orig. John Chapman
born Sept. 26, 1774, Leominster, Mass.
died March 18?, 1845, near Ft. Wayne, Ind., U.S.
U.S. pioneer and folk hero.
He was trained as a nurseryman and began 0441; 1800 collecting apple seeds from cider presses in Pennsylvania. He then traveled west to the Ohio River valley, planting apple seeds along the way. He tended 1,200 acres of his own orchards and was responsible for hundreds of square miles of others, having sold or given away thousands of apple seedlings to pioneers. His kind and generous nature, devout spirituality, affinity for the Indians and the wilderness, and eccentric appearance (including bare feet, a coffee-sack shirt, and a mush pan for a hat) helped make him a figure of legend.