John Chapman was born September 26, 1774 on a small farm in Massachusetts. He loved his father’s apple orchard, and when he grew up he decided to spread apple trees throughout the western frontier. What he called "the west" is what we call Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. According to the legend, Johnny Appleseed went about spreading random apple seeds, but what he actually did was plant nurseries. He built fences around them to protect the seedlings from deer and livestock, and he’d leave them in the care of folks who lived nearby. He didn’t go about with a pot on his head, but he did wear old clothing that people swapped for the saplings he grew, and he often went barefoot in the summer so his shoes would last longer. He lived very simply as an itinerant preacher until his death at age seventy.
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