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The Real Johnny Appleseed was SUPER WEIRD (and Pretty Cool) · Ridiculous History

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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
• 17:41
  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
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: a functioning orchard or a nursery, it is a specialized
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: skill set. It's way different from just, you know, from
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: just you know, finishing your favorite fruit or throwing some
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: herbs willy nilly in your backyard and starting an herb garden.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: John takes again to the road and he wanders on
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: foot from Pennsylvania all the way to Illinois. He's continually
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: moving just ahead of the settlers or quiet part allowed
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the colonizers and he purchases parcels of land, and so
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: before the settlers get there, he has already cultivated these
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: orchards and nurseries. So when you're like, let's say we're
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the four of us, you listening, and Nola Maxim myself,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: we are traveling right, we're going to make a homestead
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: out west. When we show up to this undeveloped land,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: we see John Chapman, who has already quite some time
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: before created one of those orchards that we need to
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: satisfy our legal agreement with the government. And he says, look,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I'll sell it to you and I'll be back. I
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: got to move on.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: He's a bit of a pied piper type figure in right,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: you know, and a good reverse pied piper. I don't know.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: So wait the did that not? So? Wasn't it a
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: little suspicious that the trees were already a little further
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: along than they would have been to satisfy that deal?
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: The love it?
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: They liked it. They were They were like.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: We already have so much to do. We have to
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: build our log cabin.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Oh that is a good point. No, I'm sure they did.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: I guess what I just mean is like wouldn't the
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: government be like, well, that's cheating. You got Johnny Appleseed
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: did it for you.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: They actually liked it because it promoted permanence and it
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: made the settlers more likely to hang out there for
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: that extended amount of time.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: I'm super excited to talk a little bit about how
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: apples are propagated and the whole idea of like how
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: do you prevent monoculture and all that, and if you
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: want a cool visual representation of all of this. Everything
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: I know about this other than the reading up on
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: this research brief that you'd put together, Ben came from
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: this news Zach califanakas gardening show.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, I love it.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Very first episode he talks about apples and versus seeds
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: and all of that. We're going to get into that,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: but really quickly has had to mention just recently found
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: out on an episode of The dough Boys from the
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: guest Brandy Posey, who's a really great comedian, there's a
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: reality show called Homestead Rescue where like these like real
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: season grizzled homesteaders go like kitchen Nightmares style to families
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: that are trying to live live a life on the
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: range and are doing apparently a real bad job at it,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: and they swoop in and like, you know, tell them
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: what they're where they're messing up, and get there, get
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: their homestead lives back and over. But they are apparently
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: being sued by a couple who claimed that they were
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: told they were going to be featured on a show
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: promoting homesteading as like seasoned homesteaders, and they weren't really
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: told they were actually they were going to be made
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: to look like Rubes and pillar Read for their bad
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: job at homesteading.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Oh man, well we do know that John had again
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: he went into this ten tost.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: He's got a lot of these things planted, and he's
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: now figured out a business model. Mark.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, he planted his first nursery on the bank
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: of a place called Broken Straw Creek, which is south
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: of Warren, Pennsylvania. And the settlers, to be fair, this
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: guy's not a grifter. They got a pretty nifty bargain.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: He wouldn't just plant the trees in advance of their encroachment.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: He also built fences to protect those trees from farm animals,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: from wildlife. And he would set up this share system
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: because as we said, he travels widely he's nomadic. Before
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: he leaves for another area, he finds a neighbor, an
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: already established settler, and he says, look, you take care
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: of these nurseries, and you as the neighbor, as the
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: person in charge, you can sell the trees and their
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: produce on shares, and I will come back every year
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: or two to make sure everything is up to snow.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: So he's doing he's doing like a distribution service and
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: a warranty service. Pretty forward thinking.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: It's very forward thinking, and you gotta wonder, like how
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: big picture was he thinking. Was he really looking at
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: the larger sustainable like, you know, farming of it all,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: or was he just kind of doing his thing, you
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: know and just like really into apples. I just got
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: to wonder if he saw the big picture of what
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: of how important what he was doing was ultimately going
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: to be.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: That's a great question. It's one that we have to
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: we have to really dig into because the root of
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: it is the legend versus the man. But yeah, but
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: we are happy to report that part of the legend
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: is true. Yes, this guy really did walk all the time,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: probably barefoot or barefoot as we said, and he really
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: did like some kind of apple themed. Santa carry around
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: a big old bag of apple seeds. He got them
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: for free. We'll get to this, but Nola, I want
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: to go back to something you tease there. Earlier. Apples
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: are super strange. The seeds from your favorite apple, they
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: don't always result in a tree making the same kind
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: of apples. So you could have your favorite, like let's say,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: love a Fuji or a honey crisp. You could take
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the seeds from your Fuji or honey crisp, and let's
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: say you chew it down to the core. You got
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the seeds. You say, I'm not going to eat the
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: apple seeds because I saw always sundy in Philadelphia, I'm
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: gonna plant these Those seeds are vastly more likely not
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: to create another honey crisp or Fuji tree. To do that,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: you have to practice something we call grafting, and grafting
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: is grafting is pretty much how the apple industry works today.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: I mean it's sort of self explanatory in a way
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: because you sort of shave off a piece of another
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: tree and then just kind of attach it to another tree. Right.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you take that cutting, like you were saying, from
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: an existing tree that makes the apples you enjoy, and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: then you fuse it onto what we call a rootstock
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: right at the bottom of the tree. It will adopt
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the limb because of the great superpowers of apple genetics,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: and then it will take a little time or your
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: new Frankenstein's monster to start producing fruit. But the investment
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: is worth it. You know, you won't be getting some unpredictable,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: inedible mutant. You'll get your honey crisp, you will get
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: your fuji because it'll be exactly based on the original tree,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the donor tree that you got the graft from. But
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: the thing is, ah, guys, this is the easiest answer,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: This is the best answer. This is what the apple
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: industry uses today. But Johnny said, oh no, no, no, no, no, no,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: no no, God wouldn't like it.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: What yeah, okay, yeah.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: He was a devout member of the Swedenborgian Church, or
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: the New Church as he called it.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: He was assimilated by the swedenborg.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: He had this part of their I think this is
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: one of their oddly specific beliefs. But they said grafting
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: plants is a huge no no across the board because
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: it causes the plants unnecessary suffering. So this guy's a
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: faithful congregate if not a zealot. And he says, I
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: can't graft. I got to plant all my orchids from seed,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: which he also, by the way, he gets these seeds
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: for free from cider mills back on the East coast.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: And there are barrels and barrels of these seeds that
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: the cider mills don't want because the produce would be unpredictable.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: And this means that the apples Johnny Apple seed John
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Chapman plants the majority of time. If you're a person,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: you're not going to eat them. They're called spitters. They're
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: like bitter, there's snow.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: They're stinky.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Oh no, they're bad apples. They're bad dude.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, they're literally bad apple.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Bad apple man, I guess could also mean a rotten apple.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: But that is that's a real myth killer right there.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: I'm picture. I'm picturing there's just bounty of delightful treats
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: growing up out of the earth from Johnny Apple seeds.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: You know, mystical touch. But no, there it is gonna
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: They're going to become useful though, if you can imagine
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: for other.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Purposes, Yeah, it might sound like his business was doomed
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: from the get go because of his conscientious objection is
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: religious constraints. But like you said, Noel, this is very
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: much not the case. People wanted permanence over taste. And
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: John's trees they didn't make delicious fruit the vast majority
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: of the time, but by God, they were tough. They
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: could survive those harsh winters and bad soil. He kept
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: a top secret ledger to arrange his travels, and he
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: checked in with all the nurseries and orchids he created.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Nobody ever saw this ledger, but we know he used
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: it because it was always on time and his clients
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: were incredibly happy to see the apple Man. Because this
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: is one of our first twists, right Like as you said, Noel,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: these pioneers are not excited to see the apple Man
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: because they love eating fruit. They're excited about apples because
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: of something else. They absolutely love housing hardsider.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: They do do, and you don't need necessarily. It's sort
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: of like using a kind of brown avocado to make
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: a smoothie or something like that, right, yeah, you know,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: or like you know, spinach that's just about to turn.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: But if you if you saute it up, you might
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: not know the difference.
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: So because of the condition, I can't have spinach, so
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: I eat a lot of kale and ooh that very
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: end of that kale. Then it's getting that really nasty,
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: funky smell. You know you have the most two days left.
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: Boil it up, blend it up and make it. Make
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: a kale sauce for some pasta.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Oh beautiful.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and a kale with some sesame oil.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: It's a great. It's a great. But that is something
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: that you don't really get comfortable with till you get
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: a little older. I learned learned that from my mom,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: or she was always like really preserving things till the
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: last possible, using every part of the unicorn in first.
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: With my mom, she wants to like, if the eggs
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: go bad in two weeks, they gotta go.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: They gotta go. That's how my kid is. My kid
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: will not eat a yogurt one day past the expiration.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: I'm like, kiddo, it's a sell by date. Don't care.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Dead to me. This yogurt is dead to me.
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: And yogurt is kind of one of these things that's
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: getting better with age.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Anyways, we also clearly, like so many of our fellow
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: ridiculous historians got to a point where we became more
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: boy scout level thrifty when we had to pay for stuff.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: That's a big part of it. And look, guys, cider
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: is great. It's not for everyone. That's fine. Not everything
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: is for everyone, as my mother used to say. But
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: both the non alcohol and the boozy version, the hard sider,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: think youd have a sweet, crisp tang. It's perfect on
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: an autumn night, you know. I'll have I'll have a
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: cider once a year. I'll check it out. But what
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: may surprise a lot of us is back in the
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: seventeen and eighteen hundreds of North America, cider was so
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: much more popular. It was like the soda pop or
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: the Coca cola of its day, a.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Soft cider for the ladies, right, I mean, I'm joking,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: but that is said often in like a westerns, you know,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: with a lady like a soft cider or a sasparilla
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: in tombstone, I think probably in tombstone and in death way.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, what is sasparilla?
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Sasparilla? It's a non alcoholic kind of root rooted soda. Okay, Okay,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: that makes sense. So we Sioux City sasapar is apparently
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: a good one. It tastes a lot like rep beer.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: I like that as a Southern uh not insult but compliment.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Oh you love Sioux City sasine.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Jump in here.
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: That's one of the best jokes and fall at New
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: Vegas for it's like the only one that doesn't have
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: Nuca cola. It's got Sunset Sasparilla instead.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: That's right, sunsets, Yeah, for sure.
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: But in thought for as h for Harbor DLC, they
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: have the fawed version of tab and nobody likes it.
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: I think, I think this commentary about people not liking it,
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: but episode do they have?
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah, you get in situations and that's with the.
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: Facts, seeking in the pond and peaceful in knowledge.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: It's just for you right now.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's a great but we'll yeah, we'll do it.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: Uh So, Since we know.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: That the people in the frontier also didn't have a
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: lot of choices for beverages, so water sources could be
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: full of all sorts of bacteria or feces or other contaminants,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: cider was actually a safe, stable source of hydration, similar
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: to like how other civilizations across the pond often drank wine, drink.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Wine, or drank mead. Even further back than that, A
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: lot of times it was out of necessity because you know,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: water was gross and so at least you knew that
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: if it was fermented, yeah, it'd give you a little buzz,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: but would also you know, quench your thirst. And that's
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: why they would typically drink what we might consider lower
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: ABV beverages. You know, they'd still be drinking at all
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: the livelong day. They had to have been soused on
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: the regular.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Dude. The cider was all. It all had some content
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: of alcohol, but to your point, Noel, it didn't have
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: nearly as much alcohol as say, like a hard liquor
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: that they'd be familiar with, like rum or whiskey. But
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: it was boozy, and people did, again drink it like water.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: So let's just diplomatically say that probably adds up over time.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, the kids drank it too, and if
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: your parents were really strict, they would water it down
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: a little bit. But so what we're saying the kids
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: were also day drunk.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: They were at least day tipsy, so much so that
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: historians like Howard Means, who wrote Johnny appleseed the man
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: the myth the American story describes life on the frontier
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: as being lived through an alcoholic haze. That's history for you, though,
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: right there. I mean again to the point about the
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: like the Vikings or the Middle Ages, any of these
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: eras people were boozed up.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: It reminds me of one of those favorite apocryphal or
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite apocryphal statements from historians in Ireland.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Who would They would say, you know, it's interesting, the
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Irish were doing really great, and then one of them
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: invented whiskey and they went and.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: It was all over.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was all over us, all over from there,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: what if we had a thing like this cider stuff,
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: but you only had to drink a couple SIPs of
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: it to get wasted.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Or what if we just had safe water, to be
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: honest like, scholars.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, no, get that.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: That guy's not fun. Get him out of here.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: No, let's drink out, Let's drink more of this wood juice,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: will drink wood juice.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Scholars estimate that this spiked apple juice was consumed to
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: the tune of let's see in the seventeen hundreds, people
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: living in what we call Virginia Massachusetts. Now, each of them,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: every man, woman and child, was guzzling down between fifteen
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: and thirty five gallons of hard cider per year. If
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: you're on the frontier, you're drinking an estimated this is
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: a dodgy one, but an estimated ten point five to
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: two ounces of hardsider a day. So I guess your
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: typical soda pop can will be what twelve ounces?
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: I think that's right.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we're drinking a little bit less than a
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: full soda can of Hardsider with booze. The children are
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: drinking it too. For comparison, as of twenty twenty or so,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: the average modern American resident drinks twenty ounces of water
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: a day. Honestly, we should all be drinking more. Not
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: to judge, but this might be the time to go
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: get a cold glass of water.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: I think so. I got recently, got a big old
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: like mutagen tank looking thing that I fill up with
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: water and try to drink it two or three times
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: over during a day. And ben I got a picture
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: that they were consuming this stuff out of these giant
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: jugs with three x's on them.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: You know that's funny.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I wonder if they If they were, they were definitely
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: reusing the jug. The historian you mentioned there means goes
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: on to describe hardsider not as a treat, not as
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: like a fun beverage like how we would grab a soda,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: but instead as a staple of the frontier diet, breakfast, lunch, dinner,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: as part of the as much a part of the
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: dining table as meat or bread, which means business wise,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Johnny Chapman nailed it, and churches loved him too. They
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: described him not as a businessman but as a missionary,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: because they said, you know, he's walking around. He's not
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: just so in apple seeds and you know, teaching people
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: how to make booze, but he's also passing out religious tracts.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: And this is where, okay, this is where we have
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: one of our peak descriptions of the real life John Chapman.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: It's from an author named Rosella Rice. She writes about
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: this in publication from eighteen sixty three called The History
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: of Ashland County, Ohio. It's a little bit long, dude,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: so I suggest we round Robinett.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Oh. I completely support this notion. I'll start. His personal
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: appearance was as singular as his character. He was a small,
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: chumped man, quick and restless in his motions and conversation.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: His beard, though not long, was unshaven, and his hair
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: was long and dark, and his eyes black and sparkling.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: He lived the roughest life, often slept in the woods.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: His clothing was mostly old, being generally given to him
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: in exchange for apple trees. He went barefooted and often
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: traveled miles through the snow in that way. He wore
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: on his head a ten utensil, which answered both as
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: a cap and a mush pot.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Why not? Why I have two when you could just
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: do both things with one?
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: I agree with it. I love a multifunctional device.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: I do too, I do too. A real character, indeed,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: and he is known as the world's most successful apple
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: themed hobo. That's what your what's been, or a bit
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: of a proto hippie as we mentioned earlier. And you know,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: he knew what he liked, he knew how he wanted
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: to live. He dressed the way he did out of
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: preference and also out of utility.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not out of necessity. He reminds me a little
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: bit of Gabe Newle, the creator of Steam or the
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: co founder of just because Gabe Newell, You're never going
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: to see that guy in a three piece suit. It's
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: not that he can't afford a three piece suit. This
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: is one for the gaming nerds. It's because he wants
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: to dress comfortably, and Johnny seems like a pretty cool hang.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: He isn't hurting for money. A lot of people didn't
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: know this at the time, but he ultimately accumulates about
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: twelve hundred acres across three states for his nurseries and
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: his orchards that he would buy up before the settlers arrive.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: And if he's visiting a settlement and he doesn't feel
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: like sleeping out in the woods, which was his usual habit,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: then he would make a deal, a side bet, you
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: could say, at parley, and he would say, I'll tell
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: stories to your children, and I'll proselytize to you about
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the new church if you let me just sleep on
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the floor inside. And you know, sometimes but not always,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: they give him supper.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: He loved animals.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: He even I don't.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Know how true this is, but multiple historians said that
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: he befriended and tamed a wolf. He fixed up its
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: injured leg, and it just followed him around afterwards forever
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: until it died a familiar Yeah, just so, I mean,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: we know he we know there are other accounts that
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: are this is kind of the myth making stuff because
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: we can't prove it. But there are other accounts of
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: him seeing mosquitoes flying over his campfire and immediately putting
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: out the fire because he didn't want the mosquitoes.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: The sweden Borgian of it all, they would do no harm,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you know he preserved the piece of
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: bear dens. He would see somebody about to put a
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: horse down and he would save the horse. And obviously,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: predictably later in life he becomes a vegetarian. Some of
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: us know, I'm a former vegetarian myself, elapsed vegetarian. I
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: could say it's objectively the right thing to do, but
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: man meat.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Though, right, and as you can imagine, living the traveling
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: life is not really one to settle down. He did
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: never marry. He reportedly told people that if he didn't
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: find his soulmate on earth, she'd be waiting for him
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: in heaven. That's real sweet.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And we unfortunately don't know exactly when he made
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: it to the Pearly Gates. Multiple contemporary sources report different
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: dates of his death to give you the quick summation.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Most people agree it was sometime in March of eighteen
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: forty five. He went out well into old age, apparently
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: went peacefully in his place. His legend blossomed.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: But that's not.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Quite the end of the story, because you might be asking,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: ridiculous historians, Hey, what were the guys teasing earlier? If
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: this dude planted so many trees, where the heck are they?
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: Now?
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: We've got a conspiratorial twist for you.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: What's the FBI think of all this? The FBI that
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: never existed during his lifetime. I know, how does this
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: figure into prohibition? You may be asking, Yeah, that's the
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: best question there.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: And also after Johnny Chapman passes, settlers keep his nurseries
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: and orchards going, and over time they cultivate specific varieties
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: of apple, kind of tailor made to the climate of
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: the United States, including stuff you can eat, not just
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: grind down and decider. So, thanks to John Chapman and
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: those who follow after him, the apple grows and changes
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: in step with the growth of America. It turns out
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: it's a big win for him to insist on planting
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: seeds instead of grafting, because he avoids, like you said
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: so brilliantly at the top of this episode, he avoids
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: the dangers of monoculture, which is what wrecked the good bananas.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: Right, right, And I think how we've either done. We
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: certainly must have talked about it in our Chiquita banana
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: episode or no, was it Dole the thing about the
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: overthrowing the governments? Yeah, that's right, exactly. Yeah, originally bananas
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: tasted different, and banana candy supposedly tastes more like the
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: gross Michelle, what the original bananas tasted like? Some of
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: these clever growing techniques led to you know what you
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: refer to delightfully been as successful mutants or hybrids, right,
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: things like the Golden Delicious or the Red Delicious. Which
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: I'm not an apple guy, by the way. I don't
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: want to eat an apple. I like an apple crisp,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: an apple crumble, an apple pie. But it is my
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: understanding that the basicst of apples is the Red Delicious
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: a little overrated?
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. It's it's okay, but
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: it's often overrated. That's a positive note, however, for everybody
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: who is sipping a cider. As you're listening to this,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: we do have an unfortunate, fascinating tale. Like you said, Noel,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: the FBI eventually set their sights on Old Appleseed's legacy
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: way after he actually died. It's because that from nineteen
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: twenty to nineteen thirty three, Uncle Sam was pushed by
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: a crisis of conscience with its long history, if we're
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: being honest, it's long history of normalized alcoholism, they enacted prohibition.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Prohibition makes booze illegal. If you are the average person,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: you can no longer make booze, even at home for yourself.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: You cannot import it, you cannot transport it, and you
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: cannot sell anything that has booze in it.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Right, and creates pretty overnight a thriving black market. Yeah,
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: as typically happens when any kind of prohibition is involved.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: People don't like to be told what they can't do.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: That's exactly it, man. Because we also talked about this
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: and stuff.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: They don't want you to know.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: The US government was a bad guy here. Several times
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: they killed innocent people by poisoning alcohol supplies ethanol. Yeah, Yeah,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: and it quickly became a law that a lot of
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: people would break just on principle, even if you're your
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: average American like like the Maxes or the Knowles or
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: the Bens, and you don't particularly love drinking booze, you
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: might still crack a cold win because hey, this is America, buddy, Hugh,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: I won't do what you tell me. Thanks for the.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: Beatbacks, Thanks for the lyric rage.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: Thanks for the lyric rage.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so at this point, Johnny applesey Is has
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: already achieved the status a real American hero. He was
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: starting to get maligned a little bit because during Prohibition,
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: the FBI started to target his orchards.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they destroyed a lot of those appleseed descended trees
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: because those trees, again, the majority of them produced sour,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: bitter apples that you would not want in your kid's lunchbox,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: but that you would use to make hard cider. A
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: standard apple tree, depending on the various factors, in ideal circumstances,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: it can live for well more than fifty years up
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: to one hundred. So a ton of these trees that
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: were murdered by the FBI, they either descended from John's
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: earlier trees or were even physically planted by John Chapman himself.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: This wrecked the cider market. Luckily, at the same time,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: water sanitation is improving, so that's not a death sentence.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: But it does honestly suck.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah it does. It's not great for John's legacy.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: It's not great for the FBI either. Can you imagine
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: wouldn't you be a little irritated or wouldn't you feel
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: a little sidelined if there's this great war against alcohol
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: and they're like agent Brown, your job is to go
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: out there and cut down a bunch of trees.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: I see what you're saying.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: Ben.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: So, before that point, apples were primarily known as a
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: source of cider rather than an edible snack. You know
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: that you might dip in a peanut butter. Prohibition definitely
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: caused that pivot, changing the perception of the apple, and
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: it results in the apple industry that we really do
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: know and like some love others today. It did create
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: the whole notion of the apple as a healthy snack.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and this may be about to change because
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: history is rouboristic. If I could churchify a word, uh, okay,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: thank you dah. We made it happen, folks. As recently
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: as twenty twenty two cider has become the fastest growing
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: alcoholic beverage in all of the United States.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: There we have it.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Johnny Appleseed modern myth incredibly different from the real John Chapman,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: but I think it's safe to say they were both
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: probably really cool guys to hang out with, as long
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: as you didn't talk about religion.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, best not, you know, with Johnny Appleseed, or at
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: the dinner table, or you know, over the holidays. This
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: is a sticky subject. No good can come of contentious religious debates.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: That's what the pedagod said recently. Oh, everybody's catching strays, folks.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: enjoyed this as much as as what much as we do.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: If you haven't checked it out yet, do check out
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: our history of the hot dog. If you like more
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: food history courtesy of.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Our own Noel Brown.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: I've been our research associate for this, and big thanks
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: to our super producer mister Max Williams, who can probably
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: also not yet eat apples for sure.
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: Ohay, is this the first time we found of food
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: I can eat on air?
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: This is will be You're gonna get Max a case
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: of apples.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: Ben Yeah, we're gonna get him a case of it, get.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Him his own orchard. Yeah, I love it huge. Thanks
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: to Alex Williams, our very own Johnny Appleseed and composer
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: this banging bop that you're hearing in your ears right now,
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: Chris Frosciotis and Eavest Jeffcoats here in spirit. Thanks to
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: them too.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Jonathan Strickland aka the quizter, who is probably
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: chopping down a child's apple.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: Tree right now, my apple tree.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: And he goes, oh scenario.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: Because he's also French.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, he's also French. This bit big Thanks to a
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: non Frenchman.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: We love aj Bahama's Jacobs, Doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lands
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: and of course the rude Dude's a ridiculous crime.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.