…Among the heroes of endurance … there was one man whose name, seldom mentioned now save by some of the few surviving pioneers, deserves to be perpetuated.

The first reliable trace of our modest hero finds him in the Territory of Ohio in 1801, with a horse-load of apple seeds, which he planted in various places on and about the borders of Licking County, the first orchard thus originated by him being on the farm of Isaac Stadden, in what is now known as Licking County, in the state of Ohio…These are the first well-authenticated facts in the history of Jonathan Chapman, …

It was his custom, when he had been welcomed to some hospitable log-house after a weary day of journeying, to lie down on the puncheon floor, and after inquiring if his auditors would hear, "some news right fresh from heaven," produce his few tattered books, among which would be a New Testament, and read and expound until his uncultivated hearers would catch the spirit and glow of his enthusiasm, as they scarcely comprehended his language. A lady who knew him in his later years writes in the following terms of one of these domiciliary of poor, self-sacrificing Johnny Appleseed: "We can hear him read now, just as he did that summer day, when we were busy quilting up stairs and he lay near the door, his voice rising denunciatory and thrilling – strong and loud as the roar of wind and waves, then soft and soothing as the balmy airs that quivered the morning-glory leaves about his gray beard. His was a strange eloquence at times and he was undoubtedly a man of genius!"

From "Johnny Appleseed: A Pioneer Hero" Harper's New Monthly Magazine, November 1871, pp. 830, 834