Am I alone in the impression that Johnny Appleseed has gone the way of quicksand and the Bermuda Triangle? I heard a lot about all three of those things as a kid but they have virtually disappeared from the cultural lexicon, so far as I can tell.

I have a probably false memory of seeing a cartoon on TV making fun of the guy, that he wasn’t intentionally planting apple trees, just spitting out seeds as he walked and up the trees popped in his wake. (Note, this is NOT the Disney thing, which is sincere in its homage.) Even as a kid, that idea cracked me up because I knew that trees require way more attention than spit and a stomp.

The real guy was named John Chapman, born in 1744, and he has a museum in Ohio. I’ve never been, but now that I know it exists. I might add it to my Random Roadside Attractions list. (Fun fact: other things in Ohio are a tower of VW bugs and a library with a piece of Hitler’s urinal.) Chapman sounds like he was a benign sort of fellow, studying orchardry and then embracing a sort of missionary life, plopping down in places long enough to plant apple nurseries (with planning and fencing) and to proselytize for the New Church, which ended up influencing Transcendentalists and Mormons. He died around 1845 and is buried somewhere in Indiana. (The exact location is disputed.)

Unsurprisingly the dude also loved animals and apparently became a vegetarian later in life. But here’s the thing: He also must have been a pretty canny businessman. He left an estate of more than 1,200 acres of valuable nurseries to his sister when he died. That’s a far cry from the hobo who dropped seeds from a bindle. There’s also a school of thought that he wasn’t as virtuous as all that: Michael Pollan wrote about the guy in 2001 and basically says that the apples Chapman planted were useless for eating but great for making hard cider, and the reason the guy was so popular was because he brought booze to the Midwest.

Hey, there are worse ways to spread the gospel, I suppose.Am I alone in the impression that Johnny Appleseed has gone the way of quicksand and the Bermuda Triangle? I heard a lot about all three of those things as a kid but they have virtually disappeared from the cultural lexicon, so far as I can tell.

I have a probably false memory of seeing a cartoon on TV making fun of the guy, that he wasn’t intentionally planting apple trees, just spitting out seeds as he walked and up the trees popped in his wake. (Note, this is NOT the Disney thing, which is sincere in its homage.) Even as a kid, that idea cracked me up because I knew that trees require way more attention than spit and a stomp.

The real guy was named John Chapman, born in 1744, and he has a museum in Ohio. I’ve never been, but now that I know it exists I might add it to my Random Roadside Attractions list. (Fun fact: other things in Ohio are a tower of VW bugs and a library with a piece of Hitler’s urinal.) Chapman sounds like he was a benign sort of fellow, studying orchardry and then embracing a sort of missionary life, plopping down in places long enough to plant apple nurseries (with planning and fencing) and to proselytize for the New Church, which ended up influencing Transcendentalists and Mormons. He died around 1845 and is buried somewhere in Indiana. (The exact location is disputed.)

Unsurprisingly the dude also loved animals and apparently became a vegetarian later in life. But here’s the thing: He also must have been a pretty canny businessman. He left an estate of more than 1,200 acres of valuable nurseries to his sister when he died. That’s a far cry from the hobo who dropped seeds from a bindle. There’s also a school of thought that he wasn’t as virtuous as all that: Michael Pollan wrote about the guy in 2001 and basically says that the apples Chapman planted were useless for eating but great for making hard cider, and the reason the guy was so popular was because he brought booze to the Midwest.

Hey, there are worse ways to spread the gospel, I suppose.