I realize that this may be better suited to GQ, but because it was inspired by the Johnny Appleseed report, I am posting here. Link
The report says that Johnny didn’t where shoes, even in Winter. I have read the same about Socates. My question, why didn’t they get frostbite?
Maybe they did, on occaision. Frostbite does not necessarily kill off a body part. Depending on the level of damage, the body can heal. I knew a guy in college that would go through the entire year barefoot, including New England winters. His feet were very tough and leathery, but otherwise normal. He’d get frostbite every so often, and then warm them up and go on barefooting around campus.
Well, Socrates was living in Greece, where the average winter temperature is in the 40’s (ºF). So even going barefoot would not be so bad in those conditions.
(I’m now sitting here in a Minnesota winter, the temp outside is -6°F, wind chill about 20 below zero!)
Yaaaaaa! I can’t believe that I typed ‘where’. Not ONCE, but TWICE.
:rolleyes: :wally
It should have been wear… I am so embarrased. :o
Cecil (rather, Cecil’s Staff) sez:
Um. I’m from North Central Ohio. Grew up there. Had friends who went to Johnny Appleseed Middle School. There’s a fort there named after him because he supposedly walked to some other city 25 or 30 miles away to get help for an upcoming Injun attack. It’s now used as a Boy Scoout meeting place. Actually, I think it’s a replica of a wooden fort of that day and age, placed serenely in the middle of a city park (on my walking route from home to high school).
Got a map?
The Muskingum River is most decidely NOT anywhere near north central Ohio. It’s in the southeastern part of the state. It kind of starts in the middle of the southeast part of the state and winds it’s way to the Ohio River, which forms the southern border of the state.
So, let’s take ourselves back to Pennsylvania in the mid-18th century. There was an old Indian trail that ran from about Philly, straight west, called the National Road. Pretty much everyone who went “west” in that era, used that road. It runs through Allegheny county (which is near Pittsburgh, IIRC) and straight on through to Indiana, where Cecil says he died. I can buy that he traveled west on the National Road and hopped and skipped north and south of that road, when he found it necessary. He might have even connected with the Muskingum from the National Road, or from some spur trail connecting to it. I’m just having trouble with fighting ignorance using an inaccurate geographical statement.
Upon re-reading (preview being our friend and whatnot), I see the text actually reads, “tributaries to the Muskingum.” Wonder why that river was used as a reference point? While there may very well be smallish rivers in North Central Ohio that connect to the Muskingum, why not just say, “Well, he trotted around PA, OH and IN, in general.” We have to cite a river that really isn’t near the area?
Oh wait, in regard to his run through the woods to save the peeps of my hometown, here we go:
And, that, my fellow Teeming Millions, is why the people of Mansfield named a middle school (among other things) after the guy. It was nothing but a dinky frontier town at the time, so obviously it took a while to have a middle school to name after him…
In response to the OP, I agree: I find it highly difficult to believe that anyone ran around with no shoes in the dead of winter in an area that gets lake-effect snow. I’d think his feet would have rotted off from frostbite long before the calluses built up. MHO.
I ran a google search on him after I read this, just because it’s an interesting story, and I found a link that says
That page goes on to contridict Dex’s report by saying that Chapman did not use tobacco or alcohol but did eat meat (but not veal). However, the author lists as her references:
History of Richland County Ohio,
compiled by A. A. Graham, 1880
“A Gatherer and Planter of Appleseeds”,
a pamphlet published by the Richland County Historical Society,
probably c. 1956
Commentary based on oral history of the Delaware Remnant kindly shared by “Anonymous”
Perhaps Johnny’s life was re-arranged to conform to the moral expectations of Ohio in 1880 (sober but carniverous) in her first source.
Price’s biography said that one of the problems with separating man from myth is that each generation “interpreted” the Chapman legend to suit its own needs. Just as Disney and the 1950s and 1960s saw a “back to nature” kind of pacifist nobility, and claim he didn’t carry a knife or gun.
There’s the additional problem that he visited farms and settlers and told them stories, including stories about himself. That was what they did for entertainment before TV. So, were those stories true, or did they get exaggerated in the telling?
And then you have people writing their memories of him, twenty or thirty years later, when the reality and the memory may have diverged. People tell the story of how “I met Johnny Appleseed when I was a child” and their story replaces the memory.
It’s pretty amazing that they’d say he didn’t drink, since that was the whole raison d’être of his apples.
Dogzilla, I apologize, I didn’t check maps on my own, I just cited the references from the various resources. I have no idea why they would list a southern river for his travels through northern Ohio. I can make a Wild-Arsed Guess that much of pioneer travel was by riverway, and that the easiest way to northern Ohio was along the southern route and then back up tributaries. But I have no idea.
Wow, an admin apologized to little old me? Thanks! (And I accept!)
Google “National Road” – basically it follows what is now I-70. I suspect that was his main thoroughfare from PA through OH to IN. There are plenty of rivers (and indian and animal trails) that probably spur off the National Road.
Fascinating guy, isn’t he?
That was strange to see a cite from the historic annals of my home county. Now I feel like I’m from SOMEWHERE!
As for the accuracy of the legends: there’s just no way any of us could truly document the truth, whatever that is and for whatever that’s worth. I grew up attending presentations by guys acting like Appleseed – the legends and myths were pounded into our heads from kindergarten on. Especially if you were a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout. He’s an icon and a hero to those groups.