Exhibit On Real Johnny Appleseed Will Hit The Road

LISA CORNWELL, Associated Press

CINCINNATI (AP) — An anonymous donation has helped plant a new project for an Ohio center dedicated to the life and works of American folk hero Johnny Appleseed.

It will help fund a traveling exhibit to tell the story of John Chapman, the man behind the legend.

The director of the Johnny Appleseed Educational Center and Museum at Urbana University in western Ohio wants people around the country to know the real Chapman. Director Cheryl Ogden says people should know more than the myths and folklore depicting him wearing a pot for a hat and flinging apple seeds around the frontier.

The missionary and nurseryman in the late 18th and early 19th centuries is credited with introducing apple trees to portions of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and West Virginia.

Chapman died in 1845 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where a grave marker stands on land where he is believed to be buried.