Honey Tree Orchard & ApiaryCedar Bluff, Virginia

From the Living Museum

Roxbury Russet

Origin
Roxbury, Massachusetts; traditionally early 17th century, first documented soon after 1649
Era
Early 17th c. (traditional); recorded c. 1649
Type / use
Dessert · Dual-purpose · Cider
Planted in the orchard
Roxbury Russet apple, watercolor by Deborah Griscom Passmore (1898)
Painting by Deborah Griscom Passmore, 1898. USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection (POM00000502), public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons. All image credits

From the ArchiveFilm

Watch its story

Better the Longer It’s Kept

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

Illustrations: Ellen Isham Schutt (1912) and Deborah Griscom Passmore (1898), USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection, National Agricultural Library (public domain). Narrated with a synthetic voice.

Watch on YouTube

History & Stories

Probably the oldest named North American apple variety, traditionally dated to the early 1600s and recorded in Connecticut soon after 1649 1. Medium, heavily russeted fruit with firm, aromatic, sweet-tart flesh and extraordinary storage life (sometimes lasting into the following summer). Unique historical priority as the first great American apple, dual-purpose usefulness, and legendary keeping quality. Foundational to later American apple culture.

Folklore & Name

Named for Roxbury, Massachusetts. Probably the oldest named North American apple variety (traditionally early 17th century; recorded soon after 1649) 1,2. Foundational to American apple culture; extraordinary keeper.

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

Roxbury Russet is named for the town of Roxbury, Massachusetts, now part of Boston. S.A. Beach's The Apples of New York (1905) says it is "generally supposed" to have originated there early in the seventeenth century, and that "soon after 1649" it was taken to Connecticut 1. The UK National Fruit Collection also places it in Roxbury in the early 1600s 2. About 1797 it was carried from Connecticut into Ohio, where it went by Putnam Russet and Marietta Russet 1.

Thomas Jefferson recorded planting "russetings" at Monticello in 1778 3. Downing ranked it among the "popular market fruits in the country," a heavy cropper that "keeps till late in the spring" 4. In 1905 Beach still ranked it New York's favorite russet, in season from December to May 1. It is held today in the UK National Fruit Collection 2 and in the USDA apple collection at Geneva, New York, where it is among the most-requested varieties 5.

The competing accounts

  • S.A. Beach, 1905 1: "generally supposed" to have arisen in Roxbury early in the 1600s; first dated mention is its move to Connecticut soon after 1649.
  • UK National Fruit Collection 2: Roxbury, early 1600s.
  • A date of about 1640, and the claim of a continuous documented history from then, are often repeated; we found no record that early.

Most likely (our judgment, not a certainty): a Roxbury seedling of the first half of the 1600s, documented from about 1649. It is very probably America's oldest named apple, but its earliest years rest on tradition, not records.

What we think: stories & traditions

Tradition: America's oldest named apple. That title comes from the early date, and the date rests on long tradition rather than a recorded first tree. No old book tells us who planted the first one. Picture a Puritan farmstead a few miles from Boston harbor, a rough, brown-skinned seedling that nobody thought to write down until it had already outlived its planter.

A theory we doubt. One modern account credits the father of the Revolutionary patriot Dr. Joseph Warren with raising it 6. That doesn't square with a seventeenth-century origin, and we have found no early source for it.

In a famous novel. Its keeping quality was proverbial. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables (1851), old Uncle Venner jokes: "I suppose I am like a Roxbury russet,—a great deal the better, the longer I can be kept" 7.

Sources

  1. S.A. Beach, The Apples of New York, Vol. 1 (Albany: J.B. Lyon, 1905), "Roxbury," pp. 293–295. archive.org/details/applesofnewyork01beaciala/page/293
  2. UK National Fruit Collection, "Roxbury Russet," accession 1952-111. www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?acc4=1952111
  3. Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello), "Roxbury Russet Apple." www.monticello.org/encyclopedia/roxbury-russet-apple
  4. A.J. Downing, The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America (New York: J. Wiley, 1869 printing), "Russet, Boston or Roxbury," p. 104. archive.org/details/cu31924050513989/page/104
  5. USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva NY, "Apple Impact," Table 5 (Roxbury Russet, PI 588971). www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/geneva-ny/plant-genetic-resources-unit-pgru/apple-collection/apple-impact/
  6. Historic Boston Inc., "Celebrating the Roxbury Russet" (blog, 30 Dec 2013). Secondary source. historicboston.org/celebrating-the-roxbury-russet/
  7. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables (1851), ch. XXI, "The Departure." Project Gutenberg. www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77

Curious about Roxbury Russet?

Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.