Parking coordinates are provided. The posted coordinates will take you to the gravesite of someone who left an indelible mark on the history of the city of Fort Wayne.
Growing up, most of us have heard about Johnny Appleseed and how he walked thru life planting apple seeds everywhere. I never realized this legendary fellow was a real person. I'd always thought him to be a myth. That is, until I moved to the area years ago and began to discover that he really was the real deal. Below is some history on John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed. I actually learned quite a bit about him from online research.
John Chapman (September 26, 1774 – March 18, 1845), better known as Johnny Appleseed, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as the northern counties of present-day West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. The Fort Wayne TinCaps, a minor league baseball team in Fort Wayne where Chapman spent his final years, is named in his honor.
According to some accounts, an 18-year-old John persuaded his 11-year-old brother Nathaniel Cooley Chapman to go west with him in 1792. The duo apparently lived a nomadic life until their father brought his large family west in 1805 and met up with them in Ohio. The younger 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 had apple orchards, thus inspiring his life's journey of planting apple trees. There are stories of Johnny Appleseed practicing his nurseryman craft in the area of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and of picking seeds from the pomace at Potomac cider mills in the late 1790s. Another story has Chapman living in Pittsburgh on Grant's Hill in 1794 at the time of the Whiskey Rebellion.
In fact, he planted nurseries rather than orchards, built fences around them to protect them from livestock, left the nurseries in the care of a neighbor who sold trees on shares, and returned every year or two to tend the nursery. He planted his first nursery on the bank of Brokenstraw Creek, south of Warren, Pennsylvania. Next, he seems to have moved to Venango County, along the shore of French Creek, but many of these nurseries were in the Mohican area of north-central Ohio. This area included the towns of Mansfield, Lisbon, Lucas, Perrysville, and Loudonville.
His apples weren't for eating. The apples that Chapman favored for planting were small and tart "spitters"—named for what you'd likely do if you took a bite of one. But this made them ideal for making hard cider and applejack. This was a far more valuable crop than edible apples. Where water could house dangerous bacteria, cider was safe. And delicious.
He was a follower of the New church (Swedenborgian) and he preached the gospel as he traveled, and during his travels he converted many Native Americans, whom he admired. The Native Americans regarded him as someone who had been touched by the Great Spirit, and even hostile tribes left him strictly alone.
He cared very deeply about animals, including insects. Henry Howe visited all the counties in Ohio in the early nineteenth century and collected several stories from the 1830s, when Johnny Appleseed was still alive: One cool autumnal night, while lying by his camp-fire in the woods, he observed that the mosquitoes flew in the blaze and were burned. Johnny, who wore on his head a tin utensil which answered both as a cap and a mush pot, filled it with water and quenched the fire, and afterwards remarked, "God forbid that I should build a fire for my comfort, that should be the means of destroying any of His creatures." Another time, he allegedly made a camp-fire in a snowstorm at the end of a hollow log in which he intended to pass the night but found it occupied by a bear and cubs, so he removed his fire to the other end and slept on the snow in the open air, rather than disturb the bear. In another story, he had a pet wolf that had started following him after he healed its injured leg. According to another story, he heard that a horse was to be put down, so he bought the horse, bought a few grassy acres nearby, and turned it out to recover. When it did, he gave the horse to someone needy, exacting a promise to treat it humanely.
He was supposed to have considerable property, yet denied himself almost the common necessities of life—not so much perhaps for avarice as from his peculiar notions on religious subjects. He was a follower of Swedenborg and devoutly believed that the more he endured in this world the less he would have to suffer and the greater would be his happiness hereafter—he submitted to every privation with cheerfulness and content, believing that in so doing he was securing snug quarters hereafter.
There has been some debate about his actual date of death and the exact location of his grave. There is, however, solid evidence about the gravesite. It was once thought to have been located over at Canterbury Green but that site was actually the location of the Worth cabin in which he died. The historical account of his death and burial by the Worths and their neighbors in David Archer's private burial grounds is substantially correct. The grave, more especially the common head-boards used in those days, have long since decayed and become entirely obliterated, and at this time it is not thought that any person could with any degree of certainty come within fifty feet of pointing out the location of his grave. Suffice it to say that he has been gathered in with his neighbors and friends for the majority of them lie in David Archer's graveyard with him. The Johnny Appleseed Commission Council of the City of Fort Wayne reported, "As a part of the celebration of Indiana's 100th birthday in 1916 an iron fence was placed in the Archer graveyard by the Horticulture Society of Indiana setting off the grave of Johnny Appleseed. At that time, there were men living who had attended the funeral of Johnny Appleseed. Direct and accurate evidence was available then. There was little or no reason for them to make a mistake about the location of this grave. They located the grave in the Archer burying ground."
Sources:
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/62113/9-facts-tell-true-story-johnny-appleseed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed
Now for the task to prove you've physically visited his gravesite:
1. You are not required to post a pic of yourself in the online log but I'd like to see who all visits our local celebrity's final resting place.
2. There is a square headstone nearby, outside the iron fence. On the sides of this headstone are names of members of the Porter family (so that you know you're looking at the right stone). On one side is listed the details of John Porter and on another is Sarah Porter. Please email me with the details of the other 2 sides, including names, date of death, age, etc. Please do not post the info in your log online or I will delete it.
3. Take a little time and do some online research yourself and post in your online log something that you found interesting about Johnny Appleseed.
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.