JOHNNY APPLESEED

Oftentimes, folklore and tall tales become so far removed from their origin that it’s hard to believe they were once rooted in reality. Some much more so than others. *Takes a big bite of an apple.*

Many tall tales are conglomerations or amalgamations of several different people. However, sometimes you find an individual whose story simply became more and more hyperbolic over the years. While Johnny Appleseed might seem like a cartoon frontiersman, disembodied from an actual human man while also personifying American Manifest Destiny, he was actually a real guy!

John Champman was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, in the late 1700s. Johnny was known for growing apples from seeds as opposed to grafting, and established nurseries in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Ontario and West Virginia. He also sold his apple seeds and bi-products to folks headed out west and taught them his nurseryman ways. This is why we see a lot of imagery of him throwing seeds as he galavanted around the country. Maybe he literally threw some seeds on the ground one day, maybe not. These depictions are most likely metaphorical interpretations of his influence on others and of the proliferation of apples throughout the country.

He was also said to be quite the minimalist. Like, he didn’t even have an iPhone. But he was also widely known to travel around barefoot, keep meager possessions, and even wear a tin pot on his head which would double as a hat and a vessel to cook meals in. So, essentially he was the first MacGuyver. You’d be hard-pressed (Get it? Like, apples? Nah, you don’t get it.) to find a rendering of ol’ man Appleseed without his pot-hat and potentially surrounded by a menagerie of woodland creatures. Again, while he was no stranger to nature and loved the outdoors, Johnny is a great example of how stories and musings about an individual can become apotheosized over time and transform how we see them. Is this bad? Is this good? Maybe it depends on the person. Eventually, though, the person arguably becomes detached from the legend altogether. What Johnny Appleseed stands for has become greater than the man himself.

By the way, you can also find a nod to Mr. Appleseed on the Folklord Tall Trails Hat. But please don’t think this entire post was an ad for a hat. It was an ad for a tin pot you may or may not use as a hat.

See you out there.