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| Guide to Indiana's Historic Sites North East Edition |
This thirty-one acre park serves as the final resting place for Johnny Appleseed. The park is home to the annual Johnny Appleseed Festival in September.
John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) (September 26, 1774 – March 18, 1845)
The son of Nathaniel Chapman and Elizabeth Simonds Chapman, John was a native of Leominster, Massachusetts. His mother died giving birth to a son, who died about two weeks after his mother. Nathaniel had enlisted in the Continental Army. He was away at war when his wife died. Historians know little of Chapman's early life. He and his eleven-year-old brother migrated west into the Northwest Territory in 1792. The two boys lived a life in the wilderness until their father migrated into the new state of Ohio in 1805. Apparently, at that time, John became apprenticed to a nurseryman who tended apple trees. Thus began Chapman's lifelong career.
Johnny Appleseed Businessman
Most of the legends that surround Johnny Appleseed, the nickname that people gave him, involve him randomly planting apple seeds in the frontier. The truth is far different. Chapman foresaw that the frontier would expand west. By planting the apples, he established a claim on the land on which they were planted. He moved ahead of the wave of settlement, planting apple tree seeds, a valuable commodity on the frontier. Thus, by the time he died in 1845 he had accumulated over 1200 acres land. By the time the apple trees were ready to sell to incoming pioneers, the pioneers had arrived to buy them.
Johnny Appleseed Nurseryman
Chapman moved through the wilderness, choosing his land carefully. Once he found choice spots, he would clear a section, fence it and plant his seeds. Every couple of years he would return to the site to tend the seedlings. He worked mostly in the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. When the pioneers arrived near his nursery, he would sell off the trees, then much of the land. He sold his seedlings for three cents each, seven cents if he wanted the buyers to allow him to plant them. The apples he planted were not the familiar types found in grocery stores and orchards today. These apples were hard, tart and nutritious. Pioneers used them to make cider, applejack, apple butter and other frontier staples.
Missionary
Chapman was a devout Christian and a member of the Church of Swedenborg, known as the New Church. During his travels, he served his church as a missionary, spreading his message to isolated pioneer homesteads, where he frequently boarded, and to the natives he encountered as he traveled. He would spend his evenings at a homestead spinning stories and telling about his faith. His beliefs spurred his celibacy. Chapman never married, believing that God would reward his abstinence in heaven.
Death at Fort Wayne
Chapman lived in the Fort Wayne area from the mid-1830's until his death in 1845. His orchard about twelve miles south of Fort Wayne, on the banks of the Maumee River, held around 12,000 trees. He died in Fort Wayne in 1845 and is interred in Johnny Appleseed Park in Fort Wayne.
Johnny Appleseed Park
1500 E Coliseum Blvd
Fort Wayne, IN 46805
Johnny Appleseed Festival
(260) 427-6720
