Sowash:  "The Planting of the Apple Tree" for baritone.

 If you grow up in Mansfield, Ohio, you know all about Johnny Appleseed.  When I was growing up there in the 1950’s, Johnny's name was in lots of places around town.



There was the:

Johnny Appleseed Junior High School (where my cousins went),

Johnny Appleseed Boy Scout Council (of which my troop was a part),

Johnny Appleseed Shopping Center (in the parking lot of which I learned to ride a bicycle),     Johnny Appleseed Realty (through which my parents bought our home),

and the Johnny Appleseed Coffee Shop in the Leland Hotel (where my Grandma sometimes took me to lunch).



There was even a small, stone monument to Johnny Appleseed in South Park, next to the historic Blockhouse, a two-story log structure built in the pioneer days to defend Mansfield.



During the War of 1812, Johnny Appleseed saved Mansfield from an Indian attack by running, alone, thirty miles south to Mount Vernon.  He convinced the soldiers stationed there to hurry back with him to Mansfield.  They marched quickly and arrived in the nick of time.  When the Indians saw the soldiers arriving, they called off their attack.



We all knew this story.  For Mansfielders, it was the most important thing about Johnny Appleseed.  Of course we also knew that Johnny Appleseed planted apple trees so that the pioneers, newly arrived in the Ohio wilderness, would find fruit hanging from the bough.



Apples were the only fruit available on the frontier and the pioneers used apples in many ways.  They made apple butter, apple sauce, apple pies and cider.  The ran string through apples and hung them up to dry, eating them months later.  They wrapped apples in burlap and buried them in the dirt floors of their cabin homes, digging them up months later, finding them still crunchy and edible.  Most importantly, the pioneers made vinegar from Johnny’s apples and used it to pickle their vegetables, preserving them against the long, cold Ohio winters, when gardens lay fallow and buried in snow.



We knew the facts about him.  His real name was John Chapman and he lived from 1774 until 1845.  It said so, right there on his monument.



It never occurred to me that Johnny Appleseed could be dismissed as a fictional character.  When I left Ohio to go to college I met students from other parts of the country who thought our hero was “just made up.”  That was a shock.  Even those who knew he was an historical figure didn’t revere him the way we did back home.



He may be known to more Americans than any of our other folk heroes; every first grader has at least heard of Johnny Appleseed.  How many first graders have heard of Wyatt Earp?



Curiously, our best known folk hero is unknown to Europeans.  My cultivated, well-traveled, well-read French and English friends were ignorant of Johnny's life and achievements until they heard me talk about him.



Even in this country, there’s confusion about him.  Though he was a real person, Johnny also became a mythic figure, a folk hero.  The notion that he went barefoot and dressed in rags (true) and wore a tin pot on his head (false) have rendered him slightly ridiculous.  Unfair.  Pioneer diaries and letters mention that Johnny often wore some pretty unusual hats, but none specify a tin pot.



Still, the tin pot is here to stay.  We will always think of Johnny as barefoot, raggedly clad, a tin pot on his head.  The image befits a saint; Johnny has an “attribute.”  We recognize St. Peter because he’s the one holding the keys;  we recognize Johnny by the tin pot on his head.



Johnny IS a saintly figure.  A deeply religious man, he practiced and preached his cherished Swedenborgianism to anyone who would listen, passed out pamphlets to anyone who would accept them.  He seems to have thought of himself as an American John the Baptist, a spiritual non-conformist, a voice in the wilderness, literally.



What did the pioneers make of him?  By all accounts, they loved him, eccentricities and all.  Dr. Betty Reed, who met the medical needs of rural Richland County for over sixty years, told me that the story passed along in her family was that her ancestors warmly welcomed Johnny but asked him to sleep in the barn, “because, you know, he didn’t smell very good."



Today Johnny is under-appreciated.  Perhaps we need to deepen the understanding of him we all formed when we were in the first grade.



Johnny is just about our only non-violent American folk hero.  Think about it.  American folk heroes are men and women of violent action:  Davy Crockett kills bears, Indians and Mexicans until the latter finally kill him; Betty Zane dares to run through the crossfire to bring back much-needed ammunition; Molly Pitcher loads cannons; Jim Bowie throws his knife; the Earps shoot it out at the OK Corral; there’s Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Doc Holiday; the ruthless bison-buster Buffalo Bill;  Billy the Kid and Bonnie and Clyde who rob banks and kill at random;  George Armstrong Custer, who massacres with a free hand and an untrammeled conscience until he gets himself massacred at the Little Big Horn, going down in ill-gotten ‘glory.'



Even our fictional folk heroes are "rough-oh, tough-oh":  Paul Bunyan levels old growth forests; Pecos Bill lassoes and rides tornadoes, Johnny Henry bursts his heart competing with a mechanical spike-driver.  There’s Frankie and Johnny.  Tom Dooley.  Casey Jones.  All violent.



The exceptions?  I can think of two.  There’s Betsy Ross.  She sews the flag, quietly, patiently, precisely.



Then there's our Johnny, the nurturer.  He plants and tends apple trees.  Our kinda guy, you and me.  It does us good to be reminded of him.



I’ve given many talks about Johnny to historical societies and in schools.  He is the subject of Chapter One in my book, “Heroes of Ohio.”  I wrote and starred in a half-hour documentary film about him.  I impersonated Johnny for fourteen September “Apple Fests” at Heritage Village in Cincinnati’s Sharon Woods Park, something I still do in various other places.  That’s right.  I present myself at events barefoot, in raggedy clothes, wearing bright red suspenders and a tin pot on my head.  On those occasions, for a little while, I get to BE Johnny Appleseed!



We even named our son after him:  John Chapman Sowash.  He goes by “Chapman.”  We call Chap for short.



Later on this morning, as I do every year on the Sunday closest to Johnny's birthdate — September 26 —I will speak up during the part of our church service we call 'Prayers of the People,' giving thanks for the life, contributions and example of Johnny Appleseed, America’s best-known non-violent folk hero and the unofficial patron saint of my home state, Ohio.



I’ve written several pieces of music about J.A., including a duo for violin and cello entitled “A Suite of Virtues:  A Tribute to John Chapman.”  There are seven movements, each evoking an old-fashioned virtue:  Optimism, Enterprise, Perseverance, Certitude, Soulfulness, Joyfulness and Faith.



Alas, it’s never been recorded so I can’t share any of it with you.



In fact, how about THIS for an idea?  If you’re a violinist or a cellist, here’s an opportunity.  Just ask and I’ll send you free PDFs of the sheet music for this duo; you can print ‘em and play the piece.  If you find that you like it and would kindly record it, send me the mp3s and I’ll feature your performance in these weekly emails.



I’ve also written a three-movement choral work about Johnny, entitled “Apple Songs,” another of my works which is still waiting to be recorded.  I made a baritone-piano version of "Apple Songs" and one of those, “The Planting of the Apple Tree,” HAS been recorded.  See below.



The text is by William Cullen Bryant:



Come, let us plant the apple-tree.

Cleave the tough green sod with the spade;

Wide let its hollow bed be made;

There gently lay the roots with kindly care,

And press it o’er them tenderly,

As, round the sleeping infant’s feet,

We softly fold the cradle sheet;

So we plant the apple-tree.



What do we plant in this apple-tree?

Buds, which the breath of summer days

Shall lengthen into leafy sprays;

Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast,

Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest.

We plant, upon the sunny lea,

A shadow for the noontide hour,

A shelter from the summer shower,

When we plant the apple-tree.



To hear baritone Noel Bouley and collaborative pianist Phil Amalong perform my setting of "The Planting of the Apple Tree," click here:

http://www.sowash.com/



To see a PDF of the score, click here:

http://www.sowash.com/