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STATE HISTORICAL MARKERS
~ VENANGO COUNTY ~

JOHNNY APPLESEED - Dedicated September 26, 1982 and located at 13th St. and Franklin Avenue in Franklin.

John Chapman, an actual person as well as a folk hero, lived nearby along French Creek between 1797 and 1804. Records indicated he had a nursery there and one near Warren, Pa., before moving on to Ohio. Born 1774 in Massachusetts, he died in Indiana, 1845.

John Chapman appears on early trading records in Franklin. In the federal census of 1801, a John Chapman is reported in the 'between 26 and 55' age group. In 1804 he signed two promissory notes in Franklin.

It was his goal, not to create vast orchards of his own, but rather to grow the trees to a sufficient size where they could be sold or given away to other settlers.

Carolee K. Michener, author of Franklin, A Place in History, writes in her book, " The real story of his life is frequently lost in the fictionalized accounts which have come from the imaginations of several writers. But John Chapman was a real person and he had a number of distinctive characteristics, an individualism which was found in varying degrees in many who pioneered settlements on the frontier."

Donated by Penny Haylett Minnick
pictures Penny Haylett Minnick