John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman

The famed American nurseryman, Johnny Appleseed, is credited with planting the first apple trees in several regions of the United States. He was taught the basics of farming by his father and, by the 1800s, made an indelible impact on the cultivation of apple trees across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and present-day Ontario.

Johnny’s kind and generous nature, his conservation efforts, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples earned him a legendary status even during his lifetime. By the time of his death, he had accumulated ownership of more than 1,200 acres of land, as permitted by the laws at the time.