Melissa M. Cybulski
Johnny Appleseed’s Revolutionary Childhood
He has become mythologized as Johnny Appleseed, the man who spread apples throughout the developing west, but his origins begin right here in Massachusetts. Born in September 1774, just months before the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Johnny’s entire childhood and adolescence were shaped by the events of the American Revolution. This presentation will focus on his father, Captain Nathaniel Chapman’s, and his contributions to the war efforts from Bunker Hill to the Springfield Arsenal. Cybulski will also examine how the Connecticut River Valley town of Longmeadow, Massachusetts provided a backdrop to the captain’s family struggles in the post-war economy – as well as reveal an intriguing clue about Captain Chapman’s involvement in Shay’s Rebellion.
Melissa M. Cybulski is a local historian, museum guide, and author based in Western Massachusetts. As Vice-President of the Longmeadow Historical Society, she has done extensive research, writing, and presenting on a variety of topics of import to her community’s history particularly as they relate to the untold stories of women, children, and the enslaved. Most notably, Cybulski has partnered with UMass-Amherst for their Documenting Early Black Lives in the Connecticut River Valley project which led to a collaboration between the Witness Stones Project and the Longmeadow Public Schools. In April 2024, she published her first book, a middle-readers novel called Appleseeds: A Boy Named Johnny Chapman, about the Massachusetts childhood of the boy who would become famous as Johnny Appleseed. Her other professional passion is the 19th century world of poet, Emily Dickinson, and she has been a museum guide and researcher at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst since 2017.
