Was “Johnny Appleseed” a real person, and did he live in Pennsylvania?” The answer is yes. John Chapman was born in Leominster, Massachusetts on September 26, 1774.

According to some accounts, 18-year-old John persuaded his 11-year-old half-brother Nathaniel Cooley Chapman to go west in 1792. The duo lived a nomadic life until their father brought his large family west in 1805 and met up with them in Ohio. Nathaniel decided to stay and help their father farm the land.

Shortly after the brothers parted ways, John began his apprenticeship as an orchardist under a Mr. Crawford who grew apples, thus inspiring Chapman's life journey of planting apple trees.[1]

According to the 1887 History of Warren County, John Chapman lived on Brokenstraw Creek from 1795 through 1797. The account of Chapman’s stay in the county was chronicled by Judge Lansing Wetmore in 1853. But for many years, there was no documentation to confirm Wetmore’s story.  

However, in 1953, Warren County Commissioner George Seavy, while searching some records in the courthouse, came upon an account book of the Craig and O’Hare stores, named the “John Daniel’s Ledger.” The name of each purchaser, and his payment method were logged in the records.

John Chapman’s name was recorded six times between February 14, 1797, through May 3^rd, 1799, in the store ledger. Further research in the historical records of Meadville found that Chapman had paid for his purchases in exchange for some apple trees seedlings given to General David Mead. Mead had an interest in the store on Brokenstraw Creek.

John Chapman’s trip through northern Pennsylvania as described by Judge Wetmore says Chapman carried a knapsack with apple seeds, along with a rifle and tomahawk, and was shoeless.

"The favorable reports of the Allegheny country having reached the Wyoming Valley, one John Chapman started in November 1797, on foot and alone, to come here by the 'overland route'.

“When he arrived on the headwaters of the Allegheny, one hundred miles from where he started, and about the same distance from his place of destination, a snowstorm came on and continued until it fell full three feet deep on the level.”

Possibly it was “Yankee ingenuity” that Chapman used in making stockings and shoes from his blanket to protect his feet. He then used strips of beech and hickory to create snowshoes. He traveled through the wilderness of Potter and McKean counties and arrived at Warren about the first of December. Continuing his account, the judge wrote, “The following spring he selected a spot for his nursery — for that seemed to be his primary object — near White's, on the Big Brokenstraw, and sowed his seed. The waters have long since washed away a portion of the ground and took some of his trees to a bar below, which is still known as Apple-tree Bar. This nursery furnished the trees for most of the old orchards on Brokenstraw. The demand for fruit trees was limited, and unable to obtain a livelihood by his favorite pursuit, he went to Franklin, where he established another nursery. Subsequently, he moved to Indiana."

Other sources say Chapman moved on to Venango County, along French Creek, and many nurseries sprang up in the Mohican River area of north-central Ohio.

In 1817, a bulletin of the Church of New Jerusalem printed in Manchester, England, was the first to publish a written report about Chapman. It described a missionary who traveled around the West to sow apple seeds and pass out books of the New Church. [2]

According to Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, toward the end of his career, he was present when an itinerant missionary was exhorting an open-air congregation in Mansfield, Ohio. The sermon was long and severe on the topic of extravagance because the pioneers were buying such indulgences as calico and imported tea. "Where now is there a man who, like the primitive Christians, is traveling to heaven barefooted and clad in coarse raiment?" the preacher repeatedly asked, until Johnny Appleseed walked up to him, put his bare foot on the stump that had served as a pulpit, and said, "Here's your primitive Christian!" [3]

Fact or fiction, the stories surrounding “Johnny Appleseed’s” faith, his eccentricities, and his pioneer work as a nurseryman, still live on, with many communities celebrating Johnny Appleseed days or festivals.

John Chapman never married, and the Fort Wayne Indiana Sentinel printed his obituary on March 22, 1845, saying he had died on March 18. It’s believed his grave is located in Archer Cemetery in that city.