A legend, an oddball, a real man. He was dressed in a gunney sack, (toga,) a cooking pot on his head, and very little else. No shoes, no coat. The bottom of his feet were as thick as shoe leather. He looked odd to those who saw him, and he was unique. He was a vegetarian and seldom ate meat. He wouldn’t kill anything, not even a mosquito.
There was a man in the Bible that wore camel’s hair, a girdle of skin, and ate locusts, and wild honey. Yes, John Chapman looked as weird as John the Baptist in the Bible. Johnny Appleseed was a member and preacher of, “The New Church.” (The Church of Swedenborg.) He had church services wherever he went and witnessed to everyone he came in contact with. Never had a cabin, slept outdoors or with anyone who invited him in.
John was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, in 1774 . His father served under George Washington. John served an apprenticeship with a nurseryman, and learned how to grow apple trees. John and his brother Nathaniel, started moving West, first to Pennsylvania, and then to the Western Frontier, (Northwest Territory.) Through Ohio and into Indiana.
Johnny Appleseed was a kind person, but he also was a shrewd businessman. He knew that as settlers moved West, they would need food, and he had a dream of feeding the world with apples, so that no one would go hungry. He would go west and choose places he thought settlers might come and plant apple orchards.
He would go to cider mills and get seeds by the bushel. He planted trees in neat rows to make an orchard.
You could claim 100 acres of free land if you settled on it and build a permanent structure, which generally included 50 apple trees and 20 peach trees.
Now we need to talk apples. These were not the beautiful apples you see in the store, they were small and bitter. They could taste like cherries or they could taste like olives. You see apples do not reproduce the same. Each tree has a different DNA and different characteristics. You never knew if you were getting sweet apples or “spitters.” These trees had one advantage, as they were more disease tolerant than the apples of today.
The only way to get a true apple tree is by grafting. The ancient Romans knew about grafting, and so did Johnny. But his religion did not permit grafting because, “lt caused plants to suffer.” This did not matter to the settlers. They used the apples to drink… Applejack. The water was not fit to drink, but hard cider made an excellent drink. If you left hard cider freeze and picked out the ice it made a strong alcoholic drink.
There was a controversy that was raised because of prohibition. Alcoholic drinks were strictly forbidden, but farmers were still making Applejack from Johnny’s trees. The FBI came through and chopped down every apple tree they could find.
Johnny died in fort Wayne Indiana, just prior to the civil war in 1845. He is buried in Johnny Appleseed Park, beside the St Joe River. Some think this was not the actual burial spot, but this is something we probably will never know.
I have a friend that did some studying, and says that Johnny owned a farm close to here. Just east of the Platter bridge, (near Woodburn,) on the Thimlar road. One last thing, Johnny did not believe in marriage, and so abstained.
There is said to be one of his trees that is still living, that is in Nova, Ohio. It would almost be worth the two hour drive to see it, but I know nothing about it. The average life of apple trees is 100 years, if the FBI and Prohibition Officers don’t chop them down.
A legend, a real man, going about spreading apple seeds, and the gospel. Easy to spot by the strange way he dressed. A kind man who went about doing good.
Next time Ruth meets Johnny
—James Neuhouser
