Johnny Appleseed
John Chapman (1774-1845), best known as "Johnny Appleseed," was a colorful, long-haired and barefoot Christian who ran to warn Ohio settlers of an imminent Indian attack incited by the British during the War of 1812.[1]
His nickname came from his love for nature, as he called an apple blossom a "living sermon from God," and particularly his habit of collecting apple seeds from cider presses in order to plant over a thousand nurseries in western Pennsylvania and Ohio. Upon his death he gave his nurseries, then worth millions, to his sister. He often quoted from the Sermon on the Mount and lived with the Indians.
Poet William Henry Venable said this about Chapman:[2]
- Remember Johnny Appleseed-All ye who love the apple-He served his kind by word and deed-In God's grand greenwood chapel.
Nathananiel, Johnny Applesee's father, fought with the Minutemen against the British at Concord in 1775.