Johnny Appleseed: A Pioneer Hero

This profile of Jonathan Chapman appeared in Harper’s Magazine of November 1871. It was one of the earliest, if not the first, gathering of all of the facts known about the man called Johnny Appleseed.
From his own admission we have learned that he started life near Boston in 1774.The first independent record of him notes his arrival in 1801, in what is now Licking County, Ohio, with a horseload of appleseeds. He also brought with him his ardent belief in the teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, and he spent the rest of his life spreading the gospel of this Christian mystic with an imaginative lending library plan. His mission had him continuously traversing western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana planting and caring for his beloved apple trees.
Johnny Appleseed died in 1847 near Fort Wayne.There is a monument to his memory in South Park, Mansfield, Ohio.