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Source:
A Centennial Biographical History
of
Richland and Ashland County, Ohio
- ILLUSTRATED -
A. J. Baughman, Editor
Chicago
The Lewis Publishing Co.
1901
(Transcribed by Sharon Wick)
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JOHN CHAPMAN.
A monument to the memory of John Chapman - who
was commonly called Johnny Appleseed - was
unveiled at the Sherman-Heineman Park, Mansfield, Ohio,
Nov. 8, 1900. It was the gift of the Hon. M. B.
Bushnell. The ceremonies of the occasion were
held under the auspices of the Richland County
Historical Society, and the historical address was made
by its secretary, A. J. Baughman.
"Johnny" was the pioneer nurseryman of Richland
county, and his real name was John Chapman, - not
Jonathan, as some have claimed. The
muniments of his estate show that his name was John.
He had a half-brother named Jonathan who was a
deaf-mute. "Johnny" was born at
Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1775, and came west in
the beginning of the nineteenth century. Little
was known of his early life, but there were traditions
among the pioneers of Ohio of a romance in which a woman
scorned the young man's love. He began his apple
mission in Pennsylvania in 1802 or 1803, but soon
transferred his field to Ohio. He made frequent
visits to the Keystone state for apple seeds, and on his
return selected favorable spots for his pioneer
nurseries. He sought fertile soil and sheltered
places, and often made clearings to give his tender
shoots protection from wind and blizzard. As one
section of the state became supplied with trees he moved
to another. The early settlers were too busy in
wrestling a livelihood from nature and in fighting
Indians to engage in the slow process of raising apple
trees from seed, and Chapman, full of faith in
the virtue of the fruit, took upon himself the duty of
supplying the need. Usually a man of few words, be
became eloquent when speaking of apples, and his fine
flow of language gave the impression that he had been
well educated.
Living upon the bounty of field and forest, eating
fruits and nuts like the beasts and birds, never harming
an animal for fur or food, Johnny Appleseed
led a life of supreme simplicity. Sometimes he
replenished his scanty wardrobe by bartering young trees
for old clothes or cast-oft’ boots. More often he
gave freely of his trees, and thus started many a
pioneer orchard. He carried on this work in Ohio
for twenty years or more. For the greater part of
this time he made his home in Richland county, and then
he followed the star of empire westward to continue his
mission in the newer field of Indiana, where he died in
1845.
For his tramps in the woods he carried a saucepan on
‘his head and cooked such vegetable foods as he could
find. Living much in the forests, he became an
adept in woodcraft and wandered at will. He never
carried a weapon and was never molested, even the wild
animals appearing to understand that he was their
friend. The Indians respected him, and regarded
him as a great “medicine man.”
“Johnny” regarded all animals as God's
creatures, and he would suffer himself rather than harm
one of the least of them. One chilly night in the
woods he built a fire to warm himself, but when he saw
the insects attracted to his blaze fall into the flames
he extinguished the fire rather than have the death of a
bug on his conscience! On another occasion he
crawled into a log to sleep, but finding it already
occupied by a squirrel and her little ones he was
worried by the chattering of the frightened mother and
backed out to sleep in the snow!
“Appleseed Johnny” was a hero, too.
During the war of 1812 Mansfield was frightened by
rumors of a hostile attack. The nearest soldiers
were at Mount Vernon, thirty miles away. where
Captain Douglass had a troop. When a
call was made for a volunteer to carry a message to
Mount Vernon “Johnny” stepped forward and said
“I'll go.” He was bareheaded, barefooted and
unarmed. The journey had to be made at night over
a new road that was but little better than a trail and
through a country swarming with bloodthirsty Indians.
The unarmed apostle of apples sped through the woods
like a runner and came back in the morning with a squad
of soldiers. It was an incident worthy of a poem,
but has been almost forgotten.
The death of this strange missionary was in keeping
with his life work. The latter years of his life
were spent near Fort Wayne, where, although seventy
years old, he continued to grow and scatter apple trees.
He learned that some cattle had broken down the
brushwood fence of a nursery he had planted. It
was winter and the nursery was twenty miles away, but
the brave old crusader started out on foot to save his
beloved trees. He worked for hours in cold and
snow, repairing the fence, and started to walk back
home, but became ill and sought refuge in the cabin of a
Mr. Worth, who had lived in Richland
county when a boy, and, when he learned his caller was
“Johnny Appleseed” gave him a friendly welcome. In the
morning it was discovered that pneumonia had developed
during the night. The physician who was called
stated that “Johnny” was beyond medical aid, and
inquired particularly about his religious belief,
remarking that he had never seen a dying man so
perfectly calm, for upon his wan face there was an
expression of happiness, and upon his pale lips there
was a smile of joy, as though he was communing with
loved ones who had come to meet and comfort him in his
dying moments.
John Chapman was buried in David
Archer's graveyard, two and one half miles north
of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the monument now erected at
his grave is well deserved. The monument erected
to his memory is a fitting memorial to the man in whom
there dwelt a comprehensive love that reaches downward
to the lowest form of life, and upward to the Divine.
“Johnny Appleseed” believed in the
doctrine taught by Emanuel Swedenborg and
took pleasure in distributing Swedenborgian
tracts among the settlers. He led a blameless
Christian life, and at the age of seventy-two years he
passed into death as beautifully as the apple-seeds of
his planting had grown into treees, had budded
into blossoms and ripened into fruit.
Source: A Centennial Biographical History of
Richland and Ashland County, Ohio - Publ. 1901 - Page
570 |
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GEORGE and HANNAH COX.
Mr. George Cox and his noble wife, whose maiden
name was Hannah Funk, are one of the most highly
respected and venerable couples of Richland county, he
being ninety years of age and she eighty-five.
They are living a retired life on their small farm in
section 20, Sharon township, Richland county, Ohio,
their postoffice being Shelby. Mr. Cox was
born in Brooke county, Virginia, Feb. 25, 1810, and came
to Ohio in 1827, driving through with a team of horses,
thirty sheep and two cows. He came with his
father, stepmother and six other children. His
father was Joseph Cox, whose first wife, through
named Jane Cox before her marriage as well as
afterward, was not a relative. She died in
Virginia, leaving one daughter, who later was married in
that state. Joseph Cox was afterward
married twice, and has three other children. He
managed his father's farm, that father being George
Cox, who was a spy in the war against the Indians,
and received from the government one hundred and sixty
acres of land, by what was known as the "tomahawk
right," - wild land, upon which he settled.
George Cox, the subject of this sketch, received
a fair common-school education, but in what was then
known as a subscription school, conducted in a log
schoolhouse. From his early youth he was for many
years the main stay of the family. His father
bought one-half a section of land of a Mr. McGuire's
administrator, who made entry of the land and soon
afterward died. Joseph Cox settled on his
farm when there were but three houses and an old
horse-mill in Shelby. This farm was just south of
where the subject of this sketch now lives, and on the
east side of the road. All his life the subject of
this sketch has been a great worker, having not only
chopped and logged all his own timber but has also used
the sickle in the wheat, before such an implement as a
reaper was known, or even a cradle for cutting the
grain, working many a day in the harvest field for half
a dollar per day. He was married Sept. 8, 1836, to
Hannah Funk who was born in Pennsylvania July 3,
1815, and who is a granddaughter of the Rev. William
John Webber, whose funeral she attended when but ten
days old, being carried thereto on horseback in her
mother's arms. Rev. Mr. Webber was a
Hollander by birth, and was the first minister of the
gospel to preach in Pittsburg, riding a circuit of fifty
miles in extent, carrying his saddlebags on his horse.
But he began life in that then new country as a teacher
of youth, finishing his life work as a teacher of men.
David Funk, the father of Mrs. Cox, was a
man of unusual intelligence. He married
Catherine Webber, who was born in Pennsylvania Apr.
12, 1795. David and Catherine Funk were the
parents of eight children, five sons and three
daughters, one of the sons dying in infancy.
William Webber, the father of Catherine Webber,
was born in Holland in 1735, was a preacher of the
gospel until he was about eighty years old and died at
the age of ninety. A book of psalms and hymns in
the German language bearing the date of 1807 is one of
the precious possessions of the family. David
Funk died in Shelby Feb. 17, 1868, and his widow
died Aug. 15, 1874, in her eightieth year, he being
seventy-seven at the time of his death. Of their
children three are still living, Mrs. Cox being
the oldest of the three. Upon her marriage to
Mr. Cox they settled at once in the woods, occupying
a hewed-log house, 18x20 feet in size, she doing
her cooking over a fire in a huge fireplace, using a
large crane from which to suspend her pots and kettles.
Mr. and Mrs. Cox are the parents of eight
children - three sons and five daughters, as follows:
Joseph O. who was a member of the Fourth Ohio
Cavalry and died of disease during the late war of the
Rebellion, at the age of twenty-five; he never married
and was a great student and fine scholar; Catherine
M. born in 1839, and now the wife of Dr.
Kochenderfer of Galion; she is the mother of two
sons; the third child died in infancy; Margaret,
who died at the age of five months; David who was
born in 1845, and who served as a soldier in the
Fifteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the years 1864
and 1865, and who was an epileptic for many years, dying
at the age of thirty-three yeas and ten months;
Charles M. born in 1847, who was twice married and
died at the age of fifty, leaving seven children;
Elizabeth who was born June 19, 1850, and has
remained at home; and Narcissa born Mar. 12,
1852, and now the wife of William R. Crall, a
farmer living in the immediate neighborhood.
Mrs. Cox has one brother, David W. Funk,
living in Los Angeles, aged seventy-eight, and one
sister, Elizabeth, the widow Rayl living
in San Diego, California, who was born Dec. 2, 1824.
She was married in April, 1849, to Henry Rayl at
Bucyrus, Ohio, he dying Dec. 3, 1853, at the age of
thirty-one. Mr. Rayl was a farmer, and his
widow is one of the best preserved women of her age,
both physically and mentally. Both Mrs. Cox
and Mrs. Rayl have excellent memories and much
more than ordinary intelligence. Mrs. Cox,
though somewhat feeble and bowed down with her four
score years and five, yet is still bright intellectually
and her faculties remain sound and strong. Death
has no terrors for this noble old lady, and she awaits
the summons from the grim reaper with a sublime faith
that enables her to approach the grave like one who
wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down
to pleasant dreams.
Source: A
Centennial Biographical History of Richland and Ashland
County, Ohio - Publ. 1901 - Page 413 |
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