Sowing Seeds... A Lakewood Parable About TWO Early Settlers

You can't miss it if you've ever attended any event at the Lakewood High School Civic Auditorium. I'm referring to Viktor Schreckengost's compelling sculpture of John Chapman (also known as "Johnny Appleseed") kneeling above the doors of that facility. The sculpture has been used as a logo for the Lakewood Schools ever since its inception.

When the auditorium was completed in 1954, the Lakewood School Board decided to call the sculpture by the more generic name "Early Settler" in honor of Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland, the famous physician, scientist, and naturalist upon whose land the high school grounds were built. An interesting component of that decision reportedly involved a feeling that Johnny Appleseed's representation was just too "eccentric" for the Board's tastes. The particular thought processes involved with that decision can only be guessed at, but in those ultra-conservative 1950's, that's what happened.

That was really too bad, in a way, because naturally, nobody was fooled. The statue was indeed Johnny Appleseed, and everybody knew it, no matter what it had been officially named.

Ever since first seeing that beautiful terra cotta sculpture, I've been fascinated and inspired by the story of John Chapman. To me, there has been no finer example of an American for us to emulate. Chapman had been a Swedenborgian preacher and a rambling nurseryman. Born in Massachusetts in 1774, as a teenager he traveled westward to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois sowing seeds, planting apple trees, and spreading a very radical and simple Christ-like message of love, simplicity, austerity, and unselfish service to others.

Often wearing only rags and walking hundreds of miles while barefoot, Chapman amazingly lived a long life of about 70 years, wandering from place to place, and even remaining here in this area for a time shortly before his passing away. He never married, and although he apparently owned hundreds of acres of land in different places, he never chose to appreciate, nor capitalize on, the notion of personal wealth. It's not even certain where he was finally buried. John loved animals too, and once even reportedly extinguished his campfire so that mosquitoes (who after all, were also God's creatures, in his eyes) should not die in the flames as a result of something that he did.

Yes, I can easily see where a public school Board might have thought that such a caring and gentle spiritual soul like John's might have been simply too eccentric... back in those atomic bomb-rattling, commie-hunting, stiff-shirted 1950's. Of course, the fact that Chapman had also been a Christian preacher might also have weighed into the Board's thinking, as the courts at that time were kicking God out of the schools faster than if He had been caught smoking under the bleachers.

But, as always, the truth has a way of coming out. Generations of Lakewood students have known the sculpture to be that of Johnny Appleseed. The students might not have ever known, nor particularly cared, whether or not John had been a preacher, but they certainly knew that planting seeds for the future (whether real or symbolic) was a good thing indeed. It certainly never took much of a stretch of imagination for them to realize that they indeed represented that critical living metaphor of the tender young sapling that Chapman was holding in his hands above their doorway. That LHS sculpture was even faithfully reproduced on many of Lakewood High School's class rings over the years, and therefore continues to serve to inspire countless Lakewood High graduates all over the world, as they create and nourish even more tender young saplings of their own.

Chapman may have taken his seed planting inspiration from that well-known parable in the Bible, where Jesus spoke about a farmer who sowed some seeds. Of all the seeds that farmer dropped, some fell by the way side, and were eaten by birds. Other seeds fell among the stones, and withered away when they started to grow, because they had no roots to hold them in place. Some seeds fell among the thorns, and the thorns choked them out. And then of course, there's the happy ending part...where some seeds fell onto the good earth, where they grew and grew... and brought forth many times their original number.

Of course, the famous and distinguished Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland was another great sower of seeds right here in Lakewood (then Rockport), and his pioneering agricultural and scientific work probably helped to improve the bountiful harvests of our nation and world in the years that would come (although the good Doctor looked very little like that sculpture of ours). I'm also considering doing a column exclusively about him in the near future. His life is equally as amazing as Chapman's, if not more so. It would not be too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that that these two men might have even known each other back then!

So...who do you think that "Early Settler" sculpture best represents, Johnny or Jared? Either way, here's the inscription below that the Board put at the entrance to the Civic way back in 1954. One way or the other, I think that you would probably agree with me that the students of Lakewood have a couple of exemplary role models helping to measure the pulse of their city.

EARLY SETTLER

On this site a century ago
Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland
Lakewood’s noted naturalist
through ingenuity and courage
successfully sowed seeds
of agriculture of science –
the glory of the Ohio settler

In this building
Lakewood Civic Auditorium
Let us sow seeds of culture –
of speech – of drama –
of song – that all who enter will
reap a harvest from ideas
which are planted here

Read More on Pulse of the City
Volume 6, Issue 5, Posted 8:25 AM, 03.10.2010