According to legend, Johnny Appleseed wandered the Midwestern frontier in the 1800s with a tin pot on his head and nothing on his feet, scattering apple seeds from a sack and winning over settlers and Indigenous peoples alike with his joie de vivre. It all sounds too far-fetched to be real, but unlike Paul Bunyan — another celebrated frontiersman said to have wielded his axe in a similar time and place — Johnny Appleseed’s legend is rooted in truth. Though there are few established fact...
