#prentice-hall

Happy Birthday John Chapman, A.K.A Johnny Appleseed!

On this day, September 26th, in 1774, John Chapman (1774 - 1845) was born in Massachusetts. You probably know him by his nickname, Johnny Appleseed. The Story of Johnny Appleseed is a book from early in the career of prolific children’s book author and illustrator Aliki. Published by Prentice-Hall in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., this 1963 book is part of our Historical Curriculum Collection. 

As is often the case with historical figures that take on a mythical status, it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction. Aliki’s story perpetuates the legend of Johnny Appleseed as a wanderer, leaving a trail of freshly planted apple trees forever in his wake. Chapman did travel extensively, but he did so to establish tree nurseries, fenced in to ward off livestock and wildlife, claiming the land he planted for himself. He would return to check on them, and sell the mature trees for a handsome profit, every few years. By some estimations, he staked his claim to over a thousand acres of land! Despite this financial success, the stories of his frugality appear to be based in reality. He was frequently shoeless, with threadbare or makeshift clothing. The common imagery of his wearing a cooking pot as a hat appears to be fiction, though he did, reportedly, sport a tin hat that he would sometimes eat out of. As a devotee of The New Church, he believed his asceticism would be rewarded in the afterlife.

Another quasi-myth is that Chapman’s apple evangelism was rooted in feeding the people of the American frontier, exemplified by the classic apple-with-one-bite imagery on Aliki’s cover. However, apples at this time were not for eating, they were for making cider! The fermented, boozy kind! In his book The Botany of Desire, Michal Pollan likens Chapman to an American Dionysus, bringing alcohol to the homesteaders. 

While some of the mythos around Chapman may have been distorted over the years, Johnny Appleseed had already reached a legendary status in his own time. He was known throughout the frontier for his pauper’s style, his generosity and kindness to all living creatures, his devotion to his religious beliefs, and of course, for his apples.

View more posts from our Milestone Moday series here.