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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so

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Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our own

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Speaker 1: American piece of mythology. Our super producer, mister Max Williams.

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Speaker 2: A real American hero.

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Speaker 3: Just so, that's mister Noel Brown.

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Speaker 1: They call me Ben Bullen here for tax purposes.

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Speaker 2: And uh, that's your government name.

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Speaker 1: It's a government's name for a for you.

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Speaker 2: You are assigned this name by a government at birth.

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Speaker 2: Where are you even from?

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Speaker 4: Man?

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Speaker 1: What's your deal? All right? Well, we all become myths

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Speaker 1: over time, right.

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Speaker 2: In our own minds at least.

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Speaker 1: So if you were a grade school kid in the US,

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Speaker 1: then you inevitably, sometime in your early years you hear

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Speaker 1: made up stories about folks like George Washington. You might

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Speaker 1: hear about folks like Pekos, Bill Paul Bunyan. Paul Bunyan

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Speaker 1: is a great winner, Daniel Boone, h Davy.

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Speaker 2: Crockett, David Hill. Rockett killed him a bar when he

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Speaker 2: was only three with his bare hands. Oh bar hands.

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Speaker 5: Let's not talk about those amazing heroic stories you heard

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Speaker 5: about Richard Nixon.

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Speaker 1: Ah, Yes, Richard Nixon. He was sort of a pecos

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Speaker 1: story was English.

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Speaker 2: I think I think Richard Nixon was once a puppet

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Speaker 2: and then he told lies and his nose got big,

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Speaker 2: and then he became a real boy and then got ached.

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Speaker 1: I was gonna say he never quite became a real boy.

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Speaker 1: But we've got a we've got a character from this

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Speaker 1: American pantheon that's fascinated us for a while.

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Speaker 3: You may know him by his street.

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Speaker 1: Name, Johnny apple Seed. The popular tale will hold that

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Speaker 1: this guy, like some demeter of old, traveled across the

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Speaker 1: United States on foot, planting apple trees. Yeah, barfoot and

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Speaker 1: planting apple trees, making a bit of mischief along the way.

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Speaker 2: The thing is, whatever, the most wholesome act of terrorism

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Speaker 2: that ever took place.

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Speaker 3: You get out of town with your apples and seeds

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Speaker 3: and ye trees.

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna plant food and shade for everyone as.

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Speaker 1: An active domestic It's like when it's like the how

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Speaker 1: the plot of Footloose, which you taught me, is apparently

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Speaker 1: all about a town that doesn't want people dancing, yea.

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Speaker 2: And then Kevin Bacon comes in and shakes it all

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Speaker 2: up with his literally by shaking his hips and this.

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Speaker 1: Story of Johnny Appleseed has fascinated us for a bit.

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Speaker 2: Folks.

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Speaker 1: You see, it's loosely based on real world events, but

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Speaker 1: it reminded me in the research for this, it reminded

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Speaker 1: me of our earlier conversations about what loosely based or

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Speaker 1: inspired by means. And we're going to posit to you

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Speaker 1: ridiculous historians that the actual story here is even more

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Speaker 1: ridiculous than the legend.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it even has some crossover with our sister

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Speaker 2: show stuff they don't want you to know, which is

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Speaker 2: a bit of a twist that I'm not going to spoil,

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Speaker 2: but yeah, we'll get there. Most American kids, do, you know,

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Speaker 2: hear about Johnny Appleseed in school? You might have seen

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Speaker 2: a version of his story on one of those little

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Speaker 2: children's books with all the historical figures with the giant

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Speaker 2: heads you know on the front. Yeah, who was I

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Speaker 2: think is what they're called. Maybe I made that up,

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Speaker 2: but you know what I'm talking about. You've seen him

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Speaker 2: in that delightful little section of Barnes and Noble with

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Speaker 2: the stage and all the woodland creatures on the wall,

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Speaker 2: story Time in the app story Time in the Afternoon

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Speaker 2: with Johnny apples seed. He was in a way kind

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Speaker 2: of a proto hippie, but like he wasn't he was

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Speaker 2: good for something.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, think about this. It's classic Americano. We've got

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Speaker 1: a noble nomad on a exotic quest to spread produce,

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Speaker 1: specifically apples, throughout the still forming emergent United States. And

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Speaker 1: we know Britannica is a British source, but they're really

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Speaker 1: good for this one. So maybe we give you their

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Speaker 1: description of our boy John.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. They described him as being cheerful and generous in nature,

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Speaker 2: with an affinity for the wilderness, a gentleness of spirit

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Speaker 2: that extended to the animal kingdom and all those aforementioned

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Speaker 2: woodland creatures. He was also super into Jesus, way into

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Speaker 2: m but not but you know what that's not about

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Speaker 2: at all. He also, in addition to his love of

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Speaker 2: the Bible, he also loved all of nature's great bounties

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Speaker 2: and h and had a working knowledge of medicinal herbs.

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Speaker 2: He also found quite an affinity with the native peoples

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Speaker 2: of this land, the Native Americans, which is not always

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Speaker 2: in line with what you think of as a typical

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Speaker 2: Christian in this in this day and age.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a great point, Noel.

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Speaker 2: He's sort of like a live and let live Christian.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I could see that. He was known to

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Speaker 1: be the kind of guy who would hang out with anyone.

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Speaker 1: And above all, he's often described in terms of his

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Speaker 1: eccentric appearance. He had very long hair. He in place

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Speaker 1: of your typical tricorn hat or whatever, he wore an

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Speaker 1: inverted metal pan that he used as a hat, and

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Speaker 1: he used it to cook stuff. He was not a

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Speaker 1: fan of shoes. He was basically wearing cast off rags

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Speaker 1: for pants, and he had a coffee sack over his shoulders.

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Speaker 1: That's the part of the legend where he would have

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Speaker 1: holes cut out for arms and he would have a

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Speaker 1: bag of apple seeds. It's a fun, wholesome story.

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Speaker 2: Yeah there, if I'm not mistaken. Like a lot of

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Speaker 2: these mythical creatures of American folklore, there is an old

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Speaker 2: Disney cartoon that personifies old Johnny Appleseed.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, let's play a clip. This current image that grade

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Speaker 1: school kids in our country have about Johnny Appleseed comes

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Speaker 1: largely from a nineteen forty eight Disney film called Melody Time.

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Speaker 1: It depicts Johnny Appleseed in sort of Cinderella esque fashion.

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Speaker 1: He's surrounded by blue songbirds. He's got a jolly guardian angel.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna play a little clip right now, and a

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Speaker 1: stew pot for a hat and a stewpot for a hat.

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Speaker 1: So we're gonna play this clip. Here we go, bluebirds.

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Speaker 3: The lard is good to me and religion.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, the lard, yeah, because yeah, yeah, yeah, because of

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Speaker 4: you know, cooking a mushpan. So that's the Johnny Appleseeds

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Speaker 4: song voice like an angel, like a songbird himself.

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Speaker 2: H you know, we did. We didn't use the term.

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Speaker 2: I think I may have said it over the song

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Speaker 2: and you might not have heard it. But the term

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Speaker 2: mushpan is a new one to me, and in looking

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Speaker 2: it up, it is typically referring to a fry pan uh,

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Speaker 2: devoted to making like corn meal or corn bread, you know,

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Speaker 2: sort of like a cast iron skillet. But I love

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Speaker 2: the term mushpan. That's a lot of fun.

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Speaker 1: Yeah it does again sound like a British insult.

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Speaker 2: Oh, Ben, I was right, and I know that you

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Speaker 2: already knew this. But the Johnny Appleseed cartoon is has

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Speaker 2: been released in an addition called American Legends Disney American legends.

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Speaker 2: That also includes a cartoon they did about Paul Bunyan

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Speaker 2: and about John Henry who was a steel driving man.

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Speaker 2: And there's one other little let's see the Brave Engineer.

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Speaker 2: Oh okay, about the exploits of legendary railroad engineer John

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Speaker 2: Luther Casey Jones. Casey Jones, ah okay at a slower speed.

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Speaker 1: So we know that some grade schoolers of a certain age,

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Speaker 1: no offense to anybody, may have even dressed up like

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Speaker 1: Johnny Appleseed for class projects.

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Speaker 2: But it is It is a costume you can make

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Speaker 2: with stuff laying around.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, all you need is in apple. But when you

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Speaker 1: are learning this myth, this folklore, these kids, you're you're

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Speaker 1: often gonna be missing out on the real story because

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Speaker 1: you see, fellow ridiculous historians, the character Johnny Appleseeed is

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Speaker 1: based on an actual person named John Chapman.

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Speaker 2: John Chapman. The app is in there, it's contained within

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Speaker 2: the name. If it's not. If that's not nominated determinism,

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Speaker 2: I don't know what is. It's just one pee true.

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Speaker 2: It's true, lizar I agree, he got it.

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Speaker 1: This guy is he's born before the United States is

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Speaker 1: a thing. It's September twenty sixth, seventeen seventy four. It's

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Speaker 1: a place called leo Minster. At the time, it is

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Speaker 1: a province of Massachusetts Bay because they still don't have

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Speaker 1: states yet.

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Speaker 2: Ben, speaking of Massachusetts Bay, have you been enjoying Widows Bay?

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I'm read up.

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Speaker 2: Are you up to date? Did you watch the most

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Speaker 2: recent one? I did? I did too. I just I

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Speaker 2: don't think we've talked about it on the show, but

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Speaker 2: it is a really really fun Stephen King esque series

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Speaker 2: on Apple TV. And there is an episode and it

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Speaker 2: think it's kind of a flashback to colonial times on

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Speaker 2: this cursed island. So there's you know, there's some ridiculous

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Speaker 2: history contained. There's a really creepy museum that has all this,

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Speaker 2: like cannibalism in the church. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: They also they also do from a writing perspective, they

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Speaker 1: do a wonderful job threading the line between.

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Speaker 2: Comedy and horror.

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Speaker 1: One of the best examples I've ever seen.

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Speaker 2: I thank you. I completely agree. I was going to

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Speaker 2: say something very I've been I've been saying something very

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Speaker 2: similar when I'm bragging about it. It just it is

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Speaker 2: genuinely scary at times, genuinely sweet and genuinely funny, and

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Speaker 2: the performances are all just phenomenal, and you never believe

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Speaker 2: that main guy as British as they come.

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Speaker 1: And also, do check out if you're a fan of

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Speaker 1: what's his name, Matthew Ris. Yeah, okay, thank you. Do

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Speaker 1: check out the Americans. If you're a family he was

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Speaker 1: in there. They don't want you to know.

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Speaker 2: I never okay, thank you, Ben, because i need something

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Speaker 2: fresh right now while I'm waiting for the next Widow's

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Speaker 2: beta drop, I'm going to check out the Americans.

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Speaker 1: Never so much of John Chapman's early years were lost

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Speaker 1: to history. We do know that he was the second

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Speaker 1: child of a couple called Nathaniel and Elizabeth Chapman. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: like so many families in this time, in this part

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Speaker 1: of the world, childbirth was a hard mortality threat, so

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Speaker 1: his mother passed away when he was very young, at

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six, so he's at most two years old.

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Speaker 1: She passes away after giving birth to a child, who

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Speaker 1: also passes away soon after, so John never really got

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Speaker 1: to meet that sibling. In seventeen eighty, probably due to

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Speaker 1: economic circumstances as much as to romance, his father, Nathaniel remarries.

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Speaker 1: This time he marries a lady named Lucy Cohley, and

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Speaker 1: Nathaniel and Coley go on to have ten more children.

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Speaker 2: Yep, he sure did. And given given the aforementioned risk

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Speaker 2: of childbirth mortality, that seems like a risky move. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: in that DNA's but you know, it was also like

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Speaker 2: you know that there was there was no birth control.

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Speaker 1: Either, or cable or social media.

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Speaker 2: Anything to do much of anything. Yes, yeah, so we

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Speaker 2: don't know a ton about, like you said, his early childhood,

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Speaker 2: but it was he lived rough, no question about that.

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Speaker 2: The family didn't have a lot of money before becoming

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Speaker 2: a farmer. Nathaniel had fought as a member of the militia,

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Speaker 2: the Minutemen in the Revolutionary War. Their savings were very

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Speaker 2: meager and they were kind of blasted on through especially

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Speaker 2: in the post war chaos. Government wasn't paying folks like

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Speaker 2: him enough, not nearly enough to raise a family as

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Speaker 2: massive as the one that they had found themselves raising.

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Speaker 2: So there were a lot of mouths to feed and

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Speaker 2: you know, likely not a lot of space, but it

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Speaker 2: would seem that they were happy. Yeah, we can't help

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Speaker 2: but imagine, and that's a romanticized concept.

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Speaker 1: But we could exercise that. We also can't help but

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Speaker 1: imagine a childhood in such a crowded household, you know,

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Speaker 1: Charlie in the chocolate factory style. It must have instilled

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Speaker 1: a love of the outdoors in young Johnny because going

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Speaker 1: outside of this very crowded series of cabins was literally

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Speaker 1: the only time this guy could get some peace and quiet.

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Speaker 1: So it's no surprise, actually, Max, john reminds me a

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Speaker 1: little bit of your brother Alex. According to some biographers,

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Speaker 1: when he's eighteen years old, he goes to one of

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Speaker 1: his half brothers who's eleven years old, a guy named

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Speaker 1: Nathaniel Goolie Chapman, and he says, hey, let's get out

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Speaker 1: of this cartoonishly crowded house. It's seventeen ninety two. Let's

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Speaker 1: go west. And they basically became hobos until eighteen oh five.

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Speaker 1: That's when they agreed, That's when their dad moved again.

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Speaker 1: They agreed to meet up with them in Ohio. And Max,

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Speaker 1: we see you popping in and out here. Are we

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Speaker 1: being unfair to our composer?

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Speaker 2: I was a little to say, are you calling Alex a hobo?

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Speaker 1: I'm he's a jolly traveler, a jolly traveler.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, Noel.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: I also I don't think it's fair the pejorative, the

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Speaker 2: term hobo as a pejorative. I don't care for hobo

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Speaker 2: is awesome. I think it rules. And we often talk

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Speaker 2: about hobo codes and the lexicon of symbols and things

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Speaker 2: and that, But it does seem like people kind of

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Speaker 2: turn their nose up when you say hobo, and I

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Speaker 2: just think it's to me a romanticized kind of type

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Speaker 2: of figure, like a like a wandering troubadour.

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Speaker 5: You know.

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Speaker 1: The difference between and this is from people I know

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Speaker 1: in the traveling community even now, the difference between a

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Speaker 1: hobo and a bum, and this was a huge deal

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Speaker 1: during the Great Depression. The difference is that a hobo

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Speaker 1: is traveling to make an honest day's living, to seek

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Speaker 1: not just adventure, but to also be a meaningful, productive

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Speaker 1: part of society, whereas a bum is just.

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Speaker 2: He's bumkinga out there bumming. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The takers, they're not reciprocators.

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Speaker 3: They will help you, you know.

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Speaker 2: The term was originated in the American West. Does makes

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Speaker 2: sense for where we're going with the story, as a

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Speaker 2: term referring to a tinerant railway worker, which totally lines

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Speaker 2: up with your mention the traveling community aka train kids,

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Speaker 2: which is very much an extension of that. The etymology

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Speaker 2: is like a lot of etymology and fun terms like

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Speaker 2: this a little bit debated over. But one would be

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Speaker 2: homeward bound, which I kind of dig right, like the hobo. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I think that's cool.

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Speaker 3: It's interesting.

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Speaker 1: Maybe a retroactively manufactured portmanteau, but I do love it, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, one hundred percent, and all of these, like there's

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Speaker 2: another one that references the city of Hoboken. Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 2: well yeah, but that's sort of like a Schicken or

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Speaker 2: the egg kind of thing, you're right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And we know that this younger half brother, Nathaniel Junior,

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Speaker 1: when his when his family shows up to Ohio, he says, look, Johnny,

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Speaker 1: i'm gonna stay here with dad. I'm gonna help farm

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Speaker 1: the land. And John says, I'm not done roaming the

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Speaker 1: horizon becons.

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Speaker 3: So he this is so weird.

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Speaker 1: He does have like a jet apple mentor. He becomes

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Speaker 1: the padawan for an apple farmer whose name we don't

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Speaker 1: fully know. He's just listed as a mister Crawford, and

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Speaker 1: John becomes an apprentice of this, mister Crawford. This is

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Speaker 1: where he learns to make nurseries and orchards. This is

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Speaker 1: probably what sets him on his later very apple centric career.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm distracted because it just popped into my head.

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Speaker 2: A song from the movie A Mighty Wind, the Christopher

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Speaker 2: Guest mockumentary about like a folk revival, and there's a

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Speaker 2: group that's depicted in that that Guests himself plays a

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Speaker 2: member of called the Folkesman. And this song called never

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Speaker 2: did No Wandering. And the beauty of it, the joke

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Speaker 2: of it is it's this romanticized the versus descriptions of

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Speaker 2: all of these adventures on the highway and byways. But

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Speaker 2: then the chorus is the fact that this person singing

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Speaker 2: it never did any It says, my mama was the

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Speaker 2: cold North wind, my daddy was the son of a

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Speaker 2: railroad man from west of Hell, where the trains don't

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Speaker 2: even run. Never heard the whistle of a southbound train

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Speaker 2: or the singing of its driving wheel. No, I never

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Speaker 2: did no wondering, Never did no wondering, Never did no wondering.

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Speaker 2: After all, it's it's such a subtle, dry joke. But

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Speaker 2: Johnny definitely did some wandering.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, John did, and we'll never know. We'll never know

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Speaker 1: the entirety of the details of his adventures. Some of

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Speaker 1: the specifics are again lost to time irreparably. This is

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Speaker 1: also super convenient for the myth building. But we know

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Speaker 1: that by the early eighteen hundreds, by the turn of

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, our guy was on the western edge

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Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania because he wanted to be near the country's

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Speaker 1: rapidly expanding western frontier. At the turn of the nineteenth century,

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Speaker 1: who are speculators, there were private companies. They were buying

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Speaker 1: up vast walls of land in what they called the

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Speaker 1: Northwest Territory, and they were just waiting for settlers to

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Speaker 1: arrive and buy it. There is a fascinating economic context here,

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Speaker 1: and we've got to share it with you courtesy of

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Speaker 1: the Smithsonian.

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Speaker 2: Yes we do. Starting in seventeen ninety two, the Ohio

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Speaker 2: Company of Associates made a deal with potential settlers anyone

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Speaker 2: willing to form There's other versions of this kind of deal,

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Speaker 2: where you'd like promise to settle, they'd give you a

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Speaker 2: tract of land or like a little bit of starting

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Speaker 2: up money. Anyone willing to form a permanent homestead on

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Speaker 2: the wilderness beyond, Ohio's first permanent settlement would be granted

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Speaker 2: one hundred acres of land. To prove their homesteads to

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Speaker 2: be permanent, settlers were required to plant fifty apple trees

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Speaker 2: and twenty peach trees in three years. Says an average

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Speaker 2: apple tree took roughly ten years to bear fruit. It's

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Speaker 2: a long game with these trees, man, with these fruit trees.

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Speaker 1: Right, they're making sure that people aren't just getting land

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Speaker 1: or buying it remotely in Save Boston. They're saying, you

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Speaker 1: have to live here. You have to show your commitment

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Speaker 1: to have future generations live here. And John Chapman clocks

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Speaker 1: this opportunity immediately. So we have to remember that planting

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Speaker 1: a functioning orchard or a nursery, it is a specialized

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Speaker 1: skill set. It's way different from just, you know, from

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Speaker 1: just you know, finishing your favorite fruit or throwing some

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Speaker 1: herbs willy nilly in your backyard and starting an herb garden.

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Speaker 1: John takes again to the road and he wanders on

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Speaker 1: foot from Pennsylvania all the way to Illinois. He's continually

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Speaker 1: moving just ahead of the settlers or quiet part allowed

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Speaker 1: the colonizers and he purchases parcels of land, and so

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Speaker 1: before the settlers get there, he has already cultivated these

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Speaker 1: orchards and nurseries. So when you're like, let's say we're

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Speaker 1: the four of us, you listening, and Nola Maxim myself,

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Speaker 1: we are traveling right, we're going to make a homestead

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Speaker 1: out west. When we show up to this undeveloped land,

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Speaker 1: we see John Chapman, who has already quite some time

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Speaker 1: before created one of those orchards that we need to

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Speaker 1: satisfy our legal agreement with the government. And he says, look,

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Speaker 1: I'll sell it to you and I'll be back. I

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Speaker 1: got to move on.

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Speaker 2: He's a bit of a pied piper type figure in right,

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Speaker 2: you know, and a good reverse pied piper. I don't know.

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Speaker 2: So wait the did that not? So? Wasn't it a

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Speaker 2: little suspicious that the trees were already a little further

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Speaker 2: along than they would have been to satisfy that deal?

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Speaker 3: The love it?

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Speaker 2: They liked it. They were They were like.

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Speaker 1: We already have so much to do. We have to

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Speaker 1: build our log cabin.

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Speaker 2: Oh that is a good point. No, I'm sure they did.

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Speaker 2: I guess what I just mean is like wouldn't the

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Speaker 2: government be like, well, that's cheating. You got Johnny Appleseed

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Speaker 2: did it for you.

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Speaker 1: They actually liked it because it promoted permanence and it

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Speaker 1: made the settlers more likely to hang out there for

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Speaker 1: that extended amount of time.

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Speaker 2: I'm super excited to talk a little bit about how

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Speaker 2: apples are propagated and the whole idea of like how

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Speaker 2: do you prevent monoculture and all that, and if you

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Speaker 2: want a cool visual representation of all of this. Everything

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Speaker 2: I know about this other than the reading up on

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Speaker 2: this research brief that you'd put together, Ben came from

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Speaker 2: this news Zach califanakas gardening show.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I love it.

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Speaker 2: Very first episode he talks about apples and versus seeds

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Speaker 2: and all of that. We're going to get into that,

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Speaker 2: but really quickly has had to mention just recently found

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Speaker 2: out on an episode of The dough Boys from the

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Speaker 2: guest Brandy Posey, who's a really great comedian, there's a

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Speaker 2: reality show called Homestead Rescue where like these like real

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Speaker 2: season grizzled homesteaders go like kitchen Nightmares style to families

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Speaker 2: that are trying to live live a life on the

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Speaker 2: range and are doing apparently a real bad job at it,

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Speaker 2: and they swoop in and like, you know, tell them

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Speaker 2: what they're where they're messing up, and get there, get

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Speaker 2: their homestead lives back and over. But they are apparently

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Speaker 2: being sued by a couple who claimed that they were

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Speaker 2: told they were going to be featured on a show

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Speaker 2: promoting homesteading as like seasoned homesteaders, and they weren't really

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Speaker 2: told they were actually they were going to be made

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Speaker 2: to look like Rubes and pillar Read for their bad

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Speaker 2: job at homesteading.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, well we do know that John had again

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Speaker 1: he went into this ten tost.

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Speaker 2: He's got a lot of these things planted, and he's

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Speaker 2: now figured out a business model. Mark.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, he planted his first nursery on the bank

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Speaker 1: of a place called Broken Straw Creek, which is south

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Speaker 1: of Warren, Pennsylvania. And the settlers, to be fair, this

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Speaker 1: guy's not a grifter. They got a pretty nifty bargain.

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Speaker 1: He wouldn't just plant the trees in advance of their encroachment.

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Speaker 1: He also built fences to protect those trees from farm animals,

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Speaker 1: from wildlife. And he would set up this share system

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Speaker 1: because as we said, he travels widely he's nomadic. Before

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Speaker 1: he leaves for another area, he finds a neighbor, an

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Speaker 1: already established settler, and he says, look, you take care

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Speaker 1: of these nurseries, and you as the neighbor, as the

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Speaker 1: person in charge, you can sell the trees and their

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Speaker 1: produce on shares, and I will come back every year

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Speaker 1: or two to make sure everything is up to snow.

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Speaker 1: So he's doing he's doing like a distribution service and

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Speaker 1: a warranty service. Pretty forward thinking.

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Speaker 2: It's very forward thinking, and you gotta wonder, like how

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Speaker 2: big picture was he thinking. Was he really looking at

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Speaker 2: the larger sustainable like, you know, farming of it all,

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Speaker 2: or was he just kind of doing his thing, you

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Speaker 2: know and just like really into apples. I just got

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Speaker 2: to wonder if he saw the big picture of what

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Speaker 2: of how important what he was doing was ultimately going

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Speaker 2: to be.

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Speaker 1: That's a great question. It's one that we have to

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Speaker 1: we have to really dig into because the root of

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Speaker 1: it is the legend versus the man. But yeah, but

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Speaker 1: we are happy to report that part of the legend

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00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:52,119
Speaker 1: is true. Yes, this guy really did walk all the time,

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Speaker 1: probably barefoot or barefoot as we said, and he really

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Speaker 1: did like some kind of apple themed. Santa carry around

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Speaker 1: a big old bag of apple seeds. He got them

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Speaker 1: for free. We'll get to this, but Nola, I want

427
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 1: to go back to something you tease there. Earlier. Apples

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00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:18,200
Speaker 1: are super strange. The seeds from your favorite apple, they

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Speaker 1: don't always result in a tree making the same kind

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Speaker 1: of apples. So you could have your favorite, like let's say,

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Speaker 1: love a Fuji or a honey crisp. You could take

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Speaker 1: the seeds from your Fuji or honey crisp, and let's

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Speaker 1: say you chew it down to the core. You got

434
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 1: the seeds. You say, I'm not going to eat the

435
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:41,640
Speaker 1: apple seeds because I saw always sundy in Philadelphia, I'm

436
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 1: gonna plant these Those seeds are vastly more likely not

437
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 1: to create another honey crisp or Fuji tree. To do that,

438
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 1: you have to practice something we call grafting, and grafting

439
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 1: is grafting is pretty much how the apple industry works today.

440
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 4: Yeah.

441
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:09,160
Speaker 2: I mean it's sort of self explanatory in a way

442
00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:12,560
Speaker 2: because you sort of shave off a piece of another

443
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:16,360
Speaker 2: tree and then just kind of attach it to another tree. Right.

444
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, you take that cutting, like you were saying, from

445
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 1: an existing tree that makes the apples you enjoy, and

446
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,720
Speaker 1: then you fuse it onto what we call a rootstock

447
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 1: right at the bottom of the tree. It will adopt

448
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:36,880
Speaker 1: the limb because of the great superpowers of apple genetics,

449
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 1: and then it will take a little time or your

450
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: new Frankenstein's monster to start producing fruit. But the investment

451
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 1: is worth it. You know, you won't be getting some unpredictable,

452
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:52,359
Speaker 1: inedible mutant. You'll get your honey crisp, you will get

453
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: your fuji because it'll be exactly based on the original tree,

454
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,679
Speaker 1: the donor tree that you got the graft from. But

455
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: the thing is, ah, guys, this is the easiest answer,

456
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:09,719
Speaker 1: This is the best answer. This is what the apple

457
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 1: industry uses today. But Johnny said, oh no, no, no, no, no, no,

458
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:16,719
Speaker 1: no no, God wouldn't like it.

459
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:21,400
Speaker 2: What yeah, okay, yeah.

460
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: He was a devout member of the Swedenborgian Church, or

461
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: the New Church as he called it.

462
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 2: He was assimilated by the swedenborg.

463
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 1: He had this part of their I think this is

464
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 1: one of their oddly specific beliefs. But they said grafting

465
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 1: plants is a huge no no across the board because

466
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: it causes the plants unnecessary suffering. So this guy's a

467
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: faithful congregate if not a zealot. And he says, I

468
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:56,479
Speaker 1: can't graft. I got to plant all my orchids from seed,

469
00:28:56,920 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: which he also, by the way, he gets these seeds

470
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:03,920
Speaker 1: for free from cider mills back on the East coast.

471
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: And there are barrels and barrels of these seeds that

472
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 1: the cider mills don't want because the produce would be unpredictable.

473
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: And this means that the apples Johnny Apple seed John

474
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: Chapman plants the majority of time. If you're a person,

475
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: you're not going to eat them. They're called spitters. They're

476
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 1: like bitter, there's snow.

477
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 3: They're stinky.

478
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:31,280
Speaker 2: Oh no, they're bad apples. They're bad dude.

479
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 3: Yes, they're literally bad apple.

480
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 2: Bad apple man, I guess could also mean a rotten apple.

481
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 2: But that is that's a real myth killer right there.

482
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 2: I'm picture. I'm picturing there's just bounty of delightful treats

483
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 2: growing up out of the earth from Johnny Apple seeds.

484
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 2: You know, mystical touch. But no, there it is gonna

485
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 2: They're going to become useful though, if you can imagine

486
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 2: for other.

487
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: Purposes, Yeah, it might sound like his business was doomed

488
00:29:57,080 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 1: from the get go because of his conscientious objection is

489
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 1: religious constraints. But like you said, Noel, this is very

490
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: much not the case. People wanted permanence over taste. And

491
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: John's trees they didn't make delicious fruit the vast majority

492
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 1: of the time, but by God, they were tough. They

493
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 1: could survive those harsh winters and bad soil. He kept

494
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: a top secret ledger to arrange his travels, and he

495
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: checked in with all the nurseries and orchids he created.

496
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 1: Nobody ever saw this ledger, but we know he used

497
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: it because it was always on time and his clients

498
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: were incredibly happy to see the apple Man. Because this

499
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 1: is one of our first twists, right Like as you said, Noel,

500
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 1: these pioneers are not excited to see the apple Man

501
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 1: because they love eating fruit. They're excited about apples because

502
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 1: of something else. They absolutely love housing hardsider.

503
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 2: They do do, and you don't need necessarily. It's sort

504
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 2: of like using a kind of brown avocado to make

505
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 2: a smoothie or something like that, right, yeah, you know,

506
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 2: or like you know, spinach that's just about to turn.

507
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 2: But if you if you saute it up, you might

508
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 2: not know the difference.

509
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 5: So because of the condition, I can't have spinach, so

510
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 5: I eat a lot of kale and ooh that very

511
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 5: end of that kale. Then it's getting that really nasty,

512
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 5: funky smell. You know you have the most two days left.

513
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 5: Boil it up, blend it up and make it. Make

514
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 5: a kale sauce for some pasta.

515
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 2: Oh beautiful.

516
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a kale with some sesame oil.

517
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 2: It's a great. It's a great. But that is something

518
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 2: that you don't really get comfortable with till you get

519
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 2: a little older. I learned learned that from my mom,

520
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 2: or she was always like really preserving things till the

521
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 2: last possible, using every part of the unicorn in first.

522
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 5: With my mom, she wants to like, if the eggs

523
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:55,480
Speaker 5: go bad in two weeks, they gotta go.

524
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 2: They gotta go. That's how my kid is. My kid

525
00:31:57,680 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 2: will not eat a yogurt one day past the expiration.

526
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 2: I'm like, kiddo, it's a sell by date. Don't care.

527
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 2: Dead to me. This yogurt is dead to me.

528
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 5: And yogurt is kind of one of these things that's

529
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 5: getting better with age.

530
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: Anyways, we also clearly, like so many of our fellow

531
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians got to a point where we became more

532
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:21,479
Speaker 1: boy scout level thrifty when we had to pay for stuff.

533
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: That's a big part of it. And look, guys, cider

534
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 1: is great. It's not for everyone. That's fine. Not everything

535
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: is for everyone, as my mother used to say. But

536
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 1: both the non alcohol and the boozy version, the hard sider,

537
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: think youd have a sweet, crisp tang. It's perfect on

538
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 1: an autumn night, you know. I'll have I'll have a

539
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 1: cider once a year. I'll check it out. But what

540
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 1: may surprise a lot of us is back in the

541
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: seventeen and eighteen hundreds of North America, cider was so

542
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: much more popular. It was like the soda pop or

543
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 1: the Coca cola of its day, a.

544
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 2: Soft cider for the ladies, right, I mean, I'm joking,

545
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 2: but that is said often in like a westerns, you know,

546
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 2: with a lady like a soft cider or a sasparilla

547
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 2: in tombstone, I think probably in tombstone and in death way.

548
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 1: Okay, what is sasparilla?

549
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 2: Sasparilla? It's a non alcoholic kind of root rooted soda. Okay, Okay,

550
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 2: that makes sense. So we Sioux City sasapar is apparently

551
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 2: a good one. It tastes a lot like rep beer.

552
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 1: I like that as a Southern uh not insult but compliment.

553
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,240
Speaker 1: Oh you love Sioux City sasine.

554
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 2: Jump in here.

555
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 5: That's one of the best jokes and fall at New

556
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 5: Vegas for it's like the only one that doesn't have

557
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:45,479
Speaker 5: Nuca cola. It's got Sunset Sasparilla instead.

558
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 2: That's right, sunsets, Yeah, for sure.

559
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 5: But in thought for as h for Harbor DLC, they

560
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 5: have the fawed version of tab and nobody likes it.

561
00:33:57,080 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 5: I think, I think this commentary about people not liking it,

562
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 5: but episode do they have?

563
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah, you get in situations and that's with the.

564
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:13,360
Speaker 5: Facts, seeking in the pond and peaceful in knowledge.

565
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:15,120
Speaker 2: It's just for you right now.

566
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 1: Yeah that's a great but we'll yeah, we'll do it.

567
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 3: Uh So, Since we know.

568
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:30,360
Speaker 1: That the people in the frontier also didn't have a

569
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:34,680
Speaker 1: lot of choices for beverages, so water sources could be

570
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 1: full of all sorts of bacteria or feces or other contaminants,

571
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 1: cider was actually a safe, stable source of hydration, similar

572
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 1: to like how other civilizations across the pond often drank wine, drink.

573
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 2: Wine, or drank mead. Even further back than that, A

574
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 2: lot of times it was out of necessity because you know,

575
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:58,319
Speaker 2: water was gross and so at least you knew that

576
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,280
Speaker 2: if it was fermented, yeah, it'd give you a little buzz,

577
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 2: but would also you know, quench your thirst. And that's

578
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 2: why they would typically drink what we might consider lower

579
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:11,560
Speaker 2: ABV beverages. You know, they'd still be drinking at all

580
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:14,520
Speaker 2: the livelong day. They had to have been soused on

581
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 2: the regular.

582
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: Dude. The cider was all. It all had some content

583
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:23,880
Speaker 1: of alcohol, but to your point, Noel, it didn't have

584
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: nearly as much alcohol as say, like a hard liquor

585
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,279
Speaker 1: that they'd be familiar with, like rum or whiskey. But

586
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: it was boozy, and people did, again drink it like water.

587
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:40,399
Speaker 1: So let's just diplomatically say that probably adds up over time.

588
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, the kids drank it too, and if

589
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 1: your parents were really strict, they would water it down

590
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:50,240
Speaker 1: a little bit. But so what we're saying the kids

591
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 1: were also day drunk.

592
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 2: They were at least day tipsy, so much so that

593
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:57,839
Speaker 2: historians like Howard Means, who wrote Johnny appleseed the man

594
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:01,400
Speaker 2: the myth the American story describes life on the frontier

595
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:06,359
Speaker 2: as being lived through an alcoholic haze. That's history for you, though,

596
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:08,359
Speaker 2: right there. I mean again to the point about the

597
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 2: like the Vikings or the Middle Ages, any of these

598
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 2: eras people were boozed up.

599
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 1: It reminds me of one of those favorite apocryphal or

600
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:23,960
Speaker 1: one of my favorite apocryphal statements from historians in Ireland.

601
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:27,880
Speaker 1: Who would They would say, you know, it's interesting, the

602
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 1: Irish were doing really great, and then one of them

603
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 1: invented whiskey and they went and.

604
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:34,799
Speaker 3: It was all over.

605
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was all over us, all over from there,

606
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 2: what if we had a thing like this cider stuff,

607
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 2: but you only had to drink a couple SIPs of

608
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:44,520
Speaker 2: it to get wasted.

609
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:46,880
Speaker 1: Or what if we just had safe water, to be

610
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: honest like, scholars.

611
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, no, get that.

612
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 3: That guy's not fun. Get him out of here.

613
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 2: No, let's drink out, Let's drink more of this wood juice,

614
00:36:56,680 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 2: will drink wood juice.

615
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 1: Scholars estimate that this spiked apple juice was consumed to

616
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 1: the tune of let's see in the seventeen hundreds, people

617
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 1: living in what we call Virginia Massachusetts. Now, each of them,

618
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 1: every man, woman and child, was guzzling down between fifteen

619
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:28,319
Speaker 1: and thirty five gallons of hard cider per year. If

620
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:32,320
Speaker 1: you're on the frontier, you're drinking an estimated this is

621
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 1: a dodgy one, but an estimated ten point five to

622
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:39,600
Speaker 1: two ounces of hardsider a day. So I guess your

623
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: typical soda pop can will be what twelve ounces?

624
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:45,879
Speaker 2: I think that's right.

625
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're drinking a little bit less than a

626
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:53,520
Speaker 1: full soda can of Hardsider with booze. The children are

627
00:37:53,600 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 1: drinking it too. For comparison, as of twenty twenty or so,

628
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:04,840
Speaker 1: the average modern American resident drinks twenty ounces of water

629
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 1: a day. Honestly, we should all be drinking more. Not

630
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 1: to judge, but this might be the time to go

631
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:13,439
Speaker 1: get a cold glass of water.

632
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 2: I think so. I got recently, got a big old

633
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 2: like mutagen tank looking thing that I fill up with

634
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 2: water and try to drink it two or three times

635
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:24,760
Speaker 2: over during a day. And ben I got a picture

636
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 2: that they were consuming this stuff out of these giant

637
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:28,759
Speaker 2: jugs with three x's on them.

638
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:30,240
Speaker 3: You know that's funny.

639
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 1: I wonder if they If they were, they were definitely

640
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 1: reusing the jug. The historian you mentioned there means goes

641
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:44,200
Speaker 1: on to describe hardsider not as a treat, not as

642
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:48,160
Speaker 1: like a fun beverage like how we would grab a soda,

643
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:52,720
Speaker 1: but instead as a staple of the frontier diet, breakfast, lunch, dinner,

644
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 1: as part of the as much a part of the

645
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:59,240
Speaker 1: dining table as meat or bread, which means business wise,

646
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:03,879
Speaker 1: Johnny Chapman nailed it, and churches loved him too. They

647
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 1: described him not as a businessman but as a missionary,

648
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:09,839
Speaker 1: because they said, you know, he's walking around. He's not

649
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: just so in apple seeds and you know, teaching people

650
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:17,440
Speaker 1: how to make booze, but he's also passing out religious tracts.

651
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:20,279
Speaker 1: And this is where, okay, this is where we have

652
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: one of our peak descriptions of the real life John Chapman.

653
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 1: It's from an author named Rosella Rice. She writes about

654
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: this in publication from eighteen sixty three called The History

655
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:36,320
Speaker 1: of Ashland County, Ohio. It's a little bit long, dude,

656
00:39:36,440 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 1: so I suggest we round Robinett.

657
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 2: Oh. I completely support this notion. I'll start. His personal

658
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 2: appearance was as singular as his character. He was a small,

659
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 2: chumped man, quick and restless in his motions and conversation.

660
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:57,279
Speaker 2: His beard, though not long, was unshaven, and his hair

661
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 2: was long and dark, and his eyes black and sparkling.

662
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 1: He lived the roughest life, often slept in the woods.

663
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:07,879
Speaker 1: His clothing was mostly old, being generally given to him

664
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 1: in exchange for apple trees. He went barefooted and often

665
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: traveled miles through the snow in that way. He wore

666
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 1: on his head a ten utensil, which answered both as

667
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: a cap and a mush pot.

668
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 2: Why not? Why I have two when you could just

669
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:25,919
Speaker 2: do both things with one?

670
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 1: I agree with it. I love a multifunctional device.

671
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 2: I do too, I do too. A real character, indeed,

672
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:35,960
Speaker 2: and he is known as the world's most successful apple

673
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:38,839
Speaker 2: themed hobo. That's what your what's been, or a bit

674
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 2: of a proto hippie as we mentioned earlier. And you know,

675
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:46,360
Speaker 2: he knew what he liked, he knew how he wanted

676
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 2: to live. He dressed the way he did out of

677
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 2: preference and also out of utility.

678
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, not out of necessity. He reminds me a little

679
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:58,719
Speaker 1: bit of Gabe Newle, the creator of Steam or the

680
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:03,759
Speaker 1: co founder of just because Gabe Newell, You're never going

681
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 1: to see that guy in a three piece suit. It's

682
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:08,879
Speaker 1: not that he can't afford a three piece suit. This

683
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 1: is one for the gaming nerds. It's because he wants

684
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:16,399
Speaker 1: to dress comfortably, and Johnny seems like a pretty cool hang.

685
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: He isn't hurting for money. A lot of people didn't

686
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 1: know this at the time, but he ultimately accumulates about

687
00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 1: twelve hundred acres across three states for his nurseries and

688
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:32,600
Speaker 1: his orchards that he would buy up before the settlers arrive.

689
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: And if he's visiting a settlement and he doesn't feel

690
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 1: like sleeping out in the woods, which was his usual habit,

691
00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: then he would make a deal, a side bet, you

692
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:47,359
Speaker 1: could say, at parley, and he would say, I'll tell

693
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:51,440
Speaker 1: stories to your children, and I'll proselytize to you about

694
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,319
Speaker 1: the new church if you let me just sleep on

695
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 1: the floor inside. And you know, sometimes but not always,

696
00:41:57,960 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 1: they give him supper.

697
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 2: He loved animals.

698
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,120
Speaker 3: He even I don't.

699
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,879
Speaker 1: Know how true this is, but multiple historians said that

700
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:12,439
Speaker 1: he befriended and tamed a wolf. He fixed up its

701
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 1: injured leg, and it just followed him around afterwards forever

702
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:21,439
Speaker 1: until it died a familiar Yeah, just so, I mean,

703
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:24,839
Speaker 1: we know he we know there are other accounts that

704
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 1: are this is kind of the myth making stuff because

705
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:30,400
Speaker 1: we can't prove it. But there are other accounts of

706
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 1: him seeing mosquitoes flying over his campfire and immediately putting

707
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: out the fire because he didn't want the mosquitoes.

708
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 2: The sweden Borgian of it all, they would do no harm,

709
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 2: you know.

710
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you know he preserved the piece of

711
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:50,360
Speaker 1: bear dens. He would see somebody about to put a

712
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,879
Speaker 1: horse down and he would save the horse. And obviously,

713
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 1: predictably later in life he becomes a vegetarian. Some of

714
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: us know, I'm a former vegetarian myself, elapsed vegetarian. I

715
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 1: could say it's objectively the right thing to do, but

716
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 1: man meat.

717
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:10,480
Speaker 2: Though, right, and as you can imagine, living the traveling

718
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 2: life is not really one to settle down. He did

719
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:16,359
Speaker 2: never marry. He reportedly told people that if he didn't

720
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:18,759
Speaker 2: find his soulmate on earth, she'd be waiting for him

721
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 2: in heaven. That's real sweet.

722
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we unfortunately don't know exactly when he made

723
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 1: it to the Pearly Gates. Multiple contemporary sources report different

724
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: dates of his death to give you the quick summation.

725
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 1: Most people agree it was sometime in March of eighteen

726
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 1: forty five. He went out well into old age, apparently

727
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: went peacefully in his place. His legend blossomed.

728
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:48,719
Speaker 3: But that's not.

729
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:52,360
Speaker 1: Quite the end of the story, because you might be asking,

730
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians, Hey, what were the guys teasing earlier? If

731
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: this dude planted so many trees, where the heck are they?

732
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:02,280
Speaker 3: Now?

733
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:04,880
Speaker 1: We've got a conspiratorial twist for you.

734
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 2: What's the FBI think of all this? The FBI that

735
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:12,279
Speaker 2: never existed during his lifetime. I know, how does this

736
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:17,319
Speaker 2: figure into prohibition? You may be asking, Yeah, that's the

737
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 2: best question there.

738
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:23,440
Speaker 1: And also after Johnny Chapman passes, settlers keep his nurseries

739
00:44:23,520 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 1: and orchards going, and over time they cultivate specific varieties

740
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:31,480
Speaker 1: of apple, kind of tailor made to the climate of

741
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:34,840
Speaker 1: the United States, including stuff you can eat, not just

742
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: grind down and decider. So, thanks to John Chapman and

743
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 1: those who follow after him, the apple grows and changes

744
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:46,440
Speaker 1: in step with the growth of America. It turns out

745
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:50,000
Speaker 1: it's a big win for him to insist on planting

746
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 1: seeds instead of grafting, because he avoids, like you said

747
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: so brilliantly at the top of this episode, he avoids

748
00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:02,880
Speaker 1: the dangers of monoculture, which is what wrecked the good bananas.

749
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 2: Right, right, And I think how we've either done. We

750
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:07,320
Speaker 2: certainly must have talked about it in our Chiquita banana

751
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:10,399
Speaker 2: episode or no, was it Dole the thing about the

752
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 2: overthrowing the governments? Yeah, that's right, exactly. Yeah, originally bananas

753
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 2: tasted different, and banana candy supposedly tastes more like the

754
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 2: gross Michelle, what the original bananas tasted like? Some of

755
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 2: these clever growing techniques led to you know what you

756
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:36,120
Speaker 2: refer to delightfully been as successful mutants or hybrids, right,

757
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 2: things like the Golden Delicious or the Red Delicious. Which

758
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 2: I'm not an apple guy, by the way. I don't

759
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:46,360
Speaker 2: want to eat an apple. I like an apple crisp,

760
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:49,719
Speaker 2: an apple crumble, an apple pie. But it is my

761
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:53,760
Speaker 2: understanding that the basicst of apples is the Red Delicious

762
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 2: a little overrated?

763
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:59,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. It's it's okay, but

764
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: it's often overrated. That's a positive note, however, for everybody

765
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 1: who is sipping a cider. As you're listening to this,

766
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 1: we do have an unfortunate, fascinating tale. Like you said, Noel,

767
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:19,320
Speaker 1: the FBI eventually set their sights on Old Appleseed's legacy

768
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: way after he actually died. It's because that from nineteen

769
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:28,080
Speaker 1: twenty to nineteen thirty three, Uncle Sam was pushed by

770
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:32,319
Speaker 1: a crisis of conscience with its long history, if we're

771
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 1: being honest, it's long history of normalized alcoholism, they enacted prohibition.

772
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:43,440
Speaker 1: Prohibition makes booze illegal. If you are the average person,

773
00:46:43,719 --> 00:46:47,280
Speaker 1: you can no longer make booze, even at home for yourself.

774
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 1: You cannot import it, you cannot transport it, and you

775
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 1: cannot sell anything that has booze in it.

776
00:46:55,680 --> 00:47:02,799
Speaker 2: Right, and creates pretty overnight a thriving black market. Yeah,

777
00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 2: as typically happens when any kind of prohibition is involved.

778
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 2: People don't like to be told what they can't do.

779
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:12,440
Speaker 1: That's exactly it, man. Because we also talked about this

780
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: and stuff.

781
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:14,040
Speaker 3: They don't want you to know.

782
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:17,920
Speaker 1: The US government was a bad guy here. Several times

783
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:24,280
Speaker 1: they killed innocent people by poisoning alcohol supplies ethanol. Yeah, Yeah,

784
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:29,359
Speaker 1: and it quickly became a law that a lot of

785
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:33,239
Speaker 1: people would break just on principle, even if you're your

786
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:37,480
Speaker 1: average American like like the Maxes or the Knowles or

787
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 1: the Bens, and you don't particularly love drinking booze, you

788
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: might still crack a cold win because hey, this is America, buddy, Hugh,

789
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:49,839
Speaker 1: I won't do what you tell me. Thanks for the.

790
00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:53,239
Speaker 2: Beatbacks, Thanks for the lyric rage.

791
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 3: Thanks for the lyric rage.

792
00:47:54,719 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so at this point, Johnny applesey Is has

793
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:03,440
Speaker 2: already achieved the status a real American hero. He was

794
00:48:03,480 --> 00:48:06,320
Speaker 2: starting to get maligned a little bit because during Prohibition,

795
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:10,600
Speaker 2: the FBI started to target his orchards.

796
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:16,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, they destroyed a lot of those appleseed descended trees

797
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:21,640
Speaker 1: because those trees, again, the majority of them produced sour,

798
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:25,560
Speaker 1: bitter apples that you would not want in your kid's lunchbox,

799
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 1: but that you would use to make hard cider. A

800
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:35,120
Speaker 1: standard apple tree, depending on the various factors, in ideal circumstances,

801
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:39,279
Speaker 1: it can live for well more than fifty years up

802
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 1: to one hundred. So a ton of these trees that

803
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:47,480
Speaker 1: were murdered by the FBI, they either descended from John's

804
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:53,239
Speaker 1: earlier trees or were even physically planted by John Chapman himself.

805
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 1: This wrecked the cider market. Luckily, at the same time,

806
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:02,400
Speaker 1: water sanitation is improving, so that's not a death sentence.

807
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 1: But it does honestly suck.

808
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:10,440
Speaker 2: Yeah it does. It's not great for John's legacy.

809
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 1: It's not great for the FBI either. Can you imagine

810
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:17,480
Speaker 1: wouldn't you be a little irritated or wouldn't you feel

811
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 1: a little sidelined if there's this great war against alcohol

812
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 1: and they're like agent Brown, your job is to go

813
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:27,320
Speaker 1: out there and cut down a bunch of trees.

814
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 2: I see what you're saying.

815
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:29,399
Speaker 4: Ben.

816
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 2: So, before that point, apples were primarily known as a

817
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:36,400
Speaker 2: source of cider rather than an edible snack. You know

818
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:41,200
Speaker 2: that you might dip in a peanut butter. Prohibition definitely

819
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:45,359
Speaker 2: caused that pivot, changing the perception of the apple, and

820
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:48,279
Speaker 2: it results in the apple industry that we really do

821
00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:54,800
Speaker 2: know and like some love others today. It did create

822
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 2: the whole notion of the apple as a healthy snack.

823
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and this may be about to change because

824
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:07,680
Speaker 1: history is rouboristic. If I could churchify a word, uh, okay,

825
00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 1: thank you dah. We made it happen, folks. As recently

826
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:17,320
Speaker 1: as twenty twenty two cider has become the fastest growing

827
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 1: alcoholic beverage in all of the United States.

828
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 3: There we have it.

829
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 1: Johnny Appleseed modern myth incredibly different from the real John Chapman,

830
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:31,120
Speaker 1: but I think it's safe to say they were both

831
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:34,719
Speaker 1: probably really cool guys to hang out with, as long

832
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:36,320
Speaker 1: as you didn't talk about religion.

833
00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:39,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, best not, you know, with Johnny Appleseed, or at

834
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:42,560
Speaker 2: the dinner table, or you know, over the holidays. This

835
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 2: is a sticky subject. No good can come of contentious religious debates.

836
00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 1: That's what the pedagod said recently. Oh, everybody's catching strays, folks.

837
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you

838
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:59,799
Speaker 1: enjoyed this as much as as what much as we do.

839
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:02,839
Speaker 1: If you haven't checked it out yet, do check out

840
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:05,680
Speaker 1: our history of the hot dog. If you like more

841
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:07,239
Speaker 1: food history courtesy of.

842
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:08,240
Speaker 2: Our own Noel Brown.

843
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 1: I've been our research associate for this, and big thanks

844
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:16,280
Speaker 1: to our super producer mister Max Williams, who can probably

845
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 1: also not yet eat apples for sure.

846
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 5: Ohay, is this the first time we found of food

847
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 5: I can eat on air?

848
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:31,000
Speaker 2: This is will be You're gonna get Max a case

849
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 2: of apples.

850
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 3: Ben Yeah, we're gonna get him a case of it, get.

851
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:39,239
Speaker 2: Him his own orchard. Yeah, I love it huge. Thanks

852
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 2: to Alex Williams, our very own Johnny Appleseed and composer

853
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:46,439
Speaker 2: this banging bop that you're hearing in your ears right now,

854
00:51:46,520 --> 00:51:49,320
Speaker 2: Chris Frosciotis and Eavest Jeffcoats here in spirit. Thanks to

855
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 2: them too.

856
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 1: Thanks to Jonathan Strickland aka the quizter, who is probably

857
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:56,920
Speaker 1: chopping down a child's apple.

858
00:51:56,640 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 2: Tree right now, my apple tree.

859
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: And he goes, oh scenario.

860
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:03,440
Speaker 2: Because he's also French.

861
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:07,520
Speaker 3: Yes, he's also French. This bit big Thanks to a

862
00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:08,480
Speaker 3: non Frenchman.

863
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 1: We love aj Bahama's Jacobs, Doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lands

864
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:15,880
Speaker 1: and of course the rude Dude's a ridiculous crime.

865
00:52:16,520 --> 00:52:26,360
Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

866
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:29,720
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

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Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.