Nature Bulletin No. 110   April 5, 1947
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
William N. Erickson, President
Roberts Mann, Supt. of Conservation

****:JOHNNY APPLESEED

At Fort Wayne, Indiana, in a little park on the bank of the Old Wabash, 
Erie and Feeder Canal, stands a granite boulder surrounded by an iron 
fence, marking the grave of Johnny Appleseed. This was the nickname 
given that eccentric pioneer who spent 40 years wandering over Ohio 
and eastern Indiana, distributing appleseeds to the early settlers, 
planting apple orchards and nurseries in clearings, and preaching his 
Swedenborgian religion.

His real name was John Chapman, born at Leominster, Mass., Sept. 26, 
1774. He died in Fort Wayne on March 18, 1845. Although never 
married, he was fanatical in his determination to make the wilderness "a 
fit place for women and children."

In 1800 he had a nursery and orchard near Pittsburgh, then a town of 
1500, on the turnpike traveled by the stream of immigrants headed 
west. When they stopped at his spring to water their animals, he read to 
them from his religious books and gave them appleseeds from the pulp 
residue of a cider mill. Finally he loaded a canoe with seeds and started 
down the Ohio River, traveling up and down its tributaries and overland 
on foot to northern Ohio, everywhere planting and giving away 
appleseeds.

He usually wore an old coffee sack with holes cut for his head and 
arms, any cast-off clothing he could find -- sometimes the tatters of 
three or four pairs of pants. On his head might be an old hat with no 
crown and, on top of that, the battered tin pot in which he cooked his 
frugal meals. He would rarely eat with other people. Sometimes he 
wore one shoe, sometimes none, sometimes a shoe and a cast-off 
moccasin. When he stopped overnight at a settler's cabin or a frontier 
tavern, he stretched out on the floor in the evening and read to them 
from his testament and tracts. He slept on the floor or out-of-doors -- 
never in a bed.

He had no home, but the last 15 years of his life were spent in western 
Ohio and eastern Indiana, and he died owning several pieces of land 
near Fort Wayne, each planted with apple trees, and an old gray mare. 
There are gnarled ancient apple trees still living that sprang from his 
seed.

Plant a tree for Johnny Appleseed on Arbor Day.