John Chapman/Johnny Appleseed

[jenzie]

I had no idea "Johnny Appleseed" was a vegetarian! Seems like he was a pretty cool guy. ;)

"His lifestyle and preferences were completely opposite the norms of frontier life. He was a vegetarian. He preferred to sleep outdoors and avoided towns and settlements. He thought it cruel to ride a horse, chop down a tree, or kill a rattlesnake. The stories go on. The settlers viewed these attitudes as preposterous and outrageous but amusing as hell."

"His kindness to animals was well known, even notorious, and often contrary to frontier custom. He often used his profits to purchase lame horses to save them from slaughter. He once freed a wolf he found snared in a trap, nursing it to health and then keeping it as a pet. There is an endless stream of amusing stories about Johnny Appleseed showing mercy to animals such as rattlesnakes or yellow-jackets."

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mjappleseed.html

[Emiloid]

CoooooOOOOOoooool! :cool:

[Emiloid]

That's weird... I was going to start a thread about this, but I did a search and found out I already knew! Sort of. :p

Anyway, my first graders were reading about Johnny Appleseed this week, and I noticed some hints from the story that he might have been a vegetarian. Something like "the animals knew he was a friend..." and "the Native Americans showed him how to find good food--berries and plants."

I looked it up and sure enough, he was a vegetarian! He was also kind of an interesting person... pretty eccentric, especially for back then. He walked barefoot, even in winter. He wore a cooking pot for a hat. He spared the lives of rattlesnakes and yellow-jackets. He cared for abandoned horses and cattle. He never ate meat. In fact, he had doubts about eating plants, since they had once been living things. When asked to help a sick cow, he got the feeling that the cow had been mistreated, and walked off with her, despite the rancher's protests! Basically, he was a true vegetarian. These days, he no doubt would have been a vegan.

He was a bit odd in some other ways, but it sounds like in general he was a really compassionate, interesting person.

[mamaquilla]

Awsome!