John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, was born in Leominster to Elizabeth and Nathanial Chapman on September 26, 1774, and the family lived on what is now Johnny Appleseed Lane near this site. Nathanial Chapman answered the alarm on April 19, 1775, marched with Captain John Joslin's company to Concord, then to Cambridge Common, where he joined General Washington's Continental Army. John's mother Elizabeth died of tuberculosis before he was two years old. He lived in Leominster until age six, then moved with his family to Longmeadow after his father's second marriage. About 1797 he began his western pilgrimage. Though often portrayed as a deranged wanderer wearing a tin pot for a hat who scattered apple seeds in Ohio and Indiana, he was in fact a practical pioneer orchardist and astute nurseryman who planted orchards and sold or gave trees to pioneers. White settlers accepted him as an eccentric, and Indians regarded him as a medicine man because he grew and distributed herbs to them that still grow wild near his old nurseries. A deeply religious follower of Emmanuel Swedenborg, he became a self-appointed missionary who shared religious tracts and the Bible with settlers, who listened in awe to his interpretations. During the War of 1812 he saved countless lives by serving as a peacemaker between Indians and settlers. After nearly fifty wilderness winters lived in peace and harmony with the land, he died in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on March 18, 1845. As an itinerant preacher as well as a planter of apple trees, he spread what were called seeds of love through much of the Midwest. Walt Disney's 1948 release Melody Time gave Johnny Appleseed worldwide recognition as an American folk hero.