John Chapman “Johnny Appleseed”
(1774-1845)
“Johnny Appleseed” got rich planting
apple trees in Pennsylvania and Ohio after the Revolutionary War.
John Chapman was a savvy businessman
who followed the early American settlers as they headed west over the
Appalachian Mountains, and he made a pile of money selling them apple orchards
and apples to make fermented apple cider.
The happy-go-lucky “Johnny Appleseed”
myths were created about 100 years ago by big commercial apple growers who were
trying to rehabilitate their image in a time when the evils of John Barleycorn
were a big social issue.
Chapman was born in Leominster, MA,
just before the Revolutionary War got started. In 1797, at the age of 27, he set out for Ohio country, and lived a more or less itinerant life thereafter.
In much of the frontier lands, hard
cider was the only booze readily available. Chapman traveled far and wide,
buying cheap riverbottom land and planting apple orchards. He hired boys to
help tend the trees, and when they matured, he sold the apples and often sold
the orchards to nearby farmers. When he died, he owned more than 1,200 acres of
valuable orchard property and he was a rich man. He was a businessman.
The traditional “Johnny Appleseed”
persona is “usually pictured shoeless, clad in rags, with a tin pot for a hat,
striding happily through the forest with a bag of apple seeds over his shoulder
and an assortment of woodland animals as his companions. He is portrayed as a
gentle and godly man, who brought the wholesome apple to men and women living
on the edge of civilization.”
Chapman was a nature lover and a
God-fearing man, but his apple gig was strictly business.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016
All rights reserved.
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