Hello again, friends, and welcome to Scholar Minor.
As the holidays approach, bringing cold weather with them in this part of the world, apples begin to appear everywhere - despite their narrow harvest season occurring in the early fall. They’re in your cider, they’re in your candles, they’re in your pies, and you may even find slices hiding in your great-aunt’s potpourri.
If you’re familiar with American folklore, the name Johnny Appleseed likely comes to mind while you’re enjoying your Thanksgiving apple pie. And if not, we’ll be learning about this horticulturalist turned folk icon in this week’s episode.
Thanks again for listening, and I hope you enjoy.
Our story begins in 1737 with the opening of the Prince Family Nursery in Flushing, New York. Robert Prince's eight acres of domestic and imported plants was the first commercial nursery in the United States, expanding greatly in size by 1793 - its name changing to the Linneaen Botanic Garden and Nurseries. Prince's nursery was the largest supplier of fruit trees in North America, and would operate until the mid nineteenth century.
As exhibited by the success of the Prince Family Nursery, there was significant demand for plants in the 18th century. Interest in the botanical sciences and in attractive landscaping grew as the population did, and the New World saw the emergence of a new occupation: nurseryman.
Johnny Appleseed was the most well-known of these nurserymen. He’s a folk hero here in the United States, mainly in the Midwest and on the East Coast. The Johnny Appleseed of legend wandered the countryside planting apple trees and distributing seeds, and is depicted as a pleasant wanderer of the woods, in tune with nature and the simpler things. He’s usually barefoot, dressed in raggedy clothing, and wears a tin pot turned upside down as a hat.
Interestingly, Johnny Appleseed was very real, a little odd, and not unlike his folk hero portrayal.
He was born John Chapman in 1774, in Leominster, Massachusetts. His father, Nathaniel, was a farmer who spent significant time in the military - serving under General George Washington in the Continental Army. John's biological mother, Elizabeth, died in childbirth when he was only a couple of years old. Nathaniel Chapman married his second wife, Lucy Cooley, after returning home from the war. Nathaniel and Lucy would go on to have 10 children.
John Chapman became an apprentice nurseryman and orchardist in the Ohio area, working on his own by 1812. Most accounts describe John as an earnest, kind man with a deep appreciation for nature and growing things. He was also a very clever businessman.
Apples - more specifically, alcohols made from apples - were an essential part of the dinnertime spread in the early 19th century. Most homes had their own apple trees, and as communities began to grow Westward, frontier families found themselves in need of apple tree saplings and seeds to start their own little home orchards for cider making. These apple varieties were small and very tart - not exactly the sort of apples you’d like to eat off the tree. They were hardy, and used specifically to make cider and applejack - a fruit brandy.
John Chapman anticipated this need of cider apples, and began harvesting seeds from Pennsylvania cider presses and travelling along settler’s routes - beating potential competition by travelling quickly on foot and meeting customers while en route. On his travels, John would plant small orchards in suitable patches of land and set up nurseries for locals - eagerly educating them about the benefits of wise planting and self-sufficiency.
While the childrens’ stories of Johnny Appleseed generally leave out his cider-making motivations, it is a fact he grew exclusively cider apple - because John Chapman was emphatically against the grafting of apple trees.
Let's say you ate a random, delicious apple and held onto one of the seeds. Hoping to grow a tree full of yummy apples yourself, you planted this seed and waited. You may very well end up with a crabapple tree instead - an apple tree with small, bitter apples - like those that colonial-era folks used for alcohol making. Sweeter apple trees were made by grafting parts of a sweet apple tree onto other apple trees - essentially cloning the tree that produced yummy apples.
You can even graft multiple varieties of apple onto one tree to save space. Grafting wasn't a recent development in Johnny Appleseed's time, either - there's evidence of grafting in China dating back to around 2000 BCE. John Chapman wasn’t keen on grafting, viewing it as meddling with nature and God’s design, so cider apples were where he made his name.
Popular tales of Johnny Appleseed portray him as wandering hither and thither distributing apple seeds at random, but in reality his approach was very intentional. Along the frontier, orchards and nurseries could be used to make - and prove - land claims. Not only did John’s saplings help families distinguish their land on the frontier, John himself was the legal owner of over 1,000 acres when he passed away - simply because of his orchards.
John never married and didn’t mind wandering off the beaten path - and while he made his living as an apple-planting nomad, it seems that a good portion of his motivation was out of a genuine love for horticulture and helping others. He earned a reputation for his kindness, and was known to help struggling settlers for free with planting help and saplings. During his 40 years of travelling, he became a missionary for not only apples, but for the Church of Swedenborg or the "New Church", inspired by the writings of Swedish philosopher and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg.
While some stories may not be entirely true - that John had a pet wolf, for example - many of the descriptions of John as Johnny Appleseed appear to be accurate. He was known for travelling barefoot and having an eccentric appearance, caring little about his clothing and sporting a long, unkempt beard. It appears he may have even worn the tin pot hat of legend - using it for cooking food on the road when it wasn’t on his head.
John was a vegetarian for the latter part of his life, and an outspoken proponent for animal rights - even objecting to the killing of insects. He also sought and maintained positive relationships with the indigenous communities he encountered, an unfortunately rare attitude in the 18th and 19th centuries.
John Chapman spent the majority of his life outside, only occasionally seeking shelter or assistance on his travels. When he did so, he would refuse a place at the table and instead sit outside on the stoop or beside the fire. As he ate he would regale his hosts with tales of his travels or, most often, Swedenborgian teachings.
Author Howard Means records that a frontier diarist, who heard one of John’s impromptu sermons, described his voice as one that "rose denunciatory and thrilling, strong and loud as the roar of wind and waves, then soft and soothing as the balmy airs that quivered the morning-glory leaves about his gray beard."
The specifics of John Chapman’s death are disputed, but he appeared to have succumbed to a pneumonia-related illness in 1845 near Fort Wayne, Indiana. His death did not go unnoticed - multiple newspapers published announcements after his death was confirmed in March, 1845.
The Fort Wayne Sentinel, in its lengthy obituary, remarked that "The deceased was well known through this region by his eccentricity, and the strange garb he usually wore . . . He is supposed to have considerable property, yet denied himself almost the common necessities of life - not so much perhaps for avarice as from his peculiar notions on religious subjects.
He was a follower of Swedenborg and devoutly believed that the more he endured in this world the less he would have to suffer and the greater would be his happiness hereafter - he submitted to every privation with cheerfulness and content, believing that in so doing he was securing snug quarters hereafter."
John Chapman’s memorial grave site at Fort Wayne bears the motto, "He lived for others." While his eccentricities made him memorable, it seems that his compassion and genuine love of nature are what truly cemented John's legacy as Johnny Appleseed. To this day, Johnny Appleseed festivals are held at Fort Wayne, Indiana and in Lisbon, Ohio.
Thanks for listening as always, friends. I have some really cool topics coming up for the wintry months so I look forward to talking to you again very soon.
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