ABOUT THE COVE RS F RONT COVE R show s the stone erected 1 935 by the Fort Wayne Optimist Club over the supposed A grave sit e of John Chapm an in the rcher Cem etery . THE BA C K COVER show s the stone erected by S a Wes ley . Roebuck over the suppo sed gr ve site of John Chapm an on the Roebuck farm . Joh nny A p p leseed : Th e M an B ehind Th e M yth Steven F or tr i ed e F or t W ayn e Public Libra ry 1 97 8 CONTENTS I . Early Year s II Th e . Ohio Frontier III T h e . Sw edenborgian Mi s sionary IV i n the . Myths Making V tw to . W es ard Indiana and VI . Death Burial Notes and References Appendix A C KNOW LEDGMENT The author recognize s hi s debt to Dr . Robert Price , who se many years ub of careful research and study , p l i sh ed in Johnny Apple seed , Man —and In di an a 1 54 Myth ( University Pre s s , 9 7 gui ded and aided th e preparation of thi s h pamp let . FOREWORD ' John Chapm an was on e of Am erica s authentic pioneer heroes , a contemporary of men such a s ni H Da el Boone and Davy Crockett . e planted hi s fir st apple s eed s a s a b oy about the time Washington wa s elected Pre sident and hi s last a s an ol d man about the H tim e Lincoln wa s elected to Congres s . e m oved into Ohio before Secretary of State Jame s Monroe bought Louisiana from the F rench . By the tim e he died in 1 84 5 nn Indiana in , Texa s had been a exed , the frontier had pushed acro s s the Mis si s sippi , and , out in Cali for n i a , Captain John Sutter had built his for t and wa s i looking around for a likely location for a sawm ll . Yet , m o st people know le s s fact and more myth about John Chapm an than about any other character in n A merican hi story . Some thi k he wa s only a story or a folk tale ; the rest , if they know him at all , know him as Johnny Appleseed . This pamphlet present s som e of the fact s about ' n on Joh Chapm an . It is prim arily based Robert Price s t book Johnny Apple seed , Man and My h , publi shed in 4 1 95 . In this pamphlet some of the m yths and storie s which sprang up around this fron to tiersman . W e will try to trace the stories back their source s to show where they originated , how they developed into myths , and how they have been " pe r petuated a s fact s in the Johnny Apple seed story . ol d of Som e of the se stories are very . Many them w ere first told around the hearths and campfire s of n the earlie st settlers of Ohio , even while John y wa s B still alive . y the tim e they came to be written down , the m em orie s of the original storyteller s had becom e to a bit hazy , and their im aginations had begun fill in the m is sing details . I . EA RLY YEA RS The storytellers , generally have Johnny born C onn ecti cut or Pe nn s l som ewhere in Mas sachusett s , , y vania . More than a dozen places claim hi s birth ; in 1 76 8 or 1 774 1 775 1 787 , , or , or , but alm o st always . t in the spring of the year Every story eller , tryi ng ' of to find som e portent the new baby s future fam e , m entions the beautiful apple blo s som s which gar b landed hi s irth . In som e versions the wind blow s the boughs against the window of the nursery ; som e time s the baby John reaches for the branches out side the window , and som etim e s the blos som s are a bouquet picked by a loving husband to grace the bedside of a beloved w ife . A lways there are apple blo s som s . John Chapman wa s actually born in Leom inster , 1 ' on 26 1 774 Mas sachusett s September , . There wasn t ni an apple blo s som in sight . Hi s father , Natha el Chapman , wa s a farmer and carpenter , but he wa s apparently no great succe s s at either trade . The Chapmans lived in a small rented hous e in Leom inster The house ha s long since disappeared , although the sight was m arked in 1 94 0 by the Leom inster Bi c e nten 2 of nial Comm ittee . Soon after the birth the baby John , Nathani el Chapm an enli sted in the Continental A rmy . H e was on e of the original Minutem en , fought at Bunker Hill , suffered through the winter at Valley F orge , and wa s eventually discharged from the s ervice because of som e que stion regarding m is 3 to m anagement of m ilitary store s entrusted hi s care . ' John s m other w a s Elizabeth Sim onds , al so of o Leom inster , a frail wom an who se s ldier husband left her to m anage the household and care for the infant John and his older sister , al so nam ed Elizabeth . 1 8 1 776 Elizabeth Chapm an , the mother , died July , , t shortly af er delivering her third child , a boy nam ed 4 Nathaniel who also died w ithin a few w eeks . W e do not know what happened to the tw o young Chapman children , Elizabeth only six and John not yet tw o , but they probably stayed with relatives in the area . Both the Chapman and Sim onds families had long been established in Leom inster , and there w ere m any aunt s and cousins nearby . 1 780 In July , Nathaniel w as married again , thi s 5 to tim e Lucy Cooley of Longm eadow , where he took In - up residence . the next twenty two ear s , ten children w ere born to Nathaniel and Luc The little 1 780 fram e house , already old in but still standing 1 50 in 9 , rapidly grew so crowded that the oldest boy m ight w ell have been encouraged to leave hom e a s soon as he could m ake hi s w ay in the world . ' n I deed , the details of young John s life up until 1 7 79 are completely lo st , except to the imaginations t of the story eller s . Perhaps the m o st persi stent story from thi s period i s that John attended Harvard College , graduating w ith honor s , according to som e sources . Thi s myth apparently had it s origin in a purely fictional novel entitled The "uest of John Chapman , 1 04 ' publi shed in 9 . This story m ake s John s father a Mas sachusett s cleric and John him s elf a m ini sterial student at Harvard . The Harvard story wa s retold i and som e quite serious biographers , perhap s try ng ' to account for Johnny s rem arkable intelligence and of i understanding relig ous doctrine s , seized on it and perpetuated it as fact . The fact i s that a c on si d e r abl e am ount of searching over the year s ha s failed to turn up any record of Johnny a s a student at 7 Harvard . The "ue st of John Chapm an also provides an example of another recurring them e in the Johnn y Appleseed myth , the lost love . Even the earlie st of the written recollections , som e s et down only ten or fifteen year s after hi s death , contain vague allusions un o to an happy love affair . None f the se can be docu m ented . It m ay be that the real source for the storie s i s the de sire of the storytellers to account for the eccentricities of a strange old bachelor . In any case , the form of the story which i s m ost widely told is exemplified in The "uest : Johnny love s on e Dorothy - a Durand , but their two fam ilie s are bitter enemie s difference of theological Opinions - and the lovers are separated . The Durands m ove w est and Johnny set s H e out to search for hi s beloved . finally locate s the family only to learn that Dorothy has died shortly before of a broken heart . Other authors follow the of sam e sequence of event s , but change the nam e the of girl . Henry Pershing , in his purported biography h l i sh ed in 1 930 , called her Sara Crawford and had he r reunited with Johnny but dying on their wedding day . The se stories all clo se by a s serting that , m any n to year s later , John y returned plant apple blo s som s over the grave . ' The detailed record of John Chapman s activitie s a s a youn g man i s yet to be di scovered , but the general trend of hi s young life can be inferred .