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.