USA > Ohio > Seneca County > History of Seneca County, Ohio; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Vo. I > Part 21
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In 1806 he planted sixteen bushels of seed on an old farm on the Walhonding river. and he planted in Licking county, Ohio, and Richland county. and had other nurseries further west. One of his nurseries was near us. and I often go to the secluded spot on the quiet banks of the river shut in by trees, with the sod never broken since the poor old man did it. And when I look up and see the wide out-stretched branches over the place like out-spread arms
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in loving benediction, I say in a reverent whisper, "Oh the angels" did commune with the good old man, whose loving heart prompted him to go about doing good.
Though my mother was very kind, she liked fun-liked to tease big. overgrown boys, and make them say funny things, and writhe and twist rather than confess or make a fair answer. I often re- call one time that she so far transgressed as to tease Johnny. IIe was holding the baby on his lap, chirruping to the little fellow, when my mother asked him if he would not be a happier man if he were settled in a home of his own and had a family to love him ? He opened his eyes very wide (they were remarkably keen. pene- trating gray, eyes, almost black) and replied in a manner, the words of which I cannot repeat, but the meaning was that all women are not what they profess to be, that some of them were deceivers and a man might not marry the amiable woman that he thought he was getting after all.
Now we had always heard that Johnny had loved once upon a time, and that his lady love had proven false to him. Then he said one time he saw a poor, friendless little girl who had no one to care for her. and he found a home for her, and sent her to school, and meant to bring her up to suit himself and when she was old enough he intended to marry her. He clothed her and watched over her; but when she was fifteen years old, he called to see her once unexpectedly and found her sitting beside a young man with her hand in his listening to his silly twaddle.
I peeped over at Johnny while he was telling this story, and young as I was, I saw his eyes grow dark as violets and the pupils enlarge, and his voice rise up in denunciation, while his nostrils dilated and his thin lips worked with emotion. How angry he grew. He thought the girl was basely ungrateful. After that time she was no protege of his.
On the subject of apples he was very charmingly enthusiastic. One would be astonished at his beautiful description of excellent fruit. I saw him once at the table when I was very small. telling about some apples that were new to us. His description was poetical, the language remarkably well chosen. It would have been no finer had the whole of Webster's Unabridged, with all its royal vocabulary been fresh upon his tongue. I stood back of mother's chair amazed. delighted. bewildered and vaguely realizing the wonderful powers of true oratory. I felt more than I understood.
He was serupulously honest. I recall the last time we ever saw his sister. a very ordinary woman. the wife of an easy old gentleman. and the mother of a family of handsome girls. They had started to move west in the winter season, but could move no farther after they reached our house. To help them along and to get rid of them, my father made a queer. little, one horse vehicle
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on runners, hitched their poor caricature of a beast to it, helped them pack and stow therein their bedding and a few movables, gave them a stock of provisions and five dollars, and sent the whole kit on their way rejoicing. And that was the last we ever saw of our poor neighbor.
The next time Joliny came to our house he very promptly laid a five dollar bill on my father's knee and shook his head very de- cidedly when it was handed back. Neither could he be prevailed upon to take it back again.
He was never known to hurt any animal or to give any living thing pain ; not even a snake. One time when overtaken by night while traveling he crawled into a hollow log and slept till morning. In the other end of the log was a bear and her cubs. Johnny said he knew the bear would not hurt him, and that there was room enough for all.
The Indians all liked him and treated him very kindly. They regarded him from his habits as a man above his fellows. He could endure pain like an Indian warrior; could thrust pins into his flesh without tremor. Indeed so insensible was he to acute pain that treatment of a wound or sore, was to sear it with a hot iron and then treat it as a burn. He ascribed great medical vir- tues to the fennel, which he found probably in Pennsylvania. The over-whelming desire to do good and benefit and bless others, in- duced him to gather a quantity of the seed. which he carried in his pockets, and occasionally scattered along his path in his journeys' especially at the waysides, near dwellings. Poor old man ! He inflicted on the farming population a positive evil, when he sought to do good, for the rank fennel with its pretty, but pungent blos- som, lines our roadsides and borders our lanes, and steals into our door yard, and is a pest second to the daisy.
The last time we saw Johnny was one summer day when we were quilting upstairs. A door opened out upon the ground, and he stood his little bundle on the sill and lay down upon the floor, resting his head on the parcel. Then he drew out of his bosom one of his old dingy books and read aloud to us.
In 1838 he resolved to go further on. Civilization was making the wilderness to blossom like the rose. Villages were springing up, stage coaches laden with travelers were common, schools were everywhere, mail facilities were very good, frame and brick houses were taking the places of the humble cabins; and so Johnny went around among all his friends and bade them farewell. The little girls he had dandled upon his knees. and presented with beads and gay ribbons, were now mothers and the heads of families. This must have been a sad task for the old man, who was then well stricken in years, and one would have thought that he would have preferred to die among his friends. He came back two or three
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times to see us all in the intervening years that he lived; the last time was in the year that he died, 1845. In the spring of that year, one day after traveling twenty miles, he entered the house of an acquaintance in Allen county, Indiana, and was as usual, cordial- ly received. He declined to eat anything except some bread and milk which he ate sitting on the door step, occasionally looking out to- wards the setting sun.
Before bed time he read from his little books "fresh news right from heaven,"' and at the usual hour for retiring he lay down upon the floor, as was his invariable custom. In the morning the beauti- ful sight supernal was upon his countenance, the death angel had touched him in the silence and the darkness, and though the dear old man essayed to speak, he was so near dead, that his tongue refused its office. The physician came and pronounced him dying. but remarked that he never saw a man so perfectly calm and placid, and he inquired particularly concerning Johnny's religion. His bruised and bleeding feet now walk the gold paved streets of the New Jerusalem, while we so brokenly and crudely narrate the sketch of his life. A life full of labor and pain and unselfishness, humble unto self-abnegation, his memory glowing in our hearts, while his deeds live anew every spring time in the fragance of the apple blossoms he loved so well.
From some intimations dropped by him it is believed that he was regularly ordained by the disciples of Swedenborg, and sent west as a missionary. A repetition of all the anecdotes concern- ing this strange wanderer would fill a volume. He was just as happy in the solitudes of the forest communing with the Author of all, as he lay gazing at the stars. where he could almost see the angels, as in the midst of nurseries or among the pioneers.
"How and where did he die?" He died at the house of Wil- liam Worth, in St. Joseph township, Allen county. Indiana, March 11, 1845, was buried in the garb he wore. He was buried in David Archer's graveyard two miles and a half north of Fort Wayne near the foot of a natural mound and a stone set up to mark the place where he sleeps.
There is a monument in Middle Park, Mansfield, to the memory of Johnny Appleseed. At its unveiling in October, 1900, A. J. Baughman, the author of this work, delivered the address of the occasion, as follows :
John Chapman was born at Springfield, Mass .. in the year 1775. Of his early life but little is known, as he was reteent about himself, but his half-sister who came west at a later period stated that Johnny had. when a boy, shown a fondness for natural scenery and often wandered from home in quest of plants and flowers and that he liked to listen to the birds singing and to gaze at the stars. Chapman's passion for planting apple seeds and cultivating nur-
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series caused him to be called "Appleseed John," which was finally changed to "Johnny Appleseed," and by that name he was called and known everywhere.
The year Chapman came to Ohio has been variously stated, but to say it was one hundred years ago would not be far from the mark. One of the early pioneers who resided in Jefferson county when Chapman made his first advent in Ohio. one day saw a queer-looking craft coming down the Ohio river above Steubenville. It consisted of two canoes lashed together, and its crew was one ยท man-an angular, oddly dressed person-and when he landed he said his name was Chapman, and that his cargo consisted of sacks of apple seeds and that he intended to plant nurseries.
Chapman's first nursery was planted nine miles below Steuben- ville, up a narrow valley, from the Ohio river, at Brilliant, former- ly called Lagrange, opposite Wellsburg. West Virginia. After planting a number of nurseries along the river front. he extended his work into the interior of the state-into Richland county- where he made his home for many years. He was enterprising in his way and planted nurseries in a number of counties, which re- quired him to travel hundreds of miles to visit and cultivate them yearly, as was his custom. His usual price for a tree was "a fip penny-bit." but if the settler hadn't money, Johnny would either give him credit or take old clothes for pay. He generally located his nurseries along streams, planted his seeds, surrounded the patch with a brush fence, and when the pioneers came, Johnny had young fruit trees ready for them. HIe extended his operations to the Maumee country and finally into Indiana, where the last years of his life were spent. He revisited Richland county the last time in 1843, and called at my father's, but as I was only five years old at the time I do not remember him.
My parents. (in about 1827-'35), planted two orchards with trees they bought of Johnny, and he often called at their house, as he was a frequent caller at the homes of the settlers. My mother's father. Captain James Cunningham, settled in Richland county in 1808, and was acquainted with Johnny for many years, and I often heard him tell. in his Irish-witty way, many amusing anecdotes and incidents of Johnny's life and of his peculiar and eccentric ways.
Chapman was fairly educated. well read and was polite and at- tentive in manner and was chaste in conversation. His face was pleasant in expression, and he was kind and generous in disposi- tion. His nature was a deeply religious one, and his life was blameless among his fellow men. He regarded comfort more than style and thought it wrong to spend money for clothing to make a fine appearance. IIe usually wore a broad-brimmed hat. He went barefooted, not only in the summer, but often in cold weather, and
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a coffee sack, with neck and armholes cut in it, was worn as a coat. He was about 5 feet, 9 inches,in height, rather spare in build but was large boned and sinewy. His eyes were blue, but darkened with animation.
For a number of years Johnny lived in a little cabin near Perrysville (then in Richland county), but later he made his home in Mansfield with his half-sister, a Mrs. Broome, who lived on the Leesville road (now West Fourth street) near the present resi- . dence of R. G. Hancock. The parents of George C. Wise then lived near what is now the corner of West Fourth street and Penn avenue and the Broome and Wise families were friends and neigh- bors. George C. Wise, Hiram R. Smith, Mrs. J. H. Cook and others remember "Johnny Appleseed" quite well. Mrs. Cook was, perhaps, better acquainted with "Johnny" than any other liv- ing person today, for the Wiler House was often his stopping place. The homes of Judge Parker, Mr. Newman and others were ever open to receive "Johnny" as a guest.
But the man who best understood this peculiar character was the late Dr. William Bushnell, father of our respected fellow-towns- man, the Hon. M. B. Bushnell. the donor of this beautiful com- memorative monument, and by whose kindness and liberality we are here today. With Dr. Bushnell's scholastic attainments and intuitive knowledge of character he was enabled to know and appre- ciate Chapman's learning and the noble traits of his head and heart.
When upon his journeys Chapman usually camped out. He never killed anything, not even for the purpose of obtaining food. He carried a kit of cooking utensils with him, among which was a mush-pan, which he sometimes wore as a hat. When he called at a house, his custom was to lie upon the floor with his kit for a pillow and after conversing with the family a short time, would then read from a Swedenborgian book or tract, and proceed to explain and extol the religious views he so zealously believed. and whose teach- ings he so faithfully carried out in his every day life and conversa- ton. His mission was one of peace and good will and he never car- ried a weapon. not even for self-defense. The Indians regarded him as a great "Medicine Man." and his life seemed to be a charmed one, as neither savage man nor beast would harm him.
Chapman was not a mendicant. He was never in indigent cir- cumstances, for he sold thousands of nursery trees every year. Had he been avaricious his estate instead of being worth a few thousand might have been tens of thousands at his death.
"Johnny Appleseed's" name was John Chapman-not Jona- than-and this is attested by the muniments of his estate, and also from the fact that he had a half-brother ( a deaf mute) whose Christian name was Jonathan.
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Chapman never married and rumor said that a love affair in the old Bay State was the cause of his living the life of a celibate and recluse. Johnny himself never explained why he led such a singular life except to remark that he had a mission-which was understood to be to plant nurseries and to make converts to the doctrines taught by Emanuel Swedenborg. He died at the home of William Worth in St. Joseph township, Allen county, Indiana, March 11, 1847, and was buried in David Archer's graveyard, a few miles north of Fort Wayne, near the foot of a natural mound. His name is engraved as a senotaph upon one of the monuments erected in Mifflin township, Ashland county, this state, to the memory of the pioneers. Those monuments were unveiled with imposing ceremonies in the presence of over 6,000 people September 15, 1882, the seventieth anniversary of the Copus tragedy.
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During the war of 1812 Chapman often warned the settlers of approaching danger. The following incident is given : When the news spread that Levi Jones had been killed by the Indians and that Wallace Reed and others had probably met the same fate, ex- citement ran high and the few families which comprised the popula- tion of Mansfield sought the protection of the block house, situated on the public square, as it was supposed the savages were coming in force from the north to overrun the country and to murder the settlers.
There were no troops at the block house at the time and as an attack was considered imminent, a consultation was held and it was decided to send a messenger to Captain Douglas, at Mt. Vernon, for assistance. But who would undertake the hazardous journey ? It was evening, and the rays of the sunset had faded away and the stars were beginning to shine in the darkening sky, and the trip of thirty miles must be made in the night over a new cut road through a wilderness-through a forest infested with wild beasts and hostile Indians.
A volunteer was asked for and a tall, lank man said demurely : "I'll go." He was bareheaded, barefooted and was unarmed. His manner was meek and you had to look the second time into his clear, blue eyes to fully fathom the courage and determination shown in their depths. There was an expression in his counten- ance such as limners try to portray in their pictures of saints. It is scarcely necessary to state that the volunteer was "Johnny Ap- pleseed" for many of you have heard your fathers tell how un- ostentatiously "Johnny" stood as "a watchman on the walls of Jezreel," to guard and protect the settlers from their savage foes.
The journey to Mt. Vernon was a sort of a Paul Revere mis- sion. Unlike Paul's, "Johnny's" was made on foot-barefooted -over a rough road, but one that in time led to fame.
"Johnny" would rap on the doors of the few cabins along the
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route, warn the settlers of the impending danger and advise them to flee to the blockhouse. Upon arriving at Mt. Vernon, lie aroused the garrison and informed the commandant of his mission. Surely, figuratively speaking,
"The dun-deer's hide On fleeter feet was never tied,"
for so expeditiously was the trip made that at sunrise the next morning troops from Mt. Vernon arrived at the Mansfield block- house, accompanied by "Johnny," who had made the round trip of sixty miles between sunset and sunrise.
About a week before Chapman's death, while at Fort Wayne, he heard that cattle had broken into his nursery in St. Joseph town- ship and were destroying his trees, and he started on foot to look after his property. The distance was about twenty miles and the fatigue and exposure of the journey were too much for his physical condition, then enfeebled by age; and at the even-tide he applied at the home of a Mr. Worth for lodging for the night. Mr. Worth was a native Buckeye and had lived in Richland county when a boy and when he learned that his oddly dressed caller was "Johnny Appleseed" gave him a cordial welcome. "Johnny" declined going to the supper table, but partook of a bowl of bread and milk.
The day had been cold and raw with occasional flurries of snow, but in the evening the clouds cleared away and the sun shone warm and bright as it sank in the western sky. "Johnny" noticed this beautiful sunset, an augury of the Spring and flowers so soon to come, and sat on the doorstep and gazed with wistful eyes toward the west. Perhaps this herald of the springtime, the season in which nature is resurrected from the death of winter, caused him to look with prophetic eyes to the future and contemplate that glorious event of which Christ is the resurrection and the life. Up- on re-entering the house, he declined the bed offered him for the night, preferring a quilt and pillow on the floor, but asked permis- sion to hold family worship and read, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," etc.
After he had finished reading the lesson, he said prayers- prayers long remembered by that family. He prayed for all sorts and conditions of men ; that the way of righteousness might be made clear unto them and that saving grace might be freely given to all nations. He asked that the Holy Spirit might guide and govern all who profess and call themselves Christians and that all those who were afflicted in mind, body or estate, might be comforted and relieved, and that all might at last come to the knowledge of the truth and in the world to come have happiness and everlasting life. Not only the words of the prayer, but the pathos of his voice made a deep impression upon those present.
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In the morning Chapman was found in a high state of fever, pneumonia having developed during the night, and the physician called said he was beyond medical aid, but inquired particularly about his religious belief, and remarked that he had never seen a dying man so perfectly calm, for upon his wan face there was an expression of happiness and upon his pale lips there was a smile of joy, as though he was communing with loved ones who had come to meet and comfort him and to soothe his weary spirit in his dying moments. And as his eyes shone with the beautiful light supernal. God touched him with his finger and beckoned him home.
Thus ended the life of the man who was not only a hero, but a benefactor as well; and his spirit is now at rest in the Paradise of the Redeemed, and in the fullness of time, clothed again in the old body made anew, will enter into the Father's house in which there are many mansions. In the words of his own faith, his bruised feet will be healed, and he shall walk on the gold paved streets of the New Jerusalem of which he so eloquently preached. It has been very appropriately said, that, although years have come and gone since his death, the memory of his good deeds live anew every springtime in the beauty and fragrance of the blossoms of the apple trees he loved so well.
"Johnny Appleseed's" death was in harmony with his un- ostentatious, blameless life. It is often remarked, "How beauti- ful is the Christian life;" yea, but far more beautiful is the Chris- tian's death, when "the fashion of his countenance is altered," as he passes from the life here to the life beyond.
What changes have taken place in the years that have inter- vened between the "Johnny Appleseed" period and that of today ! It has been said that the lamp of civilization far surpasses that of Aladdin's. Westward the star of empire took its way and changed the forests into fields of grain and the waste places into gardens of flowers, and towns and cities have been built with marvelous handi- work. But in this march of progress, the struggles and hardships of the early settlers must not be forgotten. Let us not only record the history, but the legends of the pioneer period; garner its facts and its fictions; its tales and traditions and collect even the crumbs that fall from the table of the feast.
Today, the events which stirred the souls and tried the courage of the Pioneers seem to come out of the dim past and glide as pano- ramic views before me. A number of the actors in those scenes were of my "kith and kin" who have long since crossed "over the river" in their journey to the land where Enoch and Elijah are pioneers, while I am left to exclaim :
"Oh, for the touch of a vanished hand
And the sound of a voice that is still."
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While the scenes of those pioneer days are vivid to us on his- tory's page, future generations may look upon them as the phant- asmagoria of a dream.
At 72 years of age-46 of which had been devoted to his self- imposed mission-John Chapman ripened into death as naturally and as beautifully as the apple seeds of his planting had grown into trees, had budded into blossoms and ripened into fruit. The monument which is now to be unveiled is a fitting memorial to the man in whom there dwelt a comprehensive love that reached down- ward to the lowest forms of life and upward to the throne of the Divine.
CHAPTER IX
PATRIOTISM OF SENECA COUNTY
"REMEMBER THE ALAMO"-FREMONT'S FAMOUS CHARGE- "SENECA COUNTY IN THE WARS," BY CAPTAIN FRANK R. STEWART -THE MEXICAN WAR-THE CONFLICT OVER SLAVERY-THE CIVIL WAR'S FIRST CALL FOR TROOPS-THE COUNTY'S FIRST SOLDIER AND COMPANY-GENERAL GIBSONS'S APPEAL-OFFICERS OF THE FIFTY- NINTH INFANTRY-GREAT RECORD OF THE FORTY-NINTH-THE FIFTY-SEVENTH REGIMENT-THE SEVENTY-SECOND AND THE TWENTY-FIFTH-THE FIFTY-FIFTH INFANTRY-THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIRST (1862)-THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THIRD- NINETY-DAY VOLUNTEERS-SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR.
Patriotism has ages for its own; and the history of patriotic deeds live after nations perish.
The graves of soldiers are. in a certain sense. like those of the saints, on an equality. The place where an officer is buried, like that of a private, is simply the grave of a soldier. Death obliter- ates all class. distinction and rank. The grave of an humble Christian is on an equal with that of a prelate, for-"The graves of all His saints He blessed." While in death all are equal, each while living has an individual part and place.
Upon a bloody page of history is a record of American bravery and devotion to principle excelled no where else in the annals of the world. It is the story of the Alamo. For several days the Mexican army under Santa Ana had bombarded the fortress and on February 23, (1836) the Alamo was stormed-four thousand in- furiated Mexicans against one hundred and eighty-three Americans. (Texan patriots). Charge after charge had been repelled, and for every patriot killed a dozen Mexicans bit the dust. When the Mexicans entered the last enclosure, but six of the defenders of the Alamo were alive-Crockett and five of his comrades. Santa Ana's chief of staff then implored Crockett to surrender and thus spare the lives of his comrades and himself. But Crockett would not surrender. And when the Mexicans made the final charge, the last
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