Apples in Vermont and Beyond

By Jennie Shurtleff

 Apples were introduced to the New World in the 1630s, when they were brought along with a variety of other cuttings and seeds from Europe by settlers. Once here, apples quickly became a mainstay in the American diet.

The man who is most often credited with having accelerated the spread of apples in the late 18th and early 19th centuries is John Chapman, who later became known colloquially as Johnny Appleseed. Chapman was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, on September 26, 1774. He first started planting apples around 1798 in the Allegheny Valley of Pennsylvania. Later, as he traveled west, just ahead of the throngs of pioneers, he continued to plant orchards.

While he undoubtedly planted the orchards because he enjoyed tending the trees and wanted the pioneers in his wake to have established apple orchards to help them through the lean, early years of settlement, Chapman also was likely motivated by his own entrepreneurial aspirations. In some areas of the Western territory, if one planted an orchard on unclaimed land, one would be able to claim ownership of that land. By planting his plots of apples and then returning to tend the orchards for a couple years, Chapman was able to acquire title to vast quantities of land, which he later sold at a profit to settlers who followed in his wake as the frontier began to be settled. At the time of his death, Chapman owned about 1,200 acres of land.

Unlike most people today who start orchards by planting grafted trees, Chapman created his orchards by planting apple seeds that he had gathered from the discarded pulp at cider mills in the East. Apple trees grown from seeds do not usually develop into the same varieties as their parent stock.  It is hit or miss whether you will get a palatable eating apple, and in most cases, you don’t. In contrast, when a graft is placed on the root stock of another plant, the apples that are grown from the graft will have the same qualities as the plant from which the graft was taken.

Why did Chapman use seeds instead of grafts? First, out of pragmatism; seeds were less perishable and smaller and easier to carry than cuttings. Second, Chapman was part of the Swedenborgian Church which believed that grafting, which involved harvesting scions or cuttings from the trees, caused plants to suffer, and therefore should be avoided. The Swedenborgian Church also preached that God had made things as they should be.  

This image (circa 1300-1500) shows that grafting has been practiced for hundreds of years.

While Swedenborgian doctrines on which Chapman was raised may have preached that “God has made all things for good,” the reality was that most of the trees that Chapman planted did not produce great quality eating apples. Instead, most were small in size, and their bitter, tart taste earned them the name “spitters.” However, while they were poor quality eating apples, Chapman’s apples were well-suited for making hard cider, and in the 1800s, hard cider was the beverage of choice in many areas. It was imbibed more heavily than beer, wine, and juice. In fact, in many areas it was even more popular than water, because it was relatively easy to make, and it was much safer to drink than the water which could be laden with dangerous bacteria.

Johnny Appleseed was not the only one interested in apples. Henry Swan Dana, in his History of Woodstock relates that many people in the Woodstock area started raising apples and building cider mills as soon as they moved to the area. One such settler was Jonathan Farnsworth, who purchased part of the Apthorp Tract in South Woodstock, cleared an area, planted a “nursery” or orchard, and then left. He returned the following year to live in Woodstock, with a nursery that had already been started.

Farnsworth interest in apples went beyond simply trying to raise them and included attempts to improve upon them. According to Dana, Farnsworth was “a great apple-tree man, and in carrying out his fancy in this direction, he experimented some years to make apple-trees grow the wrong side up, so as to produce fruit without seeds and cores. Once he set two scions he was certain were of the kind he was endeavoring to produce. These scions did not bar flowers for years. Finally they blossomed, and a few apples matured, long and slim, with two cores instead of one, after which further experiment in this direction was given up.”

This map shows the two Apthorp tracts in Woodstock.

The one on which Jonathan Farnsworth settled is in the lower right corner of the map.

Apthorp’s land was confiscated and sold after he was accused of being sympathetic to the British during the Revolutionary War.

Charles Morris Cobb became a professional musician. The above photo shows Cobb with one of the many bands in which Charles Morris Cobb played. Cobb is shown in the back row on the left.

Another person interested in improving the quality of apples in the area was Gaius Cobb. Based on the diary entries of his young son, Charles Morris Cobb, Gaius Cobb, who was a farmer and shoemaker by trade, spent far too much time fooling around grafting apples both himself and his neighbors. Years later, however, when Charles saw the “fruits” of his father’s labor, Charles appears to have reconsidered his remarks made as a youngster, realizing that his father’s grafting efforts largely paid for his musical training which launched him into a career as a professional musician.

Given his interest in grafting and raising high quality apples, it is not surprising that Gauis Cobb was also interested in various varieties. His grafting efforts included Northern Spies, Roxbury Russets, New York Pippins, Lemon Pippins, Mass Baldwins, Pumpkin Sweets, Fall Pippins, Sweet Russets, Blue Pearmains, Harveys, Morgan’s Winter Sweets, Morgan’s Early Sweets, Summer Sweetings, Golden Sweets, Henpeckeds, and Rhode Island Greenings.

While many of the apples were harvested and then processed and pressed into cider, others were pared, sliced, threaded and hung from the ceiling to dry. As one can imagine hanging apples to dry could lead to the apples collecting dust and potentially mold and bacteria. However, before the apples were eaten, the dust could be rinsed off and then the apples reconstituted by boiling them in a bit of water over a stove, which helped to kill off any potential pathogens that might have been growing.

Dehydrating apples by stringing them to dry was no small task. During the months of September and October of 1852, many of Charles Cobb’s diary entries, record that he was either helping his father by picking and drawing apples, or that he was helping his mother by paring, slicing, and drying them. Charles’s mother had been ill that year, and Charles wrote in one diary entry, “If I work hard, I may possibly dry apples enough to balance Mother's Doctor's Bill.  Last year we hadn't any to dry, but in 1849 Mother & I dried & sold between 50 & 60 lbs.”

Ultimately, the Cobbs ended up having a bumper crop in 1852. While some of the dried apples were saved for the family’s use, most were sold in town. Charles notes that “Mother carried down 100 lbs. of dried apples & got $4.50 for 'em in store pay.  Took a looking-glass $1, -- earthen milk-pans, some window curtains & so on.  She saved out 24 lbs.” If Charles was disappointed with the trade of so many hours of his work being spent on a mirror, some pottery milk pans, some curtains, etc, he didn’t mention it. In many farm families, everyone — including children— were expected to work for the good of the family.

As with many apple growers, some of the Cobb’s crop was made into cider at the neighbor’s cider mill. In November of 1952, Charles notes that they made about twenty barrels of cider (each containing 36-40 gallons) from their 210 bushels of apples that they took to the cider mill. Charles indicates that the amount of cider was not particularly good given the number of apples, blaming it on the cheeses (ground apple pulp pressed with straw into a mass that resembles a wheel of cheese) being frozen by November when they were trying to press the cheeses to make the cider. Of the cider made, most was sold or traded, and only 4 barrels were retained by the Cobb family and placed in their cellar.

In addition to drying apples and pressing them for cider that year, Charles’ father also saved out 10 bushels of apples to feed to the cattle. The Cobb’s pig fared somewhat better, as Charles notes, “Father & I bro't down a barrel of striped winter apples, 1 1/2 bushels sweet to pare and 9 b. sweet for the pig -- took back the waggon and picked 6 b. more of sweet for the pig.  Put the pig apples in the old room at N.W. corner of the house.” One can only imagine that the pig was happy to have 15 bushels of apples set aside for it to eat, although it is likely that those apples saved for the cattle and pig were probably low-quality apples that didn’t lend themselves to other uses.

Given their many uses — as a food, beverage, basis for trade, and a food for animals — it is not surprising that apples were one of the first plants that settlers on the frontier wished to establish or that Henry David Thoreau should remark, "It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man."