JOHNNY APPLESEED aka JOHN CHAPMAN

JOHN CHAPMAN [The oddest character in all our history was John Chapman alias Appleseed, who was discovered in Knox county as early as 1801. - A. B. NORTON]
     John Chapman, sometime called "Johnny Appleseed," because of a penchant for planting apple seeds, and the cultivation of nurseries, was born in Massachusetts, as is believed, in the year 1770.  Nothing is known of his ancestry, except that they were genuine Yankees, poor, enterprising, and restless.  His name was not "Jonathan," as it is generally printed in pioneer sketches, but plain John Chapman; hence, he is generally called, among the early settlers of this region, "Johnny Appleseed."*  It is remarkable he never communicated his real history to his most intimate friends, and was equally reticent concerning his youth and school days.  We have only a glimmer of his early instruction, and even there, but a single ray of light bursts through the clouds that hover over and about  his boyhood.  All agree that he was a good reader - eloquent at times - and that in conversation, when discoursing upon fine fruit, and th spiritual theories of his beloved Swedenborg, his dark eyes would flash with peculiar intelligence, while he discussed his favorate topics.  It was clear to all that his education had not been neglected, for he possessed a fair fund of information upon many subjects not connected with his fruit enterprises. 
     The time when, and the reason why, he bade adieu to the sterile hills of New England, were never communicated to any one, so far as we have been able to learn.  Whether the acceptance of the life of a recluse sprang from disappointment in a love affair, or was voluntary and as matter of choice, will never be known.  As early as 1796-7, he was seen in the autumns, for two or three successive years, along the banks of the Potomac, in eastern Virginia, visiting the cider mills where the farmers were pressing cider, pickling the seeds from the pumice.  When he had collected a sufficient quantity of seeds for his purpose, they were carefully packed in linen or leather sacks, and carried on his shoulders or by an old horse procured for that purpose, across the mountains, to the territories west of the Ohio river.  He generally had with him an axe, a hatchet, and a Virginia hoe, with which he cleared and dug in loamy or rich soil, along the banks of a stream, a few rods of ground, around which he erected a brush fence, and then planted his apple seeds.  His first nurseries were planted, as near as we can learn, along the Tuscarawas, the Muskingum, the Licking, and Walhonding and its branches, Vernon river, the Lake fork, and the Jerome and Black forks.  He probably passed up the Licking two or three years before he ascended the Walhonding, which took place about the year 1800.  When the Butlers ascended Vernon river to the present site of Mt. Vernon in 1801, they found the eccentric John Chapman at the cabin of the wild, rollicking pioneer, Andrew Craig.  He planted a number of nurseries along the banks of the Walhonding, and several along the Vernon river as high up as Mt. Vernon.  These nurseries were placed at eligible points in the region of good farm land; and when teh pioneers began to pour in, young fruit trees in abundance awaited their arrival.
     It is not well ascertained when Johnny Chapman commenced planting seeds within the present limits of Ashland county, but from the fact that most of the territory along the Black fork belonged to Knox until 1813, we incline to the opinion he may have passed up the Black fork as early as 1808 -9, for he had a very fine nursery one and a half miles west of Mifflin as early as 1811-12, and had, in 1809, obtained a small piece of ground for a nursery from Alexander Finley, near the present site of Tylertown, in Mohican township.  Here he was ready with his choice apple-trees as soon as the woodman's axe began to echo through the forest.  Besides the nurseries at Finley's and west of Mifflin, he planted one on the farm subsequently owned by the late John Oliver, in Green township, and a fine one on the bottom, near the present site of Leidigh's mill in Orange township, and sundry smaller ones in the east and west parts of the county, along the small streams, where the early settlers procured trees for a trifle.  Ever restless, Johnny kept moving from point to point.  His nurseries were not neglected, for he frequently returned and pruned them so as to make the trees symmetrical.  His nurseries were scattered along the streams for hundreds of miles, and he consumed many months during the year traveling from place to place.  Sometimes he would be gone several months, and then suddenly appear among the pioneers, all tattered and bruised by the briars, and brambles, ready to give them fresh news right from Heaven.  His usual charge for young trees was a "fip-penny-bit" apiece.  As money was extremely scarce, Johnny was very accommodating; and if the pioneer could not pay the money he would sell in exchange for exchange for old clothing, and if he could not get such articles he would kindly close the contract, in a business way, by taking a note payable at some future period, and if he ever got his pay he was very much gratified, and if he never got it he seemed equally content and happy.
     In the year 1811 he extended his operations into Richland county, planting several nurseries there, and probably one or two within the present limits of Crawford county.  During the war of 1812-15, he often visited Mansfield, Mt. Vernon, Clinton, and the settlements along the forks of the Mohican and the Walhonding.  When these sparsely settled regions were threatened by Indian invasion, he hastened from cabin to cabin notifying the pioneers of approaching danger, and conjured them to flee for their lives to the block-houses and places of safety.  He was well known among the Indian tribes; and from his harmless demeanor, was regarded as a "great medicine man;" and never incurred the hate and suspicion of the warriors.  Thus, he was enabled to glide through the forests from settlement to settlement on errands of mercy, in entire safety.  From Richland county, after the close of the war, he passed through Crawford to Upper Sandusky, and as early as 1825 into the present limits of Defiance county, and along the Maumee.  In 1826 he visited John H. James, a leading lawyer at Urbana, concerning a nursery that he had planted sometime prior to that year, in Champaign county, and which had passed into the hands of a third party, owning to the neglect of a man from whom he had permission to plant it, to reserve the interest of Chapman.  He doubtless had planted nurseries in Delaware county prior to 1826.  From 1815 to 1843, when he made his last visit, he often returned to Ashland county, at which times he usually passed down the Black fork, among the Copuses, the Irwins, the Coulters, the Tannehills, the Rices, the Olivers, and the Priests.  From hence, he passed over to Finley's; then up the Jerome fork, among the settlers along that stream, until he reached Jacob Young, Patrick Murray, and the Fasts and Masons, at his nursery, near Leidigh's mill - rarely stopping in the villages - though occasionally he called in Mifflin, at the Thomas hotel - in Ashland, at Slocum's; and in Mansfield, at Wiler's. When he did so, he always slept on the floor of the bar-room.
     The precise period when he ascended the Maumee and entered the territory of Indiana is left in doubt. It is probable he had reached Fort Wayne as early as 1826; for in 1830 he was seen on the Maumee seated in a section of a hollow tree, which he improvised for a boat, laden with apple-seeds, and which he landed at Wayne's fort.  Thus, as the pioneers infringed upon the location of his nurseries, he passed on, and continued to plant seeds in advance of the settlements, until death, that waits for no one, called the old man from his toil.
     When interrogated on the subject of grafting, he would dilate on the evils of such as custom with as much earnestness as most surgeons would the operation of separating an arm or a limb from a human being, insisting that the true way to obtain good fruit was to let it grow upon ungrafted trees, because the native growth produced the finest fruit.  How often he visited the cider mills in the east is not known; but the practice must have been kept up to a late period in his life, for he visited the pioneers of Green township as late as 1843, looking very much as he did a quarter of a century before.  The old man generally traveled alone, and rarely had lodgers at his primitive camp-fires.  We hear an occasional instance of parties, desiring to purchase trees, tarrying all night at his solitary hut.
     It is a matter of surprise to many how he survived so long, while roaming through the forests, without defensive weapons, illy clothed and half famished for healthful food during the inclement seasons of the year.  He always refrained from taking the life of animals - never, if possible, even disturbing their lairs or haunts.  So, he never procured sustenance in that way.  His food was generally meagre, and consisted of berries, nuts, vegetables, and a little corn-bread or mush made from meal given him in exchange for trees, or as a matte of charity.  He carried with him a few cooking utensils - a tin pan, which served the double purpose of a hat and a mush-pot, when he had no other head gear.  He would rarely eat at a table with families - and never until he felt sure there would be enough left to satisfy the hunger of the children, always manifesting a great affection for young people, especially little girls, for whom he always had some little keep-sake, consisting of a piece of ribbon or calico.  This peculiarity throws a faint explanation over his monomania for the life of a hermit.  The shadow of some bright little lady of New England still clung to the heart of this strange man.
     When he remained any length of time about a nursery he erected a pole hut, over which he placed a bark roof after the manner of the Indians.  He then gathered leaves and made a very
----------------
* This fact is gathered from a letter addressed to the Fort Wayne Sentinel, by Hon. J. W. Dawson, author of a history of Allen county, Indiana, dated October 11, 1871.  He found "John Chapman" to be his true name, is looking over the papers of his estate, which was settled in the probate court of Allen county.  For instance, two notes were filed against his estate, one dated at Franklin, supposed to be on the Great Miami river, in Ohio, February, 1804, payable to Nathaniel Chapman, one year after date, for one hundred dollars - "in apple trees or land;" the other, one hundred dollars, payable to some minor children named Rudde, of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, when they became of age, both of which were signed by John Chapman.  A better evidence of his name was found in the purchases of land, which he made in Allen county, as well as in Adams and Jay counties, Indiana.  The muniments of title, which he held, were in the name of John Chapman.  He had a sister in Adams or Jay county, married to a man by the name of Broom, who was probably living at his death.  This estate of Johnny was in litigation about ten years.  So he did not die as poor as most people suspected.
     This sister of Johnny, alluded to by Hon. J. W. Dawson, was Persis, her husband's name was William Broom.  They at one time resided on the farm now owned by William Cowan, in Green township, a mile north of Perrysville, on the road to Ashland.  Broom had the care of one or two nurseries (owned by Johnny) in Green township.

Source: History of Ashland County, Ohio with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, by George William Hill, M.D. - Published by Williams Bros. 1880. - Page 182