From “Johnny Appleseed Helped Spread Alcohol Across America“:
“Johnny Appleseed was not carrying the possibility of eating apples; his mission was something quite different and more mature than Disney’s 1948 movie version. Far from being the American Saint Francis, John Chapman turned out to be the American Dionysus. No wonder everyone was glad to see him coming down the western roads! ‘The reason people … wanted John Chapman to stay and plant a nursery was the same reason he would soon be welcome in every cabin in Ohio,’ [Michael] Pollan writes [in The Botany of Desire]. ‘Johnny Appleseed was bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier.’
Read the full article: Here