THE STORY OF
John Chapman better known as Johnny Appleseed, was born September 26th 1774 and was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as the northern counties of present-day West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive, due to his kind, generous nature, his simple outdoor nomadic life, and his planting of many apple trees across America. When Johnny was 18 he and his younger brother, Nathaniel, headed west with a caravan of immigrants travelling across America. During his 20’s he travelled alone and continued moving west to Pennsylvania. From there he travelled into the Ohio Valley country and later, Indiana. He was always ahead of the other pioneers and often planted apple tree nurseries in areas that he rightly believed would become settlements.
He always carried a leather bag filled with apple seeds he collected for free from cider mills. The legends state that he would be distributing and planting apple trees wherever he went, along the roadways and the streams. However research suggests that he planted numerous nurseries that he would fence off with fallen trees, logs, bushes and vines to stop the animals from getting to the trees. He would then leave the nursery to his neighbour and return every year or two to help tend to the nursery and sell the trees. He planted his first nursery on the bank of Brokenstraw Creek, south of Warren, Pennsylvania. Next, he moved to Venango County, along the shore of French Creek, but many of the nurseries he planted were in the Mohican River area of north-central Ohio. Many of the apples that he planted were cider apples and were not the sweet apples we know and eat, instead these smaller apples were quite unpleasant and were used to brew and ferment alcoholic cider. This was a staple of
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JOHNNY APPLESEED
