TRACK ONE: Crossing Paths / Introduction CROSSING PATHS WITH JOHNNY APPLESEED BY JIM NOVAK, © 2021 ONCE UPON A TIME, in a nearly mythical place, called Ohio, there lived a nearly mythical man, called Johnny Appleseed. Johnny Appleseed was a real person, named John Chapman, born in 1774 -- two years before the Declaration of Independence. And, Ohio -- it’s also real. John Chapman crossed paths with George Washington and with Abraham Lincoln. He had important conversations with each of them, which I will tell you about. He also crossed paths with the leader of the Sauk Indians, Keokuk, and they became friends. And he briefly crossed paths with a hyperactive little Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, who traveled around the States and Territories researching his book, Democracy in America. Chapman / Appleseed became a figure in American folklore, and was well known even in his own time. He planted apple trees for nearly 50 years, and was active along the Indian trails & the Ohio River and the Ohio’s tributaries, from Pennsylvania to Indiana. He was distinguished by a reputation for wearing shabby clothing, going barefoot, and sleeping most nights outdoors. He was gentle in manner, eloquent in speech, ascetic in his diet – a lot of nuts and berries – and he had a giant appetite for sweat and toil, as he planted and tended his seedling apple trees. He was a low-profile guy. He was no “King of the Wild Frontier.” Not a celebrity. Not a politician, nor a published author. But there are plenty of scholars who see him as an influencer, in the environmental movement, the Civilian Conservation Corps, Earth Day celebrations, even the whole idea of national parks. He’s been called the Green Spirit of the Frontier. He was an ardent supporter of peaceful and respectful relations with the Native American people. He supported the Abolitionists and Underground Railroad activities along the Ohio River. He carried no gun to protect himself or to hunt. He developed expertise in medicinal plants. His religious and spiritual side emphasized the interconnectedness of all living things. His ideas would fit fairly well with the some of the New Age ideas of our day. Also, he was an astute entrepreneur who helped the settlers adjust to the economics of frontier life, often very kindly lending or giving away seeds, trees and clearings that he made into his orchards. From New England to Virginia, America was a Cider Culture among the white settlers. And “cider” meant what we call Hard Cider. Their cider was mildly alcoholic, about half the strength of wine. It was safer to drink than water, which was often polluted or foul-tasting. Cider would ferment from pressed apple juice in a couple weeks. Also there was stronger stuff, called “applejack.” Making applejack required sub-freezing temperatures, and then skimming off the intensely alcoholic liquid that refused to freeze solid. Why did the settlers welcome and even embrace someone who provided apple tree seedlings? Setting up your orchard indicated that you were actively working your land claim, and it guaranteed you could legally hold your land title. That was the legal side. In daily life back East, cider and also vinegar were essentials. At Monticello and Mount Vernon, Jefferson and Washington ran very large business operations for cider. Even on the frontier, an orchard of at least a few dozen trees and an apple press were part of almost every small farm and homestead. Some land titles required the owner to clear the land, build a cabin, and have 50 apple trees per 100 acres, “pruned, fenced in and secured from animals.” Chapman’s seedlings would take about 5 years to mature, and his strategy was cleverly to start his tree nurseries along the Ohio trails and waterways well in advance of the next wave of settlers. And here’s a song I wrote about him, a song that folks on the frontier might have sung in his honor.

TRACK TWO, SONG: “APPLE JOHNNY” APPLE JOHNNY Jim Novak, 2020 John Chapman, “He lived for others,” That is carved upon his stone But along the Ohio up to the Mid-West He paddled and hiked alone….. He was welcome in settlers’ cabins, Knew the names of the wives and kids Brought medicinal plants from the woods and meadows, Brought ‘em news of what Jesus did. Apple Johnny hey, Apple Johnny ho Paddling his canoe on down the Ohio Apple Johnny ho, Apple Johnny hey A cloud of apple blossoms on a fine spring day He had one job above all others Planting apple trees from seeds Establishing claims to wild land with nurseries, Meeting the homesteaders’ needs….. But John would not graft his apples He’d plant root stock and move on His apples were small and so sour you’d spit ‘em But folks loved Apple John. Apple Johnny hey, Apple Johnny ho Paddling his canoe on down the Ohio Apple Johnny ho, Apple Johnny hey The scent of apple blossoms on a fine spring day So the settlers would graft their Pippins, Grimes & Rome, so delicious, They’d make good hard cider, tip their hats and their hogsheads To the frontier’s Dionysius. Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed, Jesus is The Great Provider, but Johnny brought ‘em good hard cider! Plant more apple trees, Johnny Appleseed! Apple Johnny hey, Apple Johnny ho The most peculiar man along the Ohio Apple Johnny ho, Apple Johnny hi Apples fall to earth beneath the autumn sky Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed, All his apples gnarled and small but he’s a hero to them all Such a hearty breed, Johnny Appleseed John Chapman, “He lived for others,” (etc)

TRACK THREE: Everything Present at the Founding So, the question remains, Why remember this apple grower whose life, however noble in its aims, seems not to have forestalled our modern environmental degradation, our ongoing white-supremacy problems, our increasingly exaggerated economic inequalities and our rank materialism and untrammeled commercialism? As Lin-Manual Miranda said about his play “Hamilton,” “Everything present at the Founding is still present – the sins, paradoxes, and falling short of the ideal of All Men Are Created Equal.” So, my Johnny Appleseed project asks: What was our country like during the first generation after the Declaration of Independence? Today, how do we access what Lincoln called the Better Angels of our nature? Equality; non-violence; a strong sense of our collective interests… We COULD look today at Johnny Appleseed and see merely an oddity, and of course we COULD shrug and say, Yes he’s The Path Not Taken. But he remains of interest I’d say as a sort of Counter-Narrative, a way to look beyond the stereotype of American individualism and to seek a better American future… a different kind of strength … and a way of being in Nature with an eye to wonder as well as plunder. (That line about “plunder” is pure de Tocqueville, by the way!) Chapman is both strange and familiar to us in the 21st Century. If we travel back to his time, which we are about to do, we can examine his ideas about self-improvement and self-fulfillment. It is said that “He lived for others,” and it may be that we can discover some avenues for second chances, to re-examine some of the ideals of our country at the time of its Founding. [SUNG:] Apple Johnny hey, Apple Johnny ho Paddling his canoe on down the Ohio Apple Johnny ho, Apple Johnny hey A cloud of apple blossoms, on a fine spring day

TRACK FOUR: Pittsburgh When John Chapman was 18, he left his family home in Massachusetts and headed for the frontier of western Pennsylvania. It was 1792, and Pittsburgh and four nearby counties held a few thousand people. George Washington was President of the new country, although he had expressed reluctance to accept the job because it had so many administrative duties and so great a likelihood to descend into bickering among the political factions. But Washington seemed to be an able leader, he had presided over the group that wrote, and passed, the new Constitution … “We the People… in order to form a more perfect Union … “ And he presided over the group that wrote and passed the Northwest Ordinance, annexing the Territories of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin, that is, land north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River. That was all in 1787. Now, just 5 years later, there was John in Pittsburgh, arrived at the very edge of the new frontier. John found work in the boat yards along the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, mostly making barges and flatboats, and he found lodging at a large farm owned by a former officer in the Continental Army. A lot of the ex-solders were moving west, and John was able to point to his own father as a veteran of Lexington and Concord. In fact, John’s father had been away from home and fighting with the Colonials during a large part of John’s childhood, serving as a Captain under General Washington. The farmer and ex-soldier that John stayed with in Pittsburgh had a large orchard, and John earned his keep by tending that orchard. The orchard was at Grant’s Hill, just above the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers, where the Ohio River begins. It was an area that had been surveyed earlier by a very young George Washington, who had recommended that a fort be built at that location. He called that location The Gateway to the West. It was already the intersection of Indian trails to and from places like Williamsburg, in Virginia and Detroit, on the Great Lakes. Pittsburgh was both a destination and a jumping-off point. There were a lot of New England Yankees heading west, with the War for Independence being successfully concluded and the government, newly in place, encouraging that movement in part by selling land cheaply or granting it outright to the former soldiers. The Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo was still a dream, but well before the turn of the century, John could see what was coming: the westward expansion of the Yankee settlers, the massive flow of migrants hoping to realize the prizes of “freedom” and “democracy” and their own successful “pursuit of happiness.” The counties around Pittsburgh were named for the war heroes: Washington County, Lafayette Country, Greene County. John’s father would take advantage of the land offer and head to Marietta Ohio, a little further down the river from Pittsburgh, in 1805. But John had preceded the rest of his family by about a decade. And it was in Pittsburgh that he began to figure out what he would do, what he would make of himself, what role he could create in the American adventure. A hopeful and optimistic young man, John enjoyed those rivers…. He enjoyed planting and tending those trees… but he felt keenly that he had not yet discovered his calling. He knew he was not cut out to be a soldier like his father, or everyone’s hero, General Washington. But how would he contribute to life in this new democracy, and to his countrymen’s pursuit of “life, liberty and happiness”? He’d figure it out, in time…

TRACK FIVE, SONG: “SUNSHINE FOLLOWS THE RAIN” SUNSHINE FOLLOWS THE RAIN Jim Novak, 2020 I’m American, I’m always moving on Through endless forest, to a western star Evening’s fallen on my loneliness Tall grass grows on a breaking heart Walking, with a bag of seeds, beneath a thickening sky Sunshine follows the rain So I believe, even when I’m wet What you give is what you gain I’m a little bit ragged but I don’t forget That sunshine follows the rain. Democracy, we live it day by day In community, each one has a say Problems take a toll you know In gardens, plants unroll and grow Wandering with a bag of dreams, beneath a thickening sky Sunshine follows the rain So I believe, even when I’m wet What you give is what you gain I’m a little bit ragged but I don’t forget That sunshine follows the rain.

TRACK SIX: Whiskey Rebels As John worked alongside the river and tended the orchards around Grant’s Hill, in the early 1790s, and while he pondered his future in the west, what was happening in Pittsburgh and the four counties in the vicinity came close to creating a second rebellion, perhaps another Revolution! This was Whiskey Rebellion, and it was gathering steam as John arrived in 1792, and in 1794 it was suddenly over when President Washington arrived with a large contingent of soldiers. It was called the Whiskey Rebellion because the dispute concerned the imposition of a tax on whiskey, a product that was made and consumed or sold by nearly every small farmer with any excess grain or corn at the end of the growing season. Compared to harvested corn or grain, whiskey as a commodity was easier to store, to transport, to barter, and to buy and sell. Often, a barrel of whiskey would serve as a form of currency for the payment of debts! Alexander Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, had convinced the President to tax whiskey as a way to bring in revenue to pay off the debts incurred during the war. Small farmers felt that proportionally the tax was a far greater burden on them than it was for the large distilleries in the towns and cities back East. In western Pennsylvania, among the ex-soldiers and their friends and families, the cause of the whiskey rebels erupted in occasions of violence directed at the tax collectors. It also was a larger, more encompassing criticism of how the new government was acting against the interests of the frontier folk. And here was John, a young man wondering what to make of his life, right in the midst of many neighbors who seemed to be thinking that the time had come for another armed insurrection, this time against corrupt interests in their own country. The feeling was that Hamilton’s bankers and the big commercial interests in Philadelphia and New York and Boston and Williamsburg were making a sham of the Declaration of Independence, and acting as badly and highhandedly as the British had done. And that the promise of the Constitution to “promote the general welfare” and “secure the blessings of liberty” was completely emptied of meaning when the phrase “we the people” became twisted into something on the order of “we the richest people.” John Chapman attended the meetings of the Whiskey Rebels and sympathized deeply with the complaints they lodged. Many of the local people in the area near Mingo Creek, outside of Pittsburgh, had no more patience for petitioning the leaders in Philadelphia and New York for relief from these unfair taxes. Surely men of his father’s day did not fight in order for the wealthy few to call the shots; they would not be persuaded to accept that the United States become another version of the political and financial corruptions of Great Britain. John sought an audience with his father’s old Commanding Officer when Washington reached Pennsylvania with his reconstituted army, to quell the Whiskey Rebels. John felt that vigorous democratic protest should be rewarded, and that actual rebellion – and bloodshed – must be avoided. Washington had seen John as a baby, and in deference to his old comrade, admitted John to his tent for a conversation. Here is a song (that I made up) for the Whiskey Rebels to sing.

TRACK SEVEN, SONG: “IT’S NOT OVER YET” IT’S NOT OVER YET JIM NOVAK, 2020 It’s not over yet, we’re not where we need to get Not done yellin’, or rebellin’….It’s not over yet At the Mingo Creek meeting, we pledged to our goal Drank a little whiskey, raised a Liberty Pole We’re in this together, and we gotta think straight It’s not the Garden of Eden but we’re are the front gate Liberty’s not much if the rules aren’t fair Our pursuit of happiness fades in thin air. It’s not over yet, we’re not where we need to get Not done yellin’, or rebellin’….It’s not over yet At the Meeting House we talked, folks of the soil How our crops are doing, taxes and toil How this new country favors the few, We got ideas ‘bout what we could do. Washington, Hamilton, men whom we trust – Why are they so set on seeing us go bust? It’s not over yet, et c PAY ME IN WHISKEY, I SUPPOSE I DON’T MIND BUT I GOT A WIFE AND CHILDREN AND I’M FALLING BEHIND. FALLING BEHIND WHEN THE DAY’S WORK IS DONE, FALLING BEHIND, HAVE WE LOST,HAVE WE WON? TO CHORUS Right now it’s far from even, and that’s what shapes the task At the Garden of Eden, what’s fair is all we ask PAY ME IN WHISKEY, et c It’s not over yet, et c

TRACK EIGHT: General Washington As they sat down, Washington’s face had a pained expression that John took to be a consequence of the false teeth that had tortured the older man for so long. But John’s expression looked not much different after he heard Washington’s flat refusal to be moved by any of the arguments about fairness, compassion for the small farmers, and so on. Here is a galvanizing moment in John’s choice of career. He knew he was not temperamentally cut out to be a soldier like his father. He was not particularly adept at making political arguments when he had access to powerful figures in government. But he had a great yearning to be of distinguished service to the Nation. What could he do, a fellow who was familiar with river craft and familiar with orchards? Familiar too with the western tug of the frontier, and committed to “the general welfare” and “the blessings of liberty” for his friends on the frontier? Washington’s show of force seemed to dampen the enthusiasm of the rebels. The point was made that the central government would insist on democratic protest and would not accept armed insurrection, on the principle that the people as a whole had voted for that central government. It also turned out to be a useful and clever tactic to lower the rate of the tax, and also to be increasingly haphazard in actually collecting the tax, at least out on the frontier. John continued to work in the orchards and gather seeds and plant trees in western Pennsylvania for several more years, until his father and step-mother and siblings arrived on the frontier too, in 1805. He helped them settle in, along the Ohio River, but by then, he knew what he wanted to do to make his mark on the frontier, and he was ready to move on. [SUNG:] Wanderiing, with a bag of seeds, beneath a thickening sky Sunshine follows the rain So I believe, even when I’m wet What you give is what you gain I’m a little bit ragged but I don’t forget That sunshine follows the rain.

TRACK NINE: Keokuk John Chapman was friends for many years with Keokuk, the leader of the Sauk tribe. They saw each other often, living very different lives: a distinguished Native chief, and a peculiar white man in ragged clothes, with his obsession to plant apple trees. Before the arrival of Europeans, the Sauk had been settled for some time around Saginaw Bay and down to Detroit, and after many decades of tribal conflict had drifted down from the Great Lakes and settled along the Mississippi River in Illinois. In 1804, both Keokuk and Chapman were in their 20’s and not quite certain how they would occupy their lives. Each of them liked to wander in the area that the US Government has recently organized as the Northwest Territories. 1804 was the fateful year when the first of many treaties were signed, in which the Sauk and other tribes – under circumstances that almost immediately were discovered to be fraudulent – apparently agreed to give up 50 million acres on both sides of the Mississippi River, and up into Wisconsin as well. The treaty precipitated a series of wars that lasted across three decades and involved some Sauk fighting on either side in the War of 1812 between the Americans and British. Fighting between the Sauk and the U S government flared again in the Black Hawk War of 1832. But in the summer of 1804, the terms of that year’s treaty were still unknown, and the consequences were largely inconceivable to the young Sauk who was cheerfully living up to his name, which means “one who moves around alertly.” Keokuk enjoyed traveling, and he and Chapman clearly were sympatico in that way. Keokuk and Chapman also shared a deep interest in collecting and preparing medicinal plants. It was important to Keokuk, and all men who aspired to be tribal leaders, to know how to take care of battle-field injuries and effectively provide for those in the tribe who handled the routine cuts and scrapes and boils and infections, including the medical problems of the elderly. Along with his oratorical skills and skills related to hunting and physical combat, Keokuk knew his way around the woods and the meadows where the useful plants could be found. The healing ceremonies and praying and chanting he left to others, but he could be counted on to bring in the yarrow, the horsemint, the willow, the sage, the slippery elm, the mullein, and the candle bush, among so other healing plants. Chapman, born in Massachusetts, grew up in an environment where the European fascination with medicinal plants had a long tradition going back to the Middle Ages. Now, Chapman’s mother had died when he was quite young, and it fell to him and his siblings to take an active role in their own medical care from an early age. Now, out on the frontier, Chapman was welcomed by the wives of the settlers, for women played the healer’s role in their families, sometimes doing this in extreme physical isolation from other settlers. Chapman and Keokuk were able to compare and contrast the similarities and differences in how the plants were used in white communities and red. Both men followed the practice of collecting only 1 of 3 plants found the wild, say yarrow, leaving the rest behind for the next person who had need and so the plants would continue to grow. There were plants for acute treatments and plants for rehabilitation of chronic conditions, and the men discussed these subjects at length, each improving their language skills at the same time. Chapman’s skills at husbandry and his techniques for apple-tree nurseries were admired by Keokuk and other Natives. Chapman’s nurseries required a clearing in the forest, so that the seedlings had full access to sunlight. He created a rough sort of fencing with branches and logs to keep out wandering animals. The Indians too had cleared spaces in the woods, and they did it primarily with fire. They’d do a burning and later the cleared space would come back to life with grasses and plants of various kinds, and soon enough the game animals found the newly verdant area and would feed there, and become good targets for hunting. The Indians didn’t have to domesticate large critters like deer -- they created a natural but man-made environment that attracted them. For hundreds of years before the Europeans arrived, and before the Native populations were decimated by diseases imported with the foreign travelers, Natives’ farming and forest management techniques had extensive and purposeful effects on the North American landscape. There would have been some mutual appreciation of the arts of conservation and husbandry between the Native groups and Johnny Appleseed. So here is a song celebrating their mutual interest in medicinal plants and the joy that both John Chapman and Keokuk found in fashioning these remedies and getting people to try them out.

TRACK TEN, SONG: “YARROW (TRY THIS)” YARROW (TRY THIS) Jim Novak, 2020 Your health is not-at-all sanguinary Your ailments are not-at-all imaginary. Let me make you my concoction, it’s Medicinal… My teas, salves and ointments, they’re Artisanal … And the forest around us, the forest is my Apothecary! I made myself a raft , I went down the Alleganny, Paddled all the way to southern Indianny Walked a couple hundred miles to forget my Could’s and Should’s, and I Made my way here, the Territory Woods, North-west Territory Woods. I crossed the Detroit River to Ontario I turned right back around because it scared me so People there still bowing to a King and a Queen Which strikes me as sooo last Century, very 18th Century In my Mid-west familiar neighborhoods Native people know how Nature’s got the goods For health-giving plants they’ve truly understood They collect Yarrow in the Territory Woods, North-west Territory Woods For Diseases of the body and diseases of the soul Yarrow’s best to cure them, or else you must endure them Yarrow dies each winter, returns every spring Just before its flowers bloom, you pick the goodness … it will bring! Happiness and laugher, the sweetness that is health Wise and earnest living, true prosperity and wealth Yarrow for digestions, yarrow is for aches Yarrow for congestion, yarrow for the shakes Yarrow in an ointment, yarrow in a tea Never disappointment, yarrow attracts the bee Keep on the straight and narrow, fly true as an arrow, Ever since the Pharoahs… Folks try Yarrow! When Achilles was a baby, he was dipped in yarrow tea Mother gripped him by one heel, his vul-ner-bility, The Achilles plant is yarrow, in the Family of “Aster” There’s more than a hundred ways, yarrow makes you better faster Yarrow for the wounded, yarrow for the child Yarrow on the battlefield, yarrow growing wild Yarrow in a bandage, yarrow in a dressing, Yarrow helps you manage, yarrow is a blessing Depression, inflammation, sclerosis, ear pain Ulcers, indigestion, ailments of the brain Asthma, diarrhea, fever, and the rheu----- matism, stings, and swellings, bronchitis and ague I see your health is NOT sanguinary Your ailments are NOT imaginary. Let me make you a concoction that’s Medicinal… My teas, salves and ointments -- they’re Artisanal … And the forest around us, the forest is my Apothecary …. the forest is my Apothecary…… the forest is my Apothecary I hope you won’t take it amiss I know this stuff smells like piss I’m your frontier pharm-a-cist, and I insist: TRY THIS! As humans, we go for the bliss Said Saint Hildegard, the mystic- abbess, Her healing herbs and plants they never missed, So, TRY THIS! You’ll get by, I said You’ll get by, (And you might get high) If you just TRY THIS!

TRACK ELEVEN Spirit Matters Keokuk as chief took official and ceremonial visits to neighboring tribes, in the Northwest Territories, as well as several long trips to and from Washington DC. Typically he was on horseback and in full regalia as signs of his prestige. One of the trips to Washington was in 1824, he went again in 1832, and then in 1837 he had a speaking tour in Boston, Philadelphia and New York City. Chapman, on foot and in his usual tatters, back in Ohio and Indiana, often managed to cross paths. When they were a few years older, the topics of conversation had more to do with spiritual matters. Keokuk rejected the variety of Christianity that Chapman was so taken by, because as far as he was concerned, it was mostly about what he called Christian liquor. It seemed to many that the white frontier made a specialty of booze, and its corollaries brawling, bragging, and debauchery. Chapman presented a vigorous outdoorsman persona, but his was an entirely different take on masculinity: nonviolent, vegetarian, non-acquisitive, generous. Chapman never could get very far with Keokuk on the specifics of some of his more occult interests, time travel and the like. But on topics about Nature and the presence of spirits in Nature, both men had an affinity --for that idea of seeing your God in all things and seeing a connection among things that are alive now, and were alive in the past, because they were still somehow present. Keokuk spoke movingly to Chapman about THE HAWK, because the hawk was for his tribe a symbol of vigilant observation. The hawk was also a benevolent guide. It represented a flow of blessings that descended as the hawk circled silently above. Chapman was happiest in the forest communing with Nature, and this was a view of Nature that had nothing to do with economic exploitation or “conquering” Nature. Chapman, walking alone on one of the trails that Native people had created in times long long ago, would often see, coming across his trail or through the meadow, the shadow of the hawk, a shadow as much as six feet across. Keokuk had told him that the shadow of the hawk crossing one’s path was a sign of good luck, and a reminder to stay strong, to keep on with one’s spiritual journey.

TRACK TWELVE, SONG: “SHADOW OF A HAWK” SHADOW OF A HAWK Jim Novak, 2020 I would plant this seed, even if I knew That tomorrow the world would come apart I’m not obliged, to complete my work, But I don’t give in, once I start. As long as I can hear waterfalls and birds And leaves, stirred above me, by the breeze I’ll remember places, in the country of my mind And my occupation, planting trees Across the trail as I walk, I see the shadow of a hawk Posing me a question, soaring free Seeking connection, as well may be The seeds in an apple, count them, but you’ll know When you plant one seed in the earth, how many apples will grow

TRACK THIRTEEN: Wildings John’s respect for the ways of the Indians, his interests in medicinal plants and ability to speak some of the languages went a long way in building his lifelong friendship with Keokuk. He was thought of, in some circles, as a white apprentice to the Good Spirit, the Life Force, or the Manitou. Chapman’s spirituality also included a deep commitment to nonviolence, based in his religious belief that the sins of exploitation and war were disruptive to the cosmic connection of life and after-life. The reason that Chapman “wouldn’t hurt a fly,” as the saying goes, is because his beliefs obliged him to take EVERY opportunity to do good, as a way to recognize the life in all things. Keokuk’s path was that of a warrior. He regarded his martial skills as parts of his god-given knowledge and ability. When Chapman visited the cabins of white settlers, from time to time he talked about his opposition to the government’s policies of Indian Removal. He saw the ugly reality of what seemed to be the inevitable campaign to relocate, subjugate, and annihilate the tribes, through trickery and violence. The changes to Native living conditions throughout Chapman’s lifetime were drastic, placing intense pressures on traditional beliefs and practices that are felt in contemporary communities to this day. [SUNG:] I would plant this seed, even if I knew That tomorrow the world would come apart I’ll remember places, in the country of my mind, And planting trees with all my heart. “Wildings” are what you call the apple trees you’ll get when you plant a tree from seed. A wilding will have little resemblance to its parent. The genetic information in every apple seed will produce a unique apple tree. The way to get predictability in what type of apple you’ll grow is accomplished by grafting branches. Chapman would do no grafting, possibly because of the extra time and effort and failure rate involved… but apparently also because he felt it was antithetical to God’s way: He could find no mention in the Bible that Adam and Eve did any grafting. The taste of wilding apples is almost always intensely sour, and the apples often inedible, but fine for cider, vinegar, and feeding to the animals. These small and sour wilding apples can be stored over the winter, which is another handy trait. Chapman wandered for nearly 50 years planting apple trees from seed. First in western Pennsylvania, then along the Ohio River. He lashed two canoes together and took bushels of apple seeds down the Ohio. The seeds came from the cider mills, where they were glad to have someone cart the apple pomace away. Each autumn he made trips back to the Pennsylvania cider mills to collect more seeds. He planted across Ohio and Indiana navigating up the smaller rivers like the Muskingum to get to the interior. It was a thriving business model that displayed his Yankee ingenuity and entrepreneurship. But his religious beliefs added a prominent quality of generosity to his efforts. He felt a mandate toward kindness, never overlooking an opportunity to be charitable. So giving away seedling trees was his common practice, and the effect on his accumulation of personal worth was not a consideration. Indeed he felt a kind of nervous anxiety around any social encounter where he might miss an opportunity to demonstrate unselfish cooperation and humanitarian good will. Some even saw a streak of a John-the-Baptist type prophet in John Chapman, because he often did read Bible passages to settlers, in a firm and melodious voice, from torn-out sheets of the Bible he carried around, or from memory. As Chapman wandered across the Old Northwest, his conversation often included Bible quotations supporting nonviolence, anti-materialism, and the duty to offer kindness and dignity to all people and animals. His intense religious beliefs may have had something to do with why he remained a bachelor for his entire life. For believers of John’s persuasion, a soul mate could be found in the afterlife if one was not encountered on earth, so that having to wait a lifetime for one’s soul mate need not elicit a lot of agitation. For some, it was said, you weren’t really living ‘til you got to the After Life! On the civil side, laws about marriage placed women in a subordinate position, not at all surprising in that era, with the husband responsible for support and for his wife’s debts, but he controlled her earnings and personal property. However in places like Indiana and Ohio, the somewhat enlightened law stipulated that her husband could undertake no real estate transaction without his wife’s approval. This would mean that Chapman’s wheeling and dealing (and land give-aways) could potentially be restrained, if he were married, and limits placed on his impulse toward unselfishness. An alternative, somewhat mystical explanation might be that Chapman’s delights and energies were subsumed in his love of nature and his sense of oneness with the natural environment. Something similar was said about Henry David Thoreau, also a gregarious loner who never married. Yet another lover of the great outdoors was Walt Whitman: also, never married. Now, there is a story that after Thoreau had spent a year or so in New York City when Whitman was there, Thoreau’s family would not let Whitman cross their doorway In Concord when he came to visit. The family steadfastly refused to say why Walk Whitman was persona non grata. There is also a story about Thoreau that he made a deathbed confession to his sister that he always loved and had deeply desired a woman who visited Concord when he was a young man, but she had refused him, due to his odd religious beliefs and other opinions that were quite contrarian, even for a Transcendentalist. And so for his whole life she was something like the “soul-mate” whom he had found in this world but, in the end, poor Thoreau lived with regrets that she was “the one that got away,” as we say these days. Paths that crossed, but did not connect… So, here is a song that I made up for Johnny to sing, about a “love interest” that may or may not be someone who crossed Chapman’s path – perhaps a time or two in those years, those decades, perhaps she saw him planting apple trees from seeds.

TRACK FOURTEEN, SONG: PEARL INSIDE THE SHELL PEARL INSIDE THE SHELL Jim Novak (2020-2021) New England born and here I am, a thousand miles from my coast. I felt the rhythm of the tides, perhaps that’s what I miss the most. I set out and took my chance, a wandering Pilgrim heading west. Explored a new world, found some friends, began my own peculiar quest. Quiet ways stand out, in this, a new and boisterous land My oyster shell is closed to all, I show you water and the sand. But you know this oyster holds a pearl, its luster shines in its own world, If we could pry that shell apart, You’d know the leaping in my heart, and blood and mind, You’d know that I’m your kind. My friends all hurry to get rich, and I don’t seem to have a dime, At times I’ll disappear, but in my place comes apple blossom time. I sense the tides that rose and fell, and reached my woodland citadel, If we could pry the shell apart, And feel the leaping in my heart, and blood and mind, You’d know that I’m your kind. You pay attention, you feel wonder, I see the flash of lightening and count the time for thunder. You sense a pearl inside the shell, take it from one who knows full well, With time to pry the shell apart You’ll feel a leaping in your heart, and blood, and mind, You’ll know you are my kind.

TRACK FIFTEEN: Lincoln and de Tocqueville In his middle-50s, Chapman crossed paths with some particularly interesting younger individuals--- about a quarter-century younger – who like him enjoyed being on the rivers, and like him they were keen observers of mankind. Unlike Chapman, they became writers, and their words are read and even revered, almost two centuries after crossing paths with Johnny Appleseed. Chapman for his part seemed to have no interest in leaving written records of his life and work. Chapman met young Abraham Lincoln when Lincoln’s claim to fame, if he had any, was his set of abilities as a rail-splitter, a wrestler, and a storyteller. Lincoln had just then talked himself into a job as the co-captain of a flat-bottom boat taking produce from Indiana down the Mississippi to New Orleans, a 1200-mile trip. He had made that excursion already once before. Chapman spoke with him somewhere along the Ohio River portion of this second trip. It was 1830, and Chapman was making another one of his excursions with his water-borne contraption of two canoes, lashed side-by-side, with Chapman in one and bushels of apple seeds in the other. It was an unusual sight, and it caught young Abe’s attention. Lincoln told Chapman about his first trip to New Orleans, and some things he had never seen before. He saw groups of slaves in transit along the Mississippi; slaves working in the fields of the sugar cane plantations in Louisiana; and in New Orleans, the slave auction market. Lincoln came from a part of Indiana where his town of a couple thousand inhabitants had 10 or 15 slaves there, less than 1% of the population. In New Orleans, he said he learned that fully one third of the population were enslaved. He said “Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature. And if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Two years later, they crossed paths again. It was during the Black Hawk War, around 1832. Lincoln had volunteered for military service for a month or two at a time. and he ended up in a spy unit traveling all over the territory looking for Black Hawk, even way up in Wisconsin. Lincoln hadn’t experienced any combat, and told Chapman that the bloodiest battles he was involved in were those with the mosquitos. He spent leisure time with Native American allies and came to respect the cultures of the Potawatami and Sauk and other Natives: cultures mysterious to him but nonetheless deserving, as human. To him, and to Chapman, it was obvious that America was a society of three races. When he ran for state legislature later that year, Lincoln liked to raise a question in the conversations at general stores and other political gathering places, inviting discussion on, as he put it, “Who has the most right to complain, the Indian or the Negro?” Chapman also ran into a pair of very interesting young French gentleman traveling along the river—just as young as Lincoln, in their middle twenties. They were Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont. Traveling around a great swath of North America, they were taking notes on democracy, because their audience back in France was interested in figuring out how to make democracy work. John ran into them while stopping briefly in Marietta, Ohio, to see his parents and siblings, as he often did on his journeys back and forth to the cider mills in Pennsylvania. Tocqueville told Chapman that he was going to write that the conditions of the enslaved and the Indians were threats to the republic. But went on to say that despite this lack of enlightenment, America seemed more capable than many countries at repairing its faults. America, he felt, was a system which aimed at finding a harmony of interests and therefore could be a model for other democracies. Tocqueville published his book, Democracy in America, just at the time of Andrew Jackson’s most vicious period of Indian Removal, and about 20 years before the Confederate Army fired on Fort Sumter and started the Civil War. Tocqueville did not see what was coming, but he had a good enough eye to perceive what was going on at the time he crossed paths with Chapman. Tocqueville said with a combination of despair and anger that the enslaved and the Indians “both suffer the effects of tyranny, though their miseries are different.” He reported what was widely discussed in America at the time: viewed from the banks of the Ohio River, the side with no slaves was far richer and more populous than the side where slavery was in force. Tocqueville said when you cross the Ohio River, you sail between liberty and servitude. He was also aware that the Indian tribes were being slowly but steadily evicted, and wondered that American society had become so expert at talking a noble language while committing ignoble deeds. Indeed, he knew that Washington and Jefferson and others had written in the Northwest Ordinance that Indian rights were to be preserved. In letters at the time, they referred to Natives as the “First Americans,” and they pointed to aspects of Indian culture—food-ways, housing, and even systems of justice --- as worthy of consideration as examples of how to thrive on this Continent to which the whites had so recently arrived. Here’s a song that Chapman might have sung, about the Common Good.

TRACK SIXTEEN, SONG: COMMON GOOD COMMON GOOD Jim Novak, 2020 Barns in the valley, barns we raised Oh we pulled them up together, in the early days And set ourselves to live, in democracy And to work, so hard, for prosperity. Today in the valley, things are not the same Everybody looks around, to jump another man’s claim But cruelty and theft cannot be the way That we make a Garden of Eden in the USA Prosperity, and poverty … Oh the selfish and the cruel, idiots, frauds and fools Harbor greed and division, share no seed or provision. I don’t give sermons. I plant trees. I’m known to be a man a little bit ill at ease Properly understood Self interest can be turned the Common Good

TRACK SEVENTEEN: Marietta Both Lincoln and Tocqueville imagined that there could be a larger and more satisfying democracy than one that allowed slavery, Indian removal, and a greedy, exploitative system that allowed a few rich men to control resources and profits. Their ideal was that individualism and individual pursuit of happiness need not be isolating and crass. Self interest, properly understood, could bring prosperity through helping one another. Such harmony required effort, and a great example was the community barn-raising. Barn raising was a socializing event with a practical goal. One could still feel self-sufficient and independent yet at the same time know you were actually entitled to receiving help from your neighbors. Lincoln said that all government should routinely work the same way: a government such that each person can do what they need to have done, but cannot do so well or not at all, by themselves. Do you recall the young surveyor in Pittsburgh whom I mentioned? He also explored other areas west of his native Virginia, and he said that he found the Ohio Valley especially beautiful, particularly the area where the Muskingum River meets the Ohio River, at what is now Marietta. After the Revolutionary War, that surveyor, now President George Washington, set aside land there for grants to former military. In time, the cemetery at Marietta became the one with the highest number of burials of Revolutionary War soldiers. The city cemetery at Marietta was established on the site of the Ohio Hopewell culture of indigenous people who built the Marietta Earthworks -- that is, native American burial mounds -- about 1500 years earlier. The archaeological site, at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers, was a center of a Native American culture that was connected by trade routes from the Great Lakes to Florida. Primarily along the waterways, there was exchange of goods among small villages all across what is now the eastern half of the United States. Chapman regularly visited his father, at Marietta, and his step-mother and siblings. Quite a few Marietta residents supported Abolition and made Marietta the birthplace the Underground Railroad, in league with free black residents of the town. Marietta College was an early institution of higher education and was supported by the townspeople. Activists in the Temperance and Women’s Suffrage Movements are also prominent in the history of Marietta. At the same time, it was a thriving center of riverboat trade and traffic of many kinds. Living in Marietta provided opportunities to observe that fairness and compassion were the allies of economic dynamism and successful entrepreneurship. Washington said, “No colony in America was ever settled under such favorable auspices as that commenced at the Muskingum.”

TRACK EIGHTEEN, SONG: A RIVER NEARBY A RIVER NEARBY Jim Novak, 2020 I’m most at ease when there’s a river nearby Muddy banks, turtles, water doubles the sky Oh Marietta, you’re a pretty little river town Among hills and the valley where the Muskingum runs down. Here’s the Ohio, deep secrets it conceals But it’s got a destination, gives me faith, a faith that heals A river says don’t hurry, we will all get there some day At times we flood, pick up driftwood and wind along our way. River lovely and strange; like a river, I feel a change… Looks like we don’t have things worked out You say you’re certain, I have doubt You thought our purposes were clear… I’m wondering what we’re doing here? I’m really simple, I plant trees and watch them grow. I stay home, and watch a river flow Looks like we don’t have things worked out You say you’re certain, I have doubt You thought our purposes were clear… I’m wondering what we’re doing here? I’m most at ease when there’s a river nearby Muddy banks, turtles, water doubles the sky Oh Marietta, you’re a pretty little river town Among hills and the valley where the Muskingum runs down.

TRACK NINETEEN: Harmony of Interests So, what do we make of Chapman? As in Lin-Manual Miranda’s observation, what do we see in Chapman’s generation that illuminates the sins, paradoxes and falling short of our own? We know this much: Chapman made a career of planting nurseries shrewdly in wild and secluded places, anticipating that development and future settlement would be coming soon. He also acted on his spiritual intuition, that God and nature were one, and that his role was to take every opportunity to grow the things that take time: not just apple trees, but also community inclusiveness, and self-support. Like Lincoln, he cultivated what some called the three FRUITS of humanity, namely humility, attention, and wonder. But all the while, he said simply, “I am by occupation a gatherer and planter of apple seeds.” His was a type of heroism based on sustained effort in pursuit of ideals – in particular, ideals of stewardship. He was an unconventional person, but he sought what Washington and other Founders called the HARMONY OF INTERESTS. In an era of frontier tall tales and outlandish and showy embellishments, he looked beyond the narrow scope of daily life. An eccentric dreamer, he was probably disturbing to some, because he could demonstrate that collective resources, distributed widely, were the best part of his charmed life. His was certainly a life that supported the best efforts of others on the frontier, and upheld the dignity of the three races. It was not the Garden of Eden, but it was the front gate. In dress and in temperament, the scraggly Mister Chapman/ Johnny Appleseed would be quite the bohemian in our world today, yet in many ways modern and “green.” He had a sense of “malice toward none and charity toward all,” as Lincoln would put it, that would serve us well right now, as we try to bind up modern divisions. And he had a preference for structural change, that is the establishment of nurseries and the planting of trees, that appeal to those who would prefer to get past the moralizing and enact specific proposals like a Civilian Climate Corps and a Green New Deal.

TRACK TWENTY: Flower and Come True / The End [SPOKEN] John Chapman, “He lived for others,” That is carved upon his stone But along the Ohio up to the Mid-West He paddled and hiked alone….. Apple Johnny hey, Apple Johnny ho Paddling his canoe on down the Ohio Apple Johnny ho, Apple Johnny hey A cloud of apple blossoms on a fine spring day Richard Wilbur’s fine poem includes these lines: Out of your grave John Chapman, in Fort Wayne May you arise and flower and come true… We are born into a wilder land than you…. That was a bit of Richard Wilbur’s poem “John Chapman.” It takes us from the green glades of his first nurseries in Pennsylvania all the way to Chapman’s last days in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he passed away at age 70. He was memorialized in the local newspaper. And eventually he got that gravestone that says “He Lived For Others.” If ours is a wilder land, of technology and social media, of continuing inequality in new and virulent forms, we can still look to the ideal of living for others. Johnny found his role, his own peculiar way of doing just that. One final snippet before I go… Chapman would have known this one. From the Bible, the Book of Solomon. Chapman would have had the King James Bible, the one readily available on the frontier in his day. It goes: Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am full of love. Stay me with flagons? If it’s a flagon of hard cider they’re talking about, I’ll take one! And then it says “Comfort me with apples. I am full of love.” Chapman… we think of him out in the woods and amongst his nurseries… he was full of love, infatuated with love of nature, covered in nature, expressing his love of nature. You can smell the apple blossoms. And so we can think of him there, in his everlasting Garden of Eden, comforted with his apples, small and sour as they may be, spitters as they may be. But they do “arise and come true”, then and now, handsome as apples truly are, and a double blessing as apples truly are, that is, first the blossom and then the fruit. We will work things out. We will work things out. [SUNG:] Wandering with a bag of dreams, beneath a thickening sky… Sunshine follows the rain So I believe even when I’m wet What you give is what you gain I’m a little bit ragged but I don’t forget Sunshine follows the rain. Apple Johnny hey, Apple Johnny ho The most peculiar man along the Ohio Apple Johnny ho, Apple Johnny hi Smell the apple blossoms, on a fine spring day… and Apples fall to earth beneath the autumn sky. [THE END]