Ballad Of Johnny Appleseed Lyrics

In the great Ohio Valley

The old farmers tell a story

That their fathers told to them

All the way back to 1840

The story of a ghost

That sings above the rustling trees

And the farmers know the name for him

Johnny Appleseed

He was born John Chapman

And his brother was Nathaniel

From a farm in Massachusetts

They lit out for Pennsylvania

And he told his brother

All about his dream

Nat, someday they'll have a name for me

Johnny Appleseed

REFRAIN

Apple seeds, take and sow them

Apple seeds, take and grow them

They will bring you in good time

Summer pies and Autumn wine

Is that coffee that you're brewing, my good lady?

And he gathered up his treasure

At the cider mills round Pittsburgh

He packed them into buckskin sacks

So he could barely lift'em

Then he lashed together two birch bark canoes

And he bid Nathaniel fair-thee-well

And Nat bid him adieu

His voice sang o'er the waters

And it made the settlers shiver

As they fished along the banks

Of the great Ohio River

As he paddled up the branching streams

Through the marshes and the reeds

He would call his name out loud and clear

Johnny Appleseed

(REFRAIN)

Then he slung his pack across his back

And on his head a tin pot

And he wandered through the forests wild

Seeking out the right spots

“There's going to be an orchard here someday,”

He'd say to all the squirrels

“Don't take these seeds away!”

One day he found a trading post

Where trappers bartered fur skins

And he traded fists of apple seeds

For a bony horse named Hawkins

And lying nearby in the weeds

Was a wolf pup in a bear trap

Crying, “Johnny Appleseed!”

Well, he opened up that trap

Made a splint and bound his leg up

Then they hit the road together

Johnny, Hawkins, and the wolf pup

The power of apples was their only creed

And his name and fame spread far and near

He was Johnny Appleseed

(REFRAIN)

So they journeyed through the forests

Down the valleys, along rivers

And they witnessed the arrival

Of the potters and the weavers

The blacksmiths and the carpenters all came

To this vast and fastly growing land

To conquer and to tame

In the spring of 1845

At an Indiana farmhouse

He slept up in a hay loft

Where a barn cat chased a field mouse

And his soul that night did softly slip away

While the birds sang all the whole night through

At least that's what they say

Now his spirit haunts the valley

Of the great Ohio River

As he brews his coffee o'er a fire

Some still can feel the shiver

As he sings above the rustling of the trees

You can hear the wind a-whispering

Johnny Appleseed