Honey Tree Orchard & ApiaryCedar Bluff, Virginia

From the Living Museum

Campfield

Origin
New Jersey, early 19th century or earlier
Era
Early 1800s or earlier
Type / use
Cider
Planted in the orchardGrafted, planting April 2027
Campfield apple: watercolor labelled “Canfield” from William Coxe’s manuscript atlas of fruits
The painting is labelled “Canfield”, an old spelling of Campfield. Illustration: watercolor by William Coxe's daughters, William Coxe manuscript atlas of fruits (New Jersey, c. 1810–1831). Public domain; scan by the USDA National Agricultural Library via Internet Archive (cropped). All image credits

From the ArchiveFilm

Watch its story

The Harrison’s Partner

A short narrated history of Campfield, told through the archive illustrations of our apple collection.

Illustrations: William Coxe, A View of the Cultivation of Fruit Trees (1817), and a watercolor by William Coxe’s daughters, Coxe manuscript atlas of fruits (c. 1810–31), National Agricultural Library (public domain). Narrated with a synthetic voice.

Watch on YouTube

History & Stories

American cider apple valued for its high tannin and sugar. Historically important in the Mid-Atlantic cider tradition. Unique as a surviving representative of the once-extensive American cider-apple culture that largely disappeared with Prohibition and the rise of dessert varieties.

Folklore & Name

Historic cider apple from eastern New Jersey, also called Newark Sweeting 1. Named after a local Campfield family 3; Newark cider makers ground it half and half with Harrison 1.

Digging into the History

Below my own notes, here is what the old fruit books and today’s collections record about this apple, kept apart from the stories people tell.

What we know

Campfield, also called Newark Sweeting, was the Harrison's partner in the cider mills of northern New Jersey. William Coxe wrote in 1817 that it was "next in reputation as a cider fruit to the Harrison; and is usually mixed with that apple in equal portions when ground." Its cider was "very strong and highly flavoured, yielding fourteen quarts of spirit from a barrel," and sold for "about a dollar per barrel less than the Harrison" 1. A.J. Downing called it "another capital New Jersey cider apple, ranking next to the Harrison," also good for baking and for feeding livestock 2.

S.A. Beach's The Apples of New York (1905) says it "originated in Eastern New Jersey and named after a family by the name of Campfield." By then he thought it "fast becoming obsolete," because few people wanted a sweet cider apple 3. The UK National Fruit Collection's register records it from 1817 in eastern New Jersey 4.

What we think: stories & traditions

A blending apple. Campfield was valued for what it added to a blend more than on its own. Newark's cider makers ground it half and half with Harrison 1, a recipe that made the area's cider famous.

A family name. Beach and Coxe say only that it was named for a local family 3,1. Who they were, and whose farm the first tree stood on, went unrecorded.

Sources

  1. William Coxe, A View of the Cultivation of Fruit Trees (Philadelphia: M. Carey and Son, 1817), "No. 84. Campfield, or Newark Sweeting," pp. 149–150. archive.org/details/viewofcultivatio00coxerich/page/149
  2. A.J. Downing, The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America (New York: J. Wiley, 1869 printing), "Campfield," p. 226. archive.org/details/cu31924050513989/page/226
  3. S.A. Beach, The Apples of New York, Vol. 1 (Albany: J.B. Lyon, 1905), "Campfield," p. 91. archive.org/details/applesofnewyork01beaciala/page/91
  4. UK National Fruit Collection, "Campfield" (register entry). www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?id=943&fruit=apple

Curious about Campfield?

Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.