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'Cbe Conservative.
Kansas lady be slighted , who , as men
tioned in last week's CONSERVATIVE , has
presented the site of the Pawnee Re
publican village to the state of Kansas
for memorial . ' 'From
a park. fancy or
from some other reason , " she is reported
as saying , "a Frenchman applied the
name of Republique to this branch of
the Pawnee Indian nation , of whoie
dominion this village might be con
sidered the capital , and from this our
beautiful Kansas-Nebraska river , the
Republican , takes its name. "
Even the omniscient Smithsonian
Institution is at fault in this matter , it
seems , for the courteous specialist to
whom THE CONSERVATIVE'S request for
information was referred could do no
better than to quote from Dunbar in
reply.
It is likely , therefore , that the ques
tion why anybody should ever have
denominated certain 18th century Kan
sas Indians "Republicans" is incapable
of exact solution and must forever re
main a puzzle.
A. T. RICHARDSON.
PIONEER PHILANTHROPIST.
Of all Ohio's quaint characters , one of
the most remarkable and at the same
time most lovable was "Johnny Apple-
seed , " by which name wonderful old
John Chapman was known throughout
the state years ago. He was the father
of the orchards that have made the state
famous for its apples , and if all he be
lieved about the virtues of apples was
true he was the father of much of the
healthfulness that blesses the sons and
daughters of the state. He believed
that apples made people healthy , and
he gave the early settlers of Ohio all the
chance they had in the early days to get
apples.
How well he is loved by the pioneers
of the state is shown by the handsome
monument to his memory that was un
veiled at Mansfield last Thursday. Not
many of those who knew "Johnny
Appleseed" personally are alive now ,
but his work has lived after him to an
extent that makes him the most remark
able penniless philanthropist the state
ever knew. He was as poor as Job's
turkey , as he would have said himself
in his fondness for the scriptures and
their application to the every-day things
of life , but he gave to the pioneers of the
state an endowment of apple trees.
Cleveland had a share in his penni
less benevolence , for here and there
about this city , notably in Newburg ,
are orchards which are pointed out by
old residents as having been planted
with trees that were once sprouts from
other trees which had been raised by
"Johnny Appleseed" and given to some
pioneer of the early years of the cen
tury.
tury.Mansfield
Mansfield seems to be the only oity
of the state that has recognized' 'Johnny
Appleseed , " and what he did for the
state in its youth , for nowhere else , not
even at his almost forgotten grave out
in Indiana is there a monument to him.
The monument to his memory that was
dedicated in Mansfield recently stands
in the fine Sherman-Heineman park in
that city , which was the joint gift of
the late Senator Sherman and a wealthy
fellow townsman. The monument was
erected by Martin B. Bushnell of Mans
field , whose father was one of the
pioneers of that part of the state and a
personal friend of the quaint "Johnny
Appleseed. " Thelowerpart of the monument
ment , which is of buff stone , bears the
inscription , "In memory of John Chap
man , best known as Johnny Appleseed ,
pioneer apple nurseryman of Riohland
county from 1810 to 1880. " The quaint
man for whom the monument was
erected was a hero as well as a crank , as
he would have been called had he lived
today. He roamed through the woods
without anything in the shape of a
weapon , despite the fact that the forests
were thronged with Indians and wild
animals that were almost equally hostile
and bloodthirsty. Once he saved a set
tlement from the Indians by a thirty-
mile trip through the woods at night , a
trip which was as fine in its way as Paul
Revere's ride.
He was a faddist , a crank perhaps ,
but at the same time he was an intelli
gent Christian man in ra { ged clothes ,
and no one who knew him , not even the
children who were tempted to laugh at
him , nor the Indians , whose companion
he was on many a winter night in the
forests of the state , could help but re
apect him. He could easily have turned
his philanthropy into money , into enough
money to have made a rich man among
the pioneers , to whom the possession of
a thousand dollars meant independent
wealth , but he did not care for money ;
he said.
"Johnny Appleseed" might very
properly be called an apple missionary.
He believed that apples were good for
people , and he undertook to supply ap
pies to the pioneers. His plan was as
simple as his life , and his life was almost
as simple as that of a squirrel or an
Indian. He had no home , no money
and not much in the way of clothes.
He would either go on foot or in a birch
canoe where there were streams that
made it possible to go by water , across
the line into the older settlements of
Pennsylvania , where there were orch
ards. The pioneers who came to Ohio
were too poor , and it was too difficult to
get themselves and their families into
the new state , for them to bring any
young apple trees , and few of them hac
the patience to plant apple seeds anc
nurse them to the point where they
could be transplanted to form orchards
So there was scarcely an orchard worthy
of the name in the whole state. The
quaint apple missionary saw this anc
realized how many years it would be
before the struggling pioneers had time
to plant orchards , even supposing they
were able to buy the trees to plant , and
le devoted almost the whole of his life
to giving orchards to the then scanty
population of Ohio.
From the older portions of the older
state of Pennsylvania he would bring
sack to Ohio bags filled with apple
seeds. He got them 'at the cider mills
of the Keystone state. Apple seeds
were of no value to those who had apple
trees , and in Pennsylvania no one
thought of saving apple seeds. So
"Johnny Appleseed' ' had no trouble in
getting all the seeds he could carry back
through the wilderness to Ohio. When
he got to a part of the state where there
were no apple trees he would plant the
seeds he had brought. He had studied
the matter until he was able to pick out
the most favorable places to plant , so
that they would be most protected from
the winter blizzards and get most of the
sunshine that their rapid growth re
quired.
When he found the right spot he
would clear away the trees and shrubs ,
plant as many seeds as he thought
proper , and build a rude fence about his
nursery in the wilderness. "When he
had done this , planting sufficient seed
in each nursery to supply the farmers in
that vicinity with young trees , he would
go to another place and start another
little grove. This he would continue
until his supply of seeds was exhausted.
Then he would either go back to Penn
sylvania for more seeds , or , when the
trees he had planted were large enough ,
begin to distribute the saplings. When
they were grown .a few feet above the
ground they were ready to be trans
planted into the orchards of the pioneers.
Sometimes "Johnny" sold the young
trees for clothes , old shoes , or something
else he could wear or use. More often
he gave the young trees away , present
ing to each of the pioneers enough trees
to make a fairly large orchard. In this
way he started innumerable orchards.
He carried on the work for years , and
there are still many thousands of apple
trees in the state that grew either from
little trees raised by "Johnny Apple-
seed" or else from older trees that he
raised. His work supplied the state
with apples many years sooner than the
struggling pioneers would have done it ,
without his quaint , but beautiful ,
benevolence.
It is said of bim that he lived a life of
almost inconceivable simplicity and
gentleness. Innumerable anecdotes of
him are told. One chilly night in the
woods , when he was huddled over a
little fire he had built to keep himself
warm , he noticed that insects were
being attracted to the fire by the light
and were falling into it. Never to harm
a living creature was one of his prin
ciples , and when he noticed that his fire
was causing the death of some of God's
creatures , as he called everything that
had life , he put out his fire and spent
the remainder of the night in cold and
darkness. His life was fall of such acts
as this. He crawled into a hollow log
one night to sleep and when he found
that there was a chip-munk and her
family in the other end and that they
were frightened by his presence , he
went away and slept in the snow because
he could not find another hollow log.
Cleveland Leader.
