1790

 

__________ 

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.” 

George Washington, January 8, 1790.

__________ 

Tariffs and tennis shoes.

(All photos and pictures in this post from blogger's collection. Feel free to use.)

 

ACCORDING to the Census of 1790, the historian Benjamin Andrews notes, there were 4,280 whites living northwest of the Ohio River, a thousand at Vincennes, a thousand on the lands of the Ohio Company, 1,300 on the Symmes Purchase. (2/269) 

    The Indians numbered between 20,000 and 40,000 north of the Ohio; “Settlers agreed in denouncing them as treacherous, intractable, blood-thirsty and faithless.” Andrews refers to them as “various hordes of savages” (2/271-272) 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: For an explanation of the numbering system used in my blog posts, see my bibliography, posted separately. As for example, Book 2, above, pages 271-272, a U.S. history in several volumes, by Andrews. It was published in 1925.

 

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NOTE TO TEACHERS: I sometimes gave the reading below to my classes. It depended on how much time I had: 

BEN FRANKLIN dies at age 84 in 1790. Daniel Boone is 56, nine years older than Thomas Jefferson. Beethoven is 30. John Chapman (later known as “Johnny Appleseed”) is sixteen. Thomas Lincoln is twelve. Four years earlier an Indian nearly killed him in a raid on the family’s Kentucky home. Had he died we would have had no Abraham Lincoln, his future son. 

    The United States government is small. President George Washington employs just 350 workers across all departments. 

    The U.S. Army had only 900 men. 

    Silver and gold coins were hard to come by; Spanish, French, English, and even German coins circulated widely. One German coin was the “thaller.” From this we have our word for “dollar.” Land was selling for $1 per acre at that time – but the average worker made less than that every day. 

    Ninety percent of Americans made a living by farming.

 

    Most people in 1790 traveled on foot or on horseback. Mail from Maine took twenty days to reach Georgia. Only a push to build canals offered hope for improved transportation. John Fitch had operated a steam-powered ferry in Philadelphia the previous summer, but customers were scarce, and he went broke. He would soon combine alcohol and opium and carry himself to an early grave. Travel on Sunday was still forbidden in Massachusetts and Connecticut, except for those headed to church. 

    Noah Webster was preparing to launch his career as author of spelling books and the first American dictionary. 

    A free black man, Benjamin Banneker, a scientist and architect, was helping to lay out a design for Washington D.C. (The site for the new city had been chosen but was still a wilderness.) 

    Eli Whitney was teaching school – for $7 per month. He had not turned attention to inventing and would not patent the cotton gin till 1794. (Suddenly, his gin would make slavery profitable.) 

    Slavery was said to be dying. (Soon, because of Whitney, it wouldn’t be.) Congress banned slavery north of the Ohio River under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Connecticut had all passed laws to end slavery, based on the point at which slaves reached certain birthdays. Massachusetts had no slaves. Vermont had sixteen remaining. 

    Horse and foot races were popular forms of entertainment. Dancing, music (supplied by local musicians or family members), conversation, walking, sailing, shooting at a mark and chess helped people pass the time. In the North riding in sleighs was popular during winter. Hunting and fishing were common. Frontier entertainment included “rough and tumble” fighting. Two men battled till one gave up. There were almost no rules. Kicking was legal. So were biting, tearing and gouging. It was not uncommon for opponents to gouge out [dig out] eyes or bite off noses or ears. A traveler through America noted that young men and “even little boys, at or under twelve years of age” like to go to bars. 

    Dueling was in fashion.

 

* 

“Superficial,” “affected,” and “simpering.” 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS returns home after three years in France. He describes the girls of this country as “superficial,” “affected,” and “simpering,” with little interest in anything but dancing and talking scandal. In that last category, he wrote his mother, “they have attained great perfection.”

 

    Young John Quincy admitted there were plenty of appealing girls, but “like a beautiful apple that is insipid to the taste.” (45/59)

 

*

 

THE TIME-LIFE EDITORS note , in their American history series, “West is the widest-stretching word in the American language.”

 

    Frontier life was a leveler: “Hardship, coarse food and rough clothes reduced life for everyone – the idler and the worker, the judge and the lawbreaker – to a common denominator. The roads were blazed trails. Cash hardly existed; payment was made in hemp, hides, pork or ginned cotton.”

 

* 

WRITING IN 1927, Hendrik Van Loon describes the life of the pioneers. City folk in Philadelphia and Boston might turn up their noses at the hard existence. 

    But the frontiersman was not at all conscious of his hard lot. To be sure, life was not easy. The stumps were obstinate – the mosquitoes were more dangerous than wolves – there were too darn many stones all over the world – cows and sheep had a fool habit of catching diseases which no veterinary could cure. But as for loneliness no. Loneliness in the old fashioned sense of the word he did not know, for his community was based upon something the world had never yet seen in which for lack of a better expression I would like to call “organized isolation.”

 

    The western pioneer was undoubtedly isolated in the strict sense of the word which means “to place oneself apart from the rest of the world.” But so many thousands of like-minded people had done exactly the same thing at exactly the same moment, and had also placed themselves “apart from the rest of the world” and had joined him in his voyage beyond the Appalachian Mountains that the deserts ceased to be lonely and the woods lost the terror of their mysterious silence. (124/308)

 

    Pittsburgh was the “largest” western settlement with 376 souls. Marietta, the first town in Ohio, was two years old.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: It might work to ask students what the Native Americans would think about this behavior (pictured above) by the pioneers.

 

*

 

THE FIRST U.S. Census revealed that the population of the new nation was 4,000,000. One fifth of the people were slaves. 

    Philadelphia was the biggest city with 42,000 people. 

    Boston was a city of less than 20,000. Streets were almost completely unlighted. A police force barely existed. Harvard College graduated forty students per year. Yale – in New Haven, Connecticut – had thirty graduates every spring. 

    Cities were small; services were scarce. New York had one big problem. “Want of good water greatly inconvenienced the citizens, as there was no aqueduct yet, and wells were few. Most houses supplied themselves by casks from a pump on what is now Pearl Street.” (2/204)

 

* 

March 26: By an act of Congress, American citizenship is extended to the children of American citizens living abroad.

 

* 

THE JUDICIARY was organized with John Jay as Chief Justice and five associates. There was one district court in every state, one in Maine, another in Kentucky. 

    “Originally the Attorney-General was little but an honorary officer. He kept his practice, had no public income but his fees, and resided where he pleased.” (2/212)

 

* 

Two parties explained. 

According to Andrews: 

FEDERALISTS: “…they proposed so to enforce regard for the national authority and laws and obedience to them, that within its sphere the nation should be absolutely and beyond question paramount to the State[s].” 

“…this party developed a haughtiness and a lack of republican spirit amounting in some cases to deficient patriotism.” 

The party included “business men and the wealthy and leisurely classes, who, without intending to be selfish, were governed in political sympathy and action mainly by their own interests.” (2/215-216)

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICANS: “…they prized the individual State as still the main pillar of our political fabric.” (2/217) 

“Another issue divided the parties, that between the strict and the freer interpretation of the Constitution.” 

    The question dividing them was this: In matters relating to the powers of the general Government, ought any unclear utterance of the Constitution to be so explained as to enlarge those powers, or so as to confine them to the narrowest possible sphere? Each of the two tendencies in construction has in turn brought violence to our fundamental law, but the sentiment of nationality and the logic of events have favored liberality rather than narrowness in interpreting the parchment. When in charge of the government, even strict constructionists have not been able to carry out their theory. Thus Jefferson, to purchase Louisiana, was obliged, from his point of view, to transcend constitutional warrant. (2/218) 

 

Tariffs. 

“Several motives, however, induced resort to a restrictive [tariff] policy which, beginning with 1789, and for years expected to be temporary, has been pursued with little deviation ever since.” 

    Rates were made low, averaging until 1808, only 11 ¼ per cent. As a consequence the revenues were large.

 

    The movers of this first tariff, especially Hamilton, also wished by means of it to make the central Government felt as a positive power throughout the land.  (2/221)

 

    “A stronger consideration still was to retaliate against England. In spite of America’s political independence the old country was determined to retain for her merchant marine its former monopoly here.”  “There was no way to meet this selfish policy but to show that it was a game which we too could play.”  (2/221) 

    “Hamilton proposed, and Congress voted, an excise on spirits, from nine to twenty-five cents a gallon if from grain, from eleven to thirty if from imported material, as molasses.” (2/227-228)

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: Clearly, the matter of tariffs has new resonance in 2025, as I edit my materials. A good example: Ask your students to see if anyone has American made tennis shoes, or shoes generally. The labels are usually found on the bottom of the tongues. By the time I retired from teaching in 2008, there were no U.S.-made shoes left. 

    What would a tariff mean to students today? What other items do they own that they know are foreign-made? 

   I used to tell my students that you can tax anything, with “sin taxes” always more popular: that is taxes on cigarettes and alcohol. Less popular: taxes on gasoline. It can be fun to ask students what they’d tax, if they were in charge – and what they wouldn’t. Another good example: Florida is happy to add a tax to all hotel bills. 

   Ask students why voters in Florida might support this.

All images in this post from author's collection, except the above.)

Feel free to use.

*

 

ABOVE, we see that Virginia, with the largest population, has 12.6 times as many people as Delaware, with the fewest. Adjusting for the 3/5th’s rule, however, Virginia’s population, considered for representation in Congress is 630,004, and Delaware’s population falls slightly, to 55,739.

 

    That makes Virginia’s population 11 times that of the smallest state. In the first U.S. House of Representatives, then you had: 

 

Representatives by State (1789-1791):

 

Virginia                                 11

Massachusetts                        8

Pennsylvania                          8

Maryland                               6

New York                               6

Connecticut                          5

North Carolina                     5

South Carolina                      5

New Jersey                           4

New Hampshire                   3

Georgia                                2

Delaware                              1

Rhode Island                        1

 

Total:                                  65

 

(I did not know until I did a little checking, that several states originally elected members of the House on an at-large basis.)

 

* 

August 9: The Columbia, captained by Robert Gray, returns to Boston from a three-year voyage, having circumnavigated the globe. 

    According to Oscar Handlin, Gray had 

news that furs, which brought so high a price in the river marts of Canton, could be acquired for trifling trinkets along the coast of Oregon. This discovery effected a revolution in Boston’s economic prospects; by 1792 a new triangular traffic was well established. Carrying cargoes of copper, cloth, iron and clothes, ships left the city each autumn, arriving at the Columbia River the following spring. There they remained from eighteen to twenty months, bargaining for furs. Then they were off across the Pacific, generally stopping at the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) for sandalwood, or at California to make illicit deals with the Spaniards. In Canton, they disposed of their stock, and, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, returned with Chinese teas, textiles, and porcelain. Bostonians rushed into this enormously profitable trade so quickly that among the Chinooks and other West Coast Indians “Boston-men” soon became synonymous with Americans. (21/4)

 

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October 19-22: The following section is quoted from The Great Republic by Charles Morris, written in 1898. 

    Returning to the history of Washington’s presidency, mention must be made of the troubles with the western Indians, who, as has been stated, fought relentlessly against the advance of civilization into their hunting grounds. Between 1783 and 1790, 1,500 persons were killed by the red men near the Ohio. It being clear that peace could not be secured except by a thorough chastisement of the Indians, Congress gave General Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, authority to call for 500 militia from Pennsylvania and a thousand from Kentucky, to which were added 400 regulars. Under General Harmar they marched against the Indian villages.

 

    In the campaign the Indians outgeneraled Harmar, who, after inflicting some damage, was defeated and lost 200 men in killed and wounded. The defeat encouraged the savages, who became more aggressive than ever. 

    Wikipedia has a detailed description of the fighting that led to Harmar’s defeat, with a toll, for Harmar, of 262 men killed, 102 wounded. Little Turtle, head of an alliance of native tribes, suffered, at most, 150 killed and wounded.

1791

 

__________

 

“Beware of a surprise! You know how the Indians fight us. 

Beware of a SURPRISE!”

 

President Washington warning Gen. Arthur St. Clair.

__________

 

 

THE FOUNDING FATHERS rightly feared abuse of power, including abuse of a minority by the majority.

 

* 

WHEN James Monroe joined the Senate, in New York City, it was not uncommon for delegates to cluster round the fireplace in the cold chamber. Not until three years later did the Senate open its doors to the public – a move Monroe considered important in a republic.

* 

A TEN-DAY SEARCH by Major League Baseball’s historian, John Thorn, sparked by a document from the town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, turns up the earliest mention of baseball. In 1791, the town passed a new law to ban the nuisance of “playing baseball” or other ball games within 80 yards of the new town meeting house – an effort to protect the windows. (Smithsonian, p.22, April-May 2024)

 

*

 

THE FOLLOWING quotes are from Charles Coffin:

 

    General Scott, of Kentucky, with eight hundred men on horseback, made a quiet march into the country, killed thirty-two Indians, and destroyed some of their towns; and General Wilkinson left Cincinnati and destroyed many of their villages; which made them all the more bloodthirsty and relentless. … The Indians were still murdering and scalping settlers and burning their cabins. (72/31, 33)

 

    Lafayette sent the key of the Bastille to Washington, who had it enclosed in a glass case and hung in his home at Mount Vernon. The Republicans in France had adopted cockades of red, white and blue as the badge of their liberty, and the citizens of the United States adorned their hats with the same colors. Ladies trimmed their dresses with the colors significant of freedom. (72/58)

 

* 

September 6: In Pennsylvania, turmoil related to the “Whiskey Tax,” continues to roil the backwoods population. “A meeting in Washington County voted to regard as an enemy any person taking office under the excise law. [On this day] … a revenue officer was tarred and feathered.” “Whippings and even murders resulted. At last there was a veritable reign of terror.” (2/227-228)

* 

November 4: The previous evening General Arthur St. Clair and his army, 

reached a point about a hundred miles north of Fort Washington, and encamped on one of the upper tributaries of the Wabash in what is now the southwest angle of Mercer county, Ohio. Early on the following morning his camp was suddenly attacked by an army of Indians numbering more than two thousand, under command of the chief Little Turtle and several American renegades who had joined the savages. A terrible battle ensued, in which, after a conflict of three hour’s duration, St. Clair was completely defeated. He lost fully half of his men and was fortunate to escape with the remainder. The fugitive militia retreated precipitately to Fort Washington, where they arrived four days after the battle.

 

    If the defeat of Harmar had spread alarm, that of St. Clair brought terror. Everywhere were gloom and sorrow. Hardly any battle of the Revolution had entailed greater loss of life and suffering. Even the national government at Philadelphia was for a while in consternation. The responsibility for the defeat was laid with some justice at the feet of General St. Clair, who had not conducted the campaign with the necessary vigilance and caution. For once the benignant spirit of Washington gave way to wrath. He was sitting at the table when the despatches announcing the ruinous defeat of the army were laid beside him. Presently he arose and retired to his office. “Here,” said he in a tempest of indignation, “here in this very room I took leave of General St. Clair. I wished him success and honor. I said to him, ‘You have careful instructions from the Secretary of War, and I myself will add one word – Beware of a surprise! You know how the Indians fight us. Beware of a SURPRISE!’ He went off with that my last warning ringing in his ears. And yet he has suffered that army to be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered, tomahawked by a surprise, – the very thing I guarded him against! How can he answer to his country? The blood of the slain is upon him, – the curse of widows and orphans!”

 

    Mr. Lear, the secretary, in whose presence this storm of wrath burst forth, sat speechless. Presently Washington grew silent. “What I have uttered must not go beyond this room,” said he in a manner of great seriousness. Another pause of several minutes ensued, and then he continued in a slow and solemn tone, “I looked at the dispatches hastily, and did not note all the particulars. General St. Clair shall have justice. I will receive him without displeasure, – he shall have full justice!” Notwithstanding his exculpation by a committee of Congress, poor St. Clair, overwhelmed with censures and reproaches, resigned his command, and was succeeded by General Wayne, whom the people had named Mad Anthony. (1219/270-271)

 

* 

ANDREWS gives us another description – of St. Clair headed north, building a fort at the site of present-day Hamilton, Ohio. He built a second fort near Greenville. 

    On November 4, his force was attacked by, 

    Joseph Brant or Thayendanegea – famed for his bloody exploits against us during the Revolution – and well-nigh annihilated. Five high officers, including Butler, were killed, and as many more sank from wounds. Cannons, guns, accoutrements, in fact the whole equipment of the army, were lost. After a four hours’ fight St. Clair, sick but brave as a tiger, horse after horse shot beneath him, part of the time carried in a litter, his gray locks streaming in the breeze, put himself at the head of the five hundred who remained unscathed, and hewed his way through the walls of savages to the rear. Six o’clock that night found the survivors back at Greenville, twenty-nine miles from the scene of carnage. Had the Indians pursued instead of stopping to mutilate the slain, every soul must have perished.

 

    The announcement of this disaster called forth in the East a universal howl of rage at the unfortunate commander. Even Washington was beside himself: “To suffer that great army to be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered, tomahawked, by a surprise – the very thing I guarded him against! O God! O God, he is worse than a murderer! How can he answer it to his country? The blood of the slain is upon him, the curse of widows and orphans, the curse of Heaven.” St. Clair came East to explain. Hobbling into Washington’s presence, he grasped his hand in both his own and sobbed. (2/275-276)

 

* 

ONE RECENT description of the battle includes the following details: 

    Pushed out of their Kentucky hunting lands and away from the Ohio River line, the Shawnees led by Blue Jacket formed a coalition with the Miami chief Little Turtle to resist further incursions into the Northwest Territories. In 1791, President Washington entrusted St. Clair, Governor of the Northwest Territory, with essentially the entire U.S. Army to break the coalition.

 

    St. Clair and his men made camp on November 3, on low, wooded ground near the Wabash River. 

    Blue Jacket’s Shawnees and warriors of the Miami, Ottawa, Delaware, Potawatomi and other nations attacked the camp at breakfast. For the confederated tribes, the battle was a tactical masterpiece. Native marksmen targeted officers and artillerymen, disrupting command structure and disabling a potentially potent weapon.

 

    When the Regulars formed up for a bayonet charge, the warriors faded back, then coalesced around the exposed unit and destroyed it.

 

    Native forces got in among the camp followers, too, and the slaughter was great: 600 killed, 300 wounded.  

Painting by Peter Dennis. Not in blogger's possession.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: In this painting the warriors of the “Miami Confederacy” seem much too far from St. Clair’s lines (tiny line of men, upper middle).

1802

 

 

__________ 

“To admit the Grecian Horse into the Citadel of our Liberty and Sovereignty.” 

Alexander Hamilton

__________ 

 

January 12: In a series of essays, published in the New York Evening Post, Alexander Hamilton, responds to President Thomas Jefferson’s message to Congress, which he had delivered in December, in written form. That written message was handed to lawmakers by Meriwether Lewis. Hamilton, under the pen name Lucius Crassus, then responded in nine parts, including VIII, regarding immigration. 

Hamilton was concerned with a proposal, put forward by the president, to admit new arrivals to immediate citizenship. The “consequences that must result from a too unqualified admission of foreigners, to an equal participation in our civil, and political rights,” he said, should give pause. 

He even used Jefferson’s own writings to make a case: 

The opinion advanced in the Notes on Virginia is undoubtedly correct, that foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity, and to its particular customs and manners. They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived, or if they should be led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism? There may as to particular individuals, and at particular times, be occasional exceptions to these remarks, yet such is the general rule. The influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities. 

 

As has always been the case, the question of immigration boiled down to how much is good, and how much is too much. As Hamilton put it, “there is a wide difference between closing the door altogether and throwing it entirely open[.]” 

Under the Alien and Sedition Acts, the period of waiting to become eligible for citizenship had been extended to fourteen years. Hamilton agreed that a period was needed “to enable aliens to get rid of foreign and acquire American attachments; to learn the principles and imbibe the spirit of our government.” Fourteen years was unnecessary. “A residence of at least five years ought to be required,” he said. 

Jefferson’s plan, if adopted, he warned, would introduce danger for the young republic. “To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens, the moment they put foot in our country, as recommended in the Message, would be nothing less, than to admit the Grecian Horse into the Citadel of our Liberty and Sovereignty.”

*

THIS might fit in anywhere, from A Popular History of Indiana. The author comes across as a good, Christian woman of her era, writing in 1891. (She advocates for temperance, for example.) 

She has this to say of traveling preachers, including those who ministered to the Native Americans: 

They, of course, shared in the hardships, trials, and privations of the early settlers, but their lot was even harder, from the fact that they were obliged to travel continually through a sparsely-settled country, carrying the gospel message to the widely-scattered settlements, and finding their way through a pathless forest by means of Indian trails and marked trees. One writer thus describes their mode of traveling: “Sleeping in the woods or on the open prairies on their saddle-blankets, cooking their coarse meals by the way, fording streams on horseback with saddle-bags and blankets lifted to their shoulders, exposed without shelter to storms, and drying their garments and blankets by the camp-fires, when no friendly cabin could be found. … In a few years they became sallow, weather-beaten and toil worn.” And “often prostrated by fevers and wasted by malaria the years of pioneer service with many were few and severe.” One good old veteran in writing to a friend said: “My horse’s joints are now skinned to his hock-joints. And I have rheumatism in all my joints. … What I have suffered in body and mind my pen is not able to communicate to you; but this I can say, while my body is wet with the water and chilled with the cold, my soul is filled with heavenly fire, and I can say with St. Paul: ‘But none of these things move me.’” (91/258-259)

 

* 

IN SIMILAR FASHION, Hendricks writes of the early pioneers: 

A story is told of one pioneer who left his clearing and started farther west because another had settled so near him that he could hear the report of his rifle; and of another, that on noticing, through the valley around him, “smoke curling in the distance, he went fifteen miles to discover its source and, finding newcomers there, quit the country in disgust.”  (91/66)

 

* 

“The spirit of revolt has taken deep hold in the minds of the slaves.” 

SHAKEN by a slave revolt in 1800,  the Virginia legislature established a regular guard for the capital, the armory, and the penitentiary. A “humane” law was passed, in the wake of the wave of executions, which granted the governor power to sell, “beyond the bounds of the United States, any slaves convicted of conspiracy or other crimes.” Jefferson suggested that slaves be sent to Sierra Leone, a colony established by Britain as a refuge for slaves removed from America during the Revolution. 

“In the future,” Ammon notes, “all slaves convicted of crimes were kept in prison until purchased by traders agreeing to remove them from the United States.”

 

Rumors of another possible slave revolt in 1802, again stirred fear in Virginia; Monroe was dubious, but did write Jefferson, admitting, “the spirit of revolt has taken deep hold in the minds of the slaves.” (24/199-200)

 

A character in Beloved explains life as a slave.

*

NOTE TO TEACHERS: I found out early in my career that middle school students loved to act. For several years, in the 1980s, I had the misfortune to be required to teach Ohio History. We had an ancient book – with some pictures showing cars from the 1940s and political leaders all wearing fedoras. At one point we found the book my colleague, Steve Ball, had used in junior high, before we changed to a middle school model. So we held an official “retirement” ceremony for the aging text and delivered it across the hall to his room, with appropriate honors. 

The main trouble, as so often was the case, was that the book lacked interest for students. I did what I could to make the subject come alive; but it was no easy task. I stumbled across an old book on the life of Johnny Appleseed. And about the same time I read some material on Mike Fink, a riverboat pirate of the same era. I managed to write up brief stories about both men and presented them to my classes. 

Initially, I was considering a creative writing assignment. Then one of my kids suggested combining the two for a skit. As always, I was intrigued – and say again that some of your best ideas will come from the kids in front of you. “Why don’t we have a Dating Game episode with the two pioneers?” 

I knew at once this would be funny. In no time, three girls volunteered to take the role of contestants. I took the two boys who had agreed to be Fink and Appleseed aside for a conference. “I want you to wear a pot on your head,” I told the boy who volunteered to play Johnny. 

“I have an old sack at home in our barn,” he said with enthusiasm – and I told him to bring it for sure. 

 I had picked the biggest, toughest looking boy in class to be Mike and we discussed his role and agreed he should bring a “whiskey bottle” to serve as a prop. 

The girls had to sit down and make up as many questions as possible to ask these two famous ladies’ men.

Mr. Appleseed.

 

Here was the opening description of John Chapman, a.k.a. Johnny Appleseed, in my reading: 

Down the road he came, often barefoot or wearing bark sandals – always ragged and worn.  His shirt might be an old coffee sack. His head-gear was a broken-down straw hat covering long, untidy hair. Or he might wear a tin pot to keep off the sun and serve his cooking needs. His possessions were few. A Bible. A bag of corn meal and a lump of salt for meals. Not much else. No gun, no horse, no money. Just a leather bag filled with seeds. Yet this was not some frontier scarecrow or pioneer hippie. This was the legendary Johnny Appleseed.

 

He didn’t look like much: but bright eyes showed in his weathered face.

 

Brief discussion of his childhood followed. Then a look at his career: 

Whenever he felt soil and sun were right he stopped to hack an opening in the forest. Chopping at small trees and brush, he cleared a space. Then he dug out roots, raked and turned the soil, and “tickled the earth” with his seeds. In went all varieties of apples – Russets, Pippins, Never-Fails, and more. Finally he made a fence of brush to keep out deer and wild animals and moved on. 

 

Whenever possible, Johnny gave seedlings to pioneer families so they might do the planting themselves. To others he gave seeds and instructions on how to handle them. Everywhere he made friends, since the apple was a key to a good diet in 1800. In pies, cider, jelly, cake, fritters and apple sauce, the fruit appeared regularly on the menu.

 

“Johnny Appleseed” was known far and wide. During the summer he helped with plowing and farm work. In return he received meals and a place to bed down. Other nights he slept outdoors where darkness found him. Often he was content to dine on half-ripe plums and wild oats. Other times he gathered a hat (pot) full of berries to eat along the way.

 

Soon it was said: “He had a friend in every person, a home under every roof in Ohio.” Many evenings were spent by firelight, reading the Bible to families that lacked schooling to read themselves. Peace-loving and kind, John discussed his ideas with all who cared to listen. To children he might give marbles or bright ribbon, or a rude [simple] toy he carved. In the fall he doubled back on his path and visited his plantings, tending to the young seedlings. Winters found him in the cider-mills of western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, gathering fresh seeds for use when spring finally returned.

 

According to Eleanor Atkinson’s book, even the natives respected Appleseed. He was a gentle, peace loving man – and tried to keep the settlers and natives from fighting.  

Because he roamed the wilderness Johnny gave up any chance for a home or family. “He could have no love but that of mankind, no children besides the tender seeds of his planting,” says Atkinson. Instead he came to find “companionship in his furred and feathered friends” of the forest. Even the apple trees were special. Johnny sometimes spoke of as if they were human. In harsh winter weather people might wonder if the young trees would survive. “They can be trusted to do their best,” the simple planter replied.

 

From his earliest travels he had studied the teachings of the Swedenborgian church. Convinced by his reading that all creatures were loved by God, John gave up eating meat, riding a horse or killing snakes and insects. If he had to make camp he positioned his fire to avoid burning even an anthill. He carried no gun to keep away wolves or men, only a supply of gunpowder to light and scare off animals.

           

I also included the story of his one true romance: 

Some say Chapman finally fell in love with a pioneer widow named Betty Varnum. We hear that he plowed 150 miles through deep snow and high winds one terrible winter. For Johnny feared that Mrs. Varnum and her family would need his help. Even severe frostbite could not stop him. But he arrived too late. Sickness had claimed Betty’s life. 

 

That winter her family found poor Appleseed “lying cold and senseless on Betty’s grave.” Johnny had placed a good red cloak over the ground where she was buried. And we can imagine that tears were frozen upon his cheeks. His hair turned white and he began to treat the trees even more lovingly. Somehow he was convinced they could feel the pain when he pruned [cut back] their branches.

 

Fink was nothing more than criminal scum. The counterpoint to peace-loving Appleseed could not have any more stark. Even as an infant, I noted, he refused milk and demanded whiskey! 

Here we describe his brawling ways: 

  In the rough frontier world, and a rougher business, Fink feared no man and answered to no law but his desire. “I’m a regular tornado,” he warned, “and can strike a blow like a falling tree.” Powerfully built, he had a handshake like a “blacksmith’s vice.” One witness compared him to a grizzly bear in clothes. Another says he stood six feet tall. A third puts his size at 5’ 9,” 180 pounds. 

 

At any height or weight, Mike was ALL DANGER to those who roused his anger.  For he enjoyed a good fight: “to stretch these here limbs and git the jint [joints] to working easy,” he once explained. “I can out-run, out-jump, out-shoot, out-brag, out-drink, and out-fight, rough and tumble, any man on both sides of the river,” he bellowed when he entered a bar. And fool it was who disagreed! “If any man dare doubt it,” he growled, “I’ll be in his hair quicker than hell can scorch a feather.”

 

Fink was particularly good at “rough and tumble” combat, fighting without rules or limit.  Such contests ended when one man hollered, “enough.” The damage could be terrible. It was not uncommon for men to gouge out eyes or bite off pieces of an enemy’s lip, nose or ear.  Some fighters wore metal fingers known as “devil’s claws.” Attached to the hand, they helped rake great cuts across an opponent’s face. The winner won the privilege of wearing a red feather in his hat; and Mike was champion of many such brawls.

 

(In a footnote I included these additional details: A. B. Hulbert described the damage done in one fight. Combined, the two contestants suffered: two eyes out, a nose clipped off close to the face, one lower lip torn away and two heads with hair ripped out in patches. As the words in bold, above, I always highlighted terms in my readings, if I thought many students wouldn’t know what they meant.)

 

Then we turned to Mike’s “way with women.” 

Surprisingly, Fink also had a reputation as a “lady’s man,” and girlfriends along the river. He could be tough with women, too, especially when he had been drinking – which was almost always. As Mike explained, “Thar’s nuthing like whiskey for taking the cobwebs out o’ a feller’s throat.” Sometimes he carried lady friends along on his boat. Then he watched their every move. He enjoyed making his “girls” put tin cups filled with whiskey on their heads. Then this “William Tell of marksmen on land” would put a bullet through the cup, without mussing a hair.  Sometimes, for variety, he made the poor woman hold the cup between her knees!

 

One time, Fink threatened to shoot his girl “Peg” (or, some say, his wife), for flirting with other men. Forcing her to lie in a pile of leaves, he carved up scraps of wood and covered her up. Then he set the leaves on fire at each corner. Peg stood it as long as she could. “But it soon became too hot, and she made a run for the river, her hair and clothing all on fire. In a few seconds she reached the water and plunged in, rejoiced to know she had escaped both fire and [his] rifle so well.” 

 

Mike only shouted after her: “There, that’ll larn [learn] you to be winkin’ at them fellers on the other boat.”

 

Two days later the students were ready – and they were fabulous in almost every class. In one class John W., playing Johnny, brought three apples to give his questioners. It was a nice touch and one he thought of entirely on his own. The girls had good questions ready, too. 

“Johnny, what would we do on a first date?” one asked. 

“Well, I like to go out in the woods and talk to the squirrels. That’s always fun,” he answered.  

Mike usually scoffed at such replies and made fun of Appleseed, the pioneer wimp. “I’d take you drinking, ladies, and maybe shot cups off your head if I liked you enough,” he explained with a leer. 

“Have you ever been married – or are you involved in any long relationship now,” asked the next girl. 

Johnny had to explain the tragic death of Betty Varnum and how he lay sadly on her grave in the cold.  

Mike tried answering the same question. “I had a woman once, named Peg, but she got to lookin’ at them other fellers. So I forced her to lie down in a pile of leaves and then set the pile on fire. She weren’t hurt none. She jumped up and ran to the river and jumped in. But that taught her a lesson!” 

The next question might be about Johnny’s views on violence. How did each man make a living? What was the most romantic thing they had ever done? Johnny might interject, “If you go out with me, I’ll let you wear my pot!” Or Mike might growl, “I’ll let you steer my keelboat, so long’s ya don’t be winkin’ at them other men.”  

This was a skit that almost always worked and was almost always fun. I admit, in this case, I was trying to come up with something in Ohio History that I considered interesting and fun. 

 

* 

ANOTHER description of the career of John Chapman can be found in a schoolbook, Ohio Supplement: Wayland’s History (1929). 

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” This is a saying you have often heard. A man who never heard this saying at all did wonderful work in giving Ohio thousands of apple trees. This man was known as Johnny Appleseed, although his real name was John Chapman. The name that people gave to him was much better, because it told the story of his work. He was a queer man in many ways and people never quite understood him, but everybody loved him for the good he did.

 

On his first visit to Ohio he came floating down the Ohio River in two canoes that he had fastened together. These canoes were piled full of sacks of apple seeds. He had gathered the seeds at cider mills in Pennsylvania. He loved growing things and he loved people. He thought that by planting these seeds in this new western country he could help the settlers.

 

He wandered over Ohio and the states west of us for many years. His leather sack of seeds was always with him. Whenever he found a good spot along a stream, he planted some of his seeds. He fenced the place in with brush to protect the young trees which would soon begin to shoot up. Johnny had hundreds of these spots in Ohio. Year after year he came back to tend them. He was so well liked by both Indians and white settlers that no one ever bothered his young trees. When the trees were large enough to be transplanted he sold them to the settlers. He never charged very much for them, often taking old clothes for his pay. His usual price was five cents.

 

Johnny Appleseed loved trees but he loved all kinds of wild animals, too. He never hurt a wild thing except once. A snake bit him and in a sudden fit of anger he killed it. He was sorry ever after for this act.

 

A man with such a good heart was naturally loved by all the settlers. They were glad to have him come and stay with them. He was very religious and he talked with the pioneers about religion and worship. He also brought them news from the other places where he had been. People gave him letters to carry to their friends. Boys and girls liked to hear his stories. So he was loved for many reasons.

 

But the leather sack of seeds was the thing that meant the most. Johnny Appleseed will never be forgotten in Ohio.