Depending on who you ask and the source of information, today could be Johnny Appleseed Day. Some people celebrate it on the anniversary of his death (either March 11 or March 18 — this seems to be sketchy), while others choose to celebrate it on the anniversary of his birth, September 26. Either way, it’s a good excuse to learn more about the man & the legend.

First, let’s start off with a song to get us all in the mood. From the Disney film The Legend of Johnny Appleseed. The full version (in two parts) can be seen here — narrated by James Earl Jones.

 We’ve all heard the stories and seen the images of Johnny Appleseed walking around, generally barefoot, spreading apple seeds wherever he went — here’s a good example that’s also something you can print out for the kids to color in. But the reality is that he was much more deliberate than that, although the barefoot piece seems to be accurate during the summer months. Rather than spreading seeds randomly, he created nursuries of trees which were then managed locally. The managers were encouraged to sell trees on credit or barter.

And he definitely lived a subsistance lifestyle with many sources referencing how he would give away most of his clothes and posessions, traveling from house to house telling stories to children in exchange for a place to stay and some food. At this time, the “west” were states like Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.

At some point in his life he became a minister — which suited his travelling tendencies. But it’s unclear as to whether this shift came after he started planting the seeds or before. One source claims that the seed & tree selling (or bartering) was to support his ministry efforts.

The legend talks about all the good eating apples produced by these trees, but some other sources I found claim that the apples were for making liquor and not for eating. I guess that doesn’t translate well in to a kid’s film. The Straight Dope tries to explain how that transition of focus from liquor to edible might have happened:

We stopped drinking apples and started eating them in the early 1900s. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union publicized the evils of alcohol, the movement towards Prohibition was gaining momentum, and the apple industry saw the need to re-position the apple…We can thank prohibition for shifting the image of the apple to the healthy, wholesome, American-as-apple-pie fruit that it is today.

However that happened, it’s a story that has carried through and had staying power.

There are even rumors that there are some apple trees here in Seattle that come from the same root stock as trees Johnny Appleseed is known to have planted. If anyone has any info about that — please post it in the comments. Would love to know if there are Johnny Appleseed trees in town!

Clearly I’m not going to get to the bottom of this via this blog post, but hopefully this helps shed some light on what the real Johnny Appleseed might have been like.

For some additional information, Michael Polin wrote about him in his book The Botany of Desire although most seem to think that Robert Price’s Johnny Appleseed: Man and Myth covers the subject pretty well.

So celebrate Johnny Appleseed today, on the 18th, or in September — but definitely celebrate him. Eat an apple, drink some (hard) cider, or make one of these recipes.