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��HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.
��mush-pot, at other times with a cap made by him- self of pasteboard, with a very broad visor to protect his e^es from the sun.
His diet was very simple, consisting of milk, when he could get it, of which he was very fond ; potatoes and other vegetables, fruits, and meats ; but no veal, as he said this should be a land flowing with milk and honey, and the calves should be spared. He would not touch tea, coffee or tobacco, as he felt that these were luxuries in which it was wicked and injurious to indulge. He was averse to taking life of an}^ animal or insect, and never indulged in hunting with a gun.
He thought himself ■" a messenger, sent into the wilderness to prepare the way for the peo- ple, as John the Baptist was sent to prepare the wa}' for the coming of the Savior." He gathered his apple-seeds, little by little, from the cider presses of Western Pennsylvania, and putting them carefully in leather bags, he transported them, sometimes on his back, and sometimes on the back of a broken-down horse or mule, to the Ohio River, where he usuall}' secm-ed a boat and brought them to the mouth of the Muskingum, and up that river, planting them in wild, secluded spots all along its numerous tributaries. Later in life, he continued his oper- ations further West. When his trees were ready for sale, he left them in charge of some one to sell for him. The price was low — a " fip- penny-bit " apiece, rareh' paid in money, and, if people were too poor to purchase, the trees were giA^en them. One of his nurseries was located on the flats, within the present limits of Mans- field, near where once stood the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway Depot. His residence in Mansfield covered the period of the war of 1812, and several years following it. From this, as headquarters, he would occasion- ally make trips further West, and return again after an absence of two or three months. On these excursions, he probabl}' visited his sister, Persis Broom, who lived in Indiana.
��Mr. C. S. Coffinberry, who was personally acquainted with him, writes thus : " Although I was but a mere child, I can remember as if it were but yesterday, the warning cry of Johnny Appleseed, as he stood before my father's log cabin door on that night — the cal)in stood where now stands the old North American in the city of Mansfield. I remember the precise language, the clear loud voice, the deliberate exclamations, and the fearful thrill it awoke in my bosom. ' Fly ! fly ! for your lives ! the Indians are mur- dering and scalping the Seymours and Copuses.' These were his words. My father sprang to the door, but the messenger was gone, and midnight silence reigned without. * * * John Chapman was a regularly constituted minister of the church of the New Jerusalem, according to the revela- tions of Emanuel Swedenborg. He was also a constituted missionary of that faith under the authority of the regular association in the city of Boston. The writer has seen and examined his credentials as to the latter of these." He always caiTied in his pockets books and tracts relating to his religion, and took great delight in reading them to others and scattering them al)out. When he did not have enough with him to go around, he would take the books apart and distribute them in pieces.
He was really one of the greatest benefactors of Richland County, as large orchards flour- ished in different parts of the county as the result of his labor. Besides the cultivation of apple-trees, he was extensively engaged in scattering the seeds of man}' wild vegetables, which he supposed possessed medicinal quali- ties, such as dog-fennel, penny-roj-al, may-apple, hoai'hound, catnip, wintergreen, etc. His olyect was to equalize the distribution, so that every locality would have a variety. His operations in Indiana began about 1836, and were con- tinued ten years. In the spring of 1847, being within fifteen miles of one of his nurseries ries on the St. Joseph River, woi-d was brought to him that cattle had l)roken into this nursery
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