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Happy Birthday!
Johnny Appleseed
(John Chapman)
born in Boston 9/26/1774
(per one of his own very rare public statements)
By WD Haley, in Harper's Nov. 1871 (quoted in Botkin)
The first reliable trace of our modest hero finds him in the
Territory of Ohio, in 1801, with a horse-load of apple seeds,
which he planted in various places on and about the borders of
Licking Creek, the first orchid thus originated by him being on
the farm of Isaac Stadden, in what is now known as Licking
County, in the State of Ohio.
(no further reports...) ...until a pleasant spring day in 1806,
when a pioneer settler in Jefferson County, Ohio, noticed a
peculiar craft, with a remarkable occupant and a curious cargo
slowly dropping down the current of the Ohio River.
(he from then was known as Johnny Appleseed in every log cabin
through the northern mid-west...)
With two canoes lashed together, he was transporting a load of
apple seeds to the Western frontier, for the purpose of creating
orchids on the farthest verge of white settlements.
(the difficult exact route west given...)
...and whether compelled by his eccentricities by some absolute
misery of the heart which could only find relief in incessant
motion, or governed by a benevolent monomania, his whole after-
life was devoted to the work of planting apple seeds in remote
places.
...seeds were gathered from cider presses in Western Penn...
...all future journeys were on foot...
...would use all seeds and return to PA for more...
...used leathern bags as lesser material wouldn't take the
trip through the bush...
...at his time, area west was pure wilderness...Indian trails
only, bears, wolves, droves of wild hogs. Most wore heavy
foot gear to protect against rattlesnakes but Johnny went
barefoot..
...he would plant his seeds, place a slight inclosure around the
place, and leave them to grow until the trees were large enough
to be transplanted by the settlers who, in the mean time, would
have made their clearings in the vicinity.
...many of his sites are well-known...
In personal appearance Chapman was a small wiry man, full of
restless activity; he had long dark hair, a scanty beard that
was never shaved, and keen black eyes that sparkled with a
peculiar brightness. His dress was of the oddest description.
Generally, even in the coldest weather, he went barefooted, but
sometimes, for his long journeys, he would made himself a rude
pair of sandals; at other times he would wear any cast-off foot-
covering he chanced to find -- a boot on one foot and an old
brogan or a moccasin on the other. It appears to have been a
matter of conscience with him never to purchase shoes, although
he was rarely without money enough to do so. (One occasion in
snowy winter he was given good shoes but passed them on to
someone in greater need than he, and continued barefoot.)
His dress was generally composed of cast-off clothing, that he
had taken in payment for apple-trees; and as the pioneers were
far less extravagant than their descendants in such matters, the
homespun and buckskin garments that they discarded would not be
very elegant or serviceable.
(...in later years, only made clothes for himself of a coffee-
sack with holes for arms and head.) ...and pronounced it "a very
serviceable cloak, and as good clothing as any man need wear."
(...headgear...first used his tin cooking pot but it didn't
protect eyes from the sun...) so he constructed a hat of paste
board with an immense peak in front.
(...would wander and suddenly appear in white settlements and
Indian villages...) but there must have been some rare force of
gentle goodness dwelling in his looks and breathing in his words
for it is the testimony of all who knew him that, notwithstanding
his ridiculous attire, he was always treated with the
greatest respect by the rudest frontiersman, and, what is a
better test, the boys of the settlements forbore to jeer at him.
(...reticent with adults but affectionate with children
[especially little girls] ...always had presents for the
children...when invited to eat, he would stand until assured
there was enough for there them...all the children everywhere
liked him.)
(Indians too..) By these wild and sanguinary savages he was
regarded as a "great medicine man"... (account of eccentrici-
ties, dress..) and especially the fortitude with which he could
endure pain, in proof of which he would often thrust pins and
needles into his flesh. (...for his many cuts, he would sear
himself with red-hot iron...) (...even during war of 1812, he
went safely among savage allies of Great Britain...) this
enabled him to give the settlers warning of approaching danger
in time to allow them to take refuge in their block-houses
before the savages could attack them. (On Hull's surrender...)
Large bands of Indians and British were destroying everything
before them and murdering defenseless women and children...
...At this time Johnny travelled day and night, warning the
people of the approaching danger. He visited every cabin and
delivered this message: " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and
he hath anointed me to blow the trumpet in the wilderness, and
sound an alarm in the forest; for behold, the tribes of the
heathen are round about your doors, and a devouring flame
followeth after them." The aged man who narrated this incident
said that he could feel even now the thrill that was caused by
this prophetic announcement of the wild-looking herald of
danger, who aroused the family on a bright moonlight midnight
with his piercing voice. refusing all offers of food and
denying himself a moment's rest, he traversed the border day and
night until he had warned every settler of the approaching peril.
(...would not kill any creature for food or waste any food
regardless of the state.) (...carried 2 books by Swedish seer
E. Swedenborg and had frequent chats with angels and spirits...
two female spirits would be his wives in after-life if he stayed
single on earth... ...not having tracts, he'd leave pages from
above books with settlers, pick them up and leave another section
on next trip. So believed in Swedenborg, he felt the book was
talisman against harm, and the reason he didn't need shoes to
protect against rattlers. ...would often lie on the floor of a
log cabin, preaching the New Testament and eloquently babbling-
expounding to those who could barely understand him.)
(...with equal fervour,...apples must be grown from seed and...)
denounced as absolute wickedness pruning and grafting, and would
speak of the act of cutting a tree as if it were a cruelty
inflicted on a sentient being.
(...also consistently protected animals...would purchase an
animal he heard of being abused and give it away on condition of
kind treatment...would collect lamed animals abandoned by
pioneers and would pay for their care. If recovered, he'd give
them away, not sell... ...all living things had Divine Essence
and mustn't be hurt...)
No Brahmin could be more concerned for the preservation of
insect life, and the only occasion on which he destroyed a
venomous reptile was a source of long regret, to which he could
never refer without manifesting sadness. (doused his fire one
cold night because mosquitoes flew into it)
(..saw tree-planting as a business but would often fail to
collect or would give them to the poor. Most of his money was
spent on care of animals or to a poor or sickly family...
(...was generally happy and sometimes showed a keen humor....
(...he also planted a stink-weed, Dog-fennel, at every farm all
over Ohio. Some thought it was a practical joke on his part but
seems to have been to ward off malaria.)
(...in 1838, he decided he could no longer keep ahead of the
waves of settlements, wealth and churches and said goodbye at each
household and headed west to Indiana.)
(In a settler's home in Allen County, Ind. after declining a
meal with the family and only eating bread and milk and refusing a
bed but sleeping as usual on the floor, Chapman died on March
11th, 1847. The physician, arriving while Chapman lay dying
said...) he had never seen a man in so placid a state at the
approach of death.
A Treasury of American Folklore (Stories, Ballads and Traditions of
the People); edited by B.A. Botkin [at the time head of Lib of Cong
Folk Song Div] with a Foreward by Carl Sandburg; Crown Publishers, NY;
(C) 1944
© Abby Sale - all rights reserved
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