![]() He rarely sought shelter in a house, since he preferred to sleep on bare ground in the open forest with his feet to a small fire. This is unlikely since pots of the time were made of heavy copper or iron, but it is more likely he wore someone else’s castoff hat or made his own out of cardboard. Another legend says he wore a mush pot on his head as a hat. It is said he could walk over the ice and snow barefooted and that the skin was so thick on his feet that even a rattlesnake couldn’t bite through it. He rarely wore shoes, even during the cold of winter. This could be why legend says he wore only coffee sacks with holes cut out for his arms as clothing. He was known to give the better clothing to people he felt needed it more than he. It is said he traded apple trees for settler’s cast-off clothing. Folklore has also described him as “funny looking” because of the way he dressed. Johnny Appleseed is described as a man of medium height, blue eyes, light-brown hair, slender, wiry and alert. IT IS SAID HE TRADED APPLE TREES FOR SETTLERS’ CAST-OFF CLOTHING. Johnny Appleseed, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 1871 FOLKLORE HAS ALSO DESCRIBED HIM AS “FUNNY LOOKING” BECAUSE OF THE WAY HE DRESSED. He was also very religious and preached to people along the way. To the men and women he was a news carrier to the children he was a friend. Over the years, his frequent visits to the settlements were looked forward to and no cabin door was ever closed to him. He soon was known as the “apple seed man” and later he became known only as “Johnny Appleseed.” However, research suggests he created numerous nurseries by carefully selecting the perfect planting spot, fencing it in with fallen trees and logs, bushes and vines, sowing the seeds and returning at regular intervals to repair the fence, tend the ground and sell the trees. Legend says he was constantly planting them in open places in the forests, along the roadways and by the streams. He always carried a leather bag filled with apple seeds he collected for free from cider mills. HE CREATED NUMEROUS NURSERIES BY CAREFULLY SELECTING THE PERFECT PLANTING SPOT He kept ahead of the settlements and each year planted apple seeds farther west. From there he traveled into the Ohio Valley country and later, Indiana. John continued moving west to Pennsylvania. Nathaniel stayed behind to farm with their father, who had also immigrated west. In his early twenties, John began traveling alone, which is how he spent the rest of his life. He and his eleven-year-old half brother, Nathaniel, headed west, following the steady stream of immigrants. His adventures began in 1792, when John was eighteen years old. Although legend paints a picture of Johnny as a dreamy wanderer, planting apple seeds throughout the countryside, research reveals him to be a careful, organized businessman, who over a period of nearly fifty years, bought and sold tracts of land and developed thousands of productive apple trees. His dream was to produce so many apples that no one would ever go hungry. He was born in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1774. Johnny Appleseed’s real name was John Chapman.
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