Ohio. His work has given a degree of prominence and stability to many a frontier village. As wealth increases and the country becomes more settled, we shall realize more and more the value of the work he has done. We will keep his memory green, and future generations of boys and girls will love him, as we who know him in the Ohio Valley have learned to love him."

Oh Yes, what About The Pan On His Head?

While the one feature associated most with Johnny Appleseed is the pan he wore backwards on his head.  The obvious question is why would he wear a pan on his head?  I thought about that for a long time and think I may have the answer. 

Johnny needed a pot to cook his meals in so he had to carry it everywhere he went. Yes, he could have carried it in his hands but that could be tiring after a while and yes he could have fastened it to a rope and tied it around his waist. Now try to imagine walking miles everyday with a pot banging up against the side of your leg. Not comfortable right? So whats the next best way to carry it?     Somewhere where you don't have to carry it, somewhere where it isn't continually banging into your leg as you walk. Seems to me the most logical place to transport it is on the head. The handle turned toward the back would keep it from snagging on low hanging branches as he walked through the woods.  May be a stretch but it makes sense to me. 

Conclusion

American history is full of myths which probably explains why most Americans think of Johnny Appleseed as a mythical or almost cartoon like character, a strange eccentric vagabond and religious zealot strolling through the woodlands randomly scattering seed all over. The reality is, Chapman was a very intelligent man, a professionally trained Orchardist with a sound business strategy and a man who had a deep belief in God and all of His creatures.  John Chapman was a very unique individual.  How future generations perceive the man depends on how accurately this generation tells his story.  After all, both they AND he, deserve the truth.