Honey Tree Orchard & ApiaryCedar Bluff, Virginia

From the Living Museum

Grimes Golden

Origin
Brooke County, West Virginia; found on Thomas Grimes's land, bearing by 1802–1804
Era
c. 1802–1804
Type / use
Dessert
Planted in the orchard
Grimes Golden apple, watercolor by Deborah Griscom Passmore (1905)
Painting by Deborah Griscom Passmore, 1905. USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection (POM00002199), public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons. All image credits

From the ArchiveFilm

Watch its story

Too Good for Aught Else

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

Illustrations: Mary Daisy Arnold (1928) and Deborah Griscom Passmore (1905), USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection, National Agricultural Library (public domain). Narrated with a synthetic voice.

Watch on YouTube

History & Stories

Medium yellow fruit with crisp, juicy, spicy-aromatic flesh carrying distinctive pear-drop or spicy notes. Unique as a classic American dessert apple of the highest reputation and as an important parent in the ancestry of later varieties (including, by some accounts, the Golden Delicious line). Excellent keeper.

Folklore & Name

Found by Thomas Grimes on his land in Brooke County, West Virginia, in the early 1800s; the original tree stood until 1905 3,4. Classic American dessert apple; important in the ancestry of later varieties. Name commemorates the raiser or early grower.

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

Grimes Golden comes from Brooke County in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. S.A. Beach's The Apples of New York (1905) says that fruit from the original tree "was sold to the New Orleans traders as long ago as 1804" 1. The UK National Fruit Collection credits Thomas Grimes of Brooke County and says it was first known in 1804 2. A state historical marker near Wellsburg says the first tree was discovered by the landowner, Thomas Grimes, in 1802 3.

e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia records that the original tree bore for more than a hundred years and still had fruit on it when a storm brought it down in 1905. Pieces of the trunk became gavels for the state agricultural society, and another piece went to West Virginia University 4. A memorial watering trough was placed at the site in 1922 3. Beach called the fruit "beautiful rich golden-yellow," excellent for dessert or cooking 1.

The competing accounts

  • S.A. Beach, 1905 1: apples off the first tree were being sold to traders bound for New Orleans by 1804.
  • UK National Fruit Collection 2: Thomas Grimes of Brooke County; first known in 1804.
  • State historical marker near Wellsburg 3: the landowner, Thomas Grimes, found the first tree in 1802.
  • Local legend, as reported by e-WV 4: the tree grew from a seed sown by Johnny Appleseed.

Most likely (our judgment, not a certainty): a Brooke County, West Virginia, seedling on Thomas Grimes's land, bearing by 1802–1804. The written sources agree within two years of each other. The Johnny Appleseed story has no record behind it.

What we think: stories & traditions

Johnny Appleseed's tree? (legend) e-WV notes a local legend that John Chapman, "Johnny Appleseed," sowed the seed that became the first tree 4. It is a lovely idea, but there is no record to prove it.

Grandparent of Golden Delicious? (theory) e-WV says Grimes Golden "is thought to be a parent" of Golden Delicious, the other famous yellow apple from West Virginia 4. It is a widely held view, but we treat it as a theory.

Down the river to New Orleans. Imagine barrels of golden apples floating down the Ohio and the Mississippi on flatboats in the first years of the 1800s. Beach's note about the New Orleans traders 1 tells us this apple was earning money long before it had a famous name.

Sources

  1. S.A. Beach, The Apples of New York, Vol. 1 (Albany: J.B. Lyon, 1905), "Grimes," p. 153. archive.org/details/applesofnewyork01beaciala/page/153
  2. UK National Fruit Collection, "Grimes Golden." www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?id=2512&fruit=apple
  3. West Virginia Department of Culture and History, "Grimes Golden Apple" historical marker (1981), via the Historical Marker Database. www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=70931
  4. Amy Donaldson Arnold, "Grimes Golden," e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. www.wvencyclopedia.org/entries/53

Curious about Grimes Golden?

Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.