The Real Johnny Appleseed was SUPER WEIRD (and Pretty Cool)
Ridiculous History
iHeartPodcasts
4.2 • 4.7K Ratings
🗓️ 16 June 2026
⏱️ 53 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
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Summary
For a lot grade-school kids in the States, the story of Johnny Appleseed is a modern American myth. The story centers on a quixotic, wandering nomad that (for some reason) is cartoonishly centered on planting apple trees all throughout the newly-minted US. So... how much of this Americana is true? In today's episode, Ben, Max and Noel uncover the true story of an *extremely eccentric* guy named John Chapman, who did indeed make a living planting a ton of apple trees across the Midwest -- but not the kind of apples you're thinking of, and not for the reasons you might imagine. Spoiler, much later, the FBI gets involved.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ridiculous History is a production of IHeart Radio. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. |
| 0:29.6 | Thank you, as always so much for tuning in. |
| 0:32.6 | Let's hear it for our own American piece of mythology, our super producer, Mr. Max Williams. |
| 0:40.0 | Woo-hoo. |
| 0:40.9 | A real American hero. |
| 0:44.7 | Just so. |
| 0:46.0 | That's Mr. Noel Brown. |
| 0:47.6 | They call me Ben Bullen here for tax purposes. |
| 0:51.5 | And that's your government name? |
| 0:53.5 | It's a government's name for a person. |
| 0:57.2 | For you? |
| 0:58.1 | You were assigned this name by a government at birth. |
| 1:02.0 | Where are you even from, man? |
| 1:03.6 | What's your whole deal? |
| 1:05.0 | All right. |
| 1:06.1 | Well, we all become myths over time, right? |
| 1:09.6 | In our own minds, at least. |
| 1:12.0 | So if you were a grade school kid in the U.S., then you inevitably, sometime in your |
| 1:19.2 | early years, you hear made up stories about folks like George Washington. |
| 1:25.0 | You might hear about folks like Pagos Bill. |
| 1:27.5 | Paul Bunyan. Paul Bunyan. |
| 1:28.4 | Paul Bunyan's a great one or Daniel Boone. |
... |
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