 Fall Means Apple Madness
Who was Johnny
Appleseed? Myth? Legend?
Pioneer? Patriot?
 So
many tall tales have
been spun around the
character of Johnny
Appleseed that many
wonder if he was a real
historical figure, or a
fictional character like
Paul Bunyan. Unlike
Bunyan, however, Johnny
Appleseed’s birth, life
and death are fairly
well documented.
John “Johnny Appleseed”
Chapman was born in
Massachusetts, about
forty miles west of
Boston, on September 26,
1774. As a young man he
traveled south to
western Pennsylvania
where he began his
career planting apple
orchards. By the early
1800’s his occupation
brought him enough
notoriety to earn him
the nickname by which he
is known to this day.
Each year he would
travel further west,
planting apple orchards
in anticipation of the
expansion of the United
States. He would then
sell the trees or the
orchards themselves to
newly arrived settlers.
Apples were a staple of
early America, but not
as a food or pie
filling. Apple cider, in
all of its varieties,
was perhaps the most
important beverage in
the American diet of the
early nineteenth
century, especially in
remote frontier areas.
In fact, the apples that
grew in Johnny
Appleseed’s orchards
were probably so bitter
as to be only good for
cider. Since then,
however, the descendents
of his trees, through
grafting and other
selective cultivation
techniques, continue to
produce very edible,
good-tasting apples of
many varieties.
His work brought him as
far west as Indiana,
where he died quite
wealthy in 1845, having
planted over a hundred
thousand square miles of
orchards. But if John
Chapman were a mere
entrepreneur he never
would have become an
American folk hero who
inspired countless
books, stories and
movies. Johnny Appleseed
was known to be quite an
eccentric. In spite of
his wealth, he slept
mostly in the wilderness
and dressed in a simple
sack, going shoeless
even in the winter. Some
accounts describe him as
wearing a tin pot as a
hat. He was known to be
kind to animals, often
purchasing horses that
were scheduled to be
slaughtered, allowing
them to live out their
days grazing in his
orchards. The settlers
that he met during his
travels always welcomed
him into their homes as
he was a great
story-teller, and
something of an
evangelical preacher. He
never married had no
children. But the legend
of the strange man who
lived alone in the
woods, planting apple
trees and befriending
animals, lives on as a
popular chapter in the
story of the building of
the nation.
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