In 1806, John Chapman began his journey down the Ohio River. As he paddled, with his bag of seeds, Chapman would begin the journey that ultimately changed his name and the rural landscape of the Midwest. And he would enter into American mythology known by seeds in the bag he carried, Johnny Appleseed.

Today, many of us think of Chapman as a frontier legend, like Paul Bunyan and his blue ox. But Chapman was not only real person with a large extended family (after his mother died of consumption, his father married a widow with 10 children), he also had a business plan.

He didn’t just wander spreading apple seeds here and there. Instead, Chapman planted nurseries, building fences around them to protect the saplings from deer and livestock and worked out deals where neighbors sold the trees on a share system, often in exchange for corn meal, cash or used clothing.