From the Living Museum
Hewes Crab
- Origin
- Virginia, early 18th century or earlier (also written Hughes or Hugh's Crab; the "Virginia Crab" sold today is a different, later apple)
- Era
- Early 18th c. or earlier
- Type / use
- Cider (Crab) · Pollinator
From the ArchiveFilm
Watch its story
Virginia’s Cider Crab
A short narrated history of Hewes Crab, told through the archive illustrations of our apple collection.
Illustrations: William Coxe, A View of the Cultivation of Fruit Trees (1817), No. 86, and Mary Daisy Arnold, USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection, National Agricultural Library (public domain). Narrated with a synthetic voice.
Watch on YouTubeHistory & Stories
Small-to-medium crab high in sugar and tannin. Extremely hardy and disease-resistant. Unique historical importance in early Southern cider culture and as a tough, reliable pollinator and cider variety. Whether the colonial apple itself survives is now uncertain: DNA work shows the crab usually sold under this name is a later apple 3.
Folklore & Name
Colonial Virginia cider crab, also written Hughes or Hugh's Crab 1,2. Trees sold today as "Virginia Crab" turn out to be a different, later apple 3. Extremely hardy and disease-resistant. Historic Southern cider and pollinator variety; name of early grower or place origin.
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
Hewes Crab, also written Hughes, Hughs's or Hewe's Crab, was the great cider apple of colonial Virginia. Monticello calls it the most popular cider apple of eighteenth-century Virginia 1. In 1817 William Coxe wrote that its origin was "satisfactorily traced to Virginia, where trees nearly one hundred years old, are now standing" 2.
The paper trail starts early. A 1744 North Carolina county court priced "Hughes Crab Cider" at twice the rate of other ciders, and in 1755 a Surry County nurseryman advertised the trees in the Virginia Gazette 3. George Washington's ledger records "2 Barrels's Hughs's Crab Cyder" charged to the Alexandria merchants Carlyle & Adam in 1768 4. Jefferson gave Monticello's North Orchard over to it 1. Downing wrote that it made "a very high flavoured dry cider, which, by connoisseurs, is thought unsurpassed in flavour by any other" 5.
A caution for anyone growing it today: in 2026 Cornell researchers published evidence that the crab now widely sold as "Hewes" or "Virginia Crab" (USDA PI 589324) is a different, later apple descended from the 'Manchurian' crab, and it is not yet clear whether the true colonial Hughes Crab survives 3,6. Monticello now says the same 1.
The competing accounts
- William Coxe, 1817 2, and Monticello 1: a colonial Virginia cider crab, with trees nearly a century old standing in Coxe's day; records reach back to the 1740s 3.
- David Zakalik and Gregory Peck, 2026 3, with USDA GRIN 6: the crab sold today as "Hewes" or "Virginia Crab" (PI 589324) is a later apple descended from the 'Manchurian' crab, not the colonial Hughes Crab. Monticello now agrees 1.
Most likely (our judgment, not a certainty): the colonial Hewes Crab was real and famous, but the trees sold under the name today, probably including the one here, are the later "Virginia Crab." The genetic study is direct evidence, and only a DNA test of this tree would settle its identity.
What we think: stories & traditions
Who was Hughes? Nobody knows. An 1870 Kentucky newspaper credited a gentleman named Hughes who found it "growing in a thicket in Virginia" 3. It is a single, late account, so we treat it as tradition: a lucky farmer, a tangle of brush, and a sour little crab that would end up in the cellars of Washington and Jefferson.
Wild blood. Monticello thinks it was likely a cross between the native southern crabapple and the European apple 1. That is a reasonable theory, not a proven pedigree.
The sponge. Jefferson is quoted as saying that pressing it was like "squeezing a wet sponge" 1, which may be the best tasting note a cider apple ever got.
About that 1741 date. Some modern write-ups give 1741 as its first record. We have not found the document behind it, so we don't repeat it as fact.
Sources
- Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello), "Hewe's Crab Apple." www.monticello.org/encyclopedia/hewes-crab-apple
- William Coxe, A View of the Cultivation of Fruit Trees, and the Management of Orchards and Cider (Philadelphia: M. Carey and Son, 1817), "Hewes's Virginia Crab," pp. 150–151. archive.org/details/viewofcultivatio00coxerich/page/150
- David Zakalik and Gregory M. Peck, "Mistaken Identity: Correcting the Conflation of Malus 'Virginia Crab' (Foster) with Malus 'Hughes Virginia Crab'," Journal of the American Pomological Society (2026). journal.americanpomological.org/index.php/jofaps/article/view/26
- The Financial Papers of George Washington, Ledger A, 1750–1772, p. 280. financial.gwpapers.org/?q=content/ledger-1750-1772-pg280
- A.J. Downing, The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America (New York: J. Wiley, 1869 printing), "Hewe's Virginia Crab," pp. 226–227. archive.org/details/cu31924050513989/page/226
- USDA GRIN-Global, PI 589324 "Virginia Crab." npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/accessiondetail?id=1014684
Curious about Hewes Crab?
Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.