Johnny Appleseed

Johnny Appleseed, born John Chapman, was an American nurseryman and missionary who planted and distributed apple nurseries across parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Later legend transformed his commercial frontier work and Swedenborgian faith into an image of gentle wilderness wandering.

Johnny Appleseed was born in Leominster and died in Fort Wayne. Born John Chapman, he established nurseries across parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana and sold or gave seedlings to settlers; his itinerant life, religious preaching and practical role in frontier horticulture later merged into American folklore.

Tracy Chevalier’s At the Edge of the Orchard uses John Chapman—Johnny Appleseed—as part of the material history of settlement in Ohio. The Goodenough family’s orchard is planted from stock supplied by Chapman, so his work as a nurseryman sits behind the domestic struggle over apples, cider, land and survival that drives the novel’s opening section.