THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 4 1 



" The Endicott Pear. The tradition in the Endicott family is that this 

 tree was planted in 1630. It is said that the trees constituting the original 

 orchard came over from England in June, in the Arabella with Governor 

 Winthrop, or in one of the other ships of the fleet arriving at Salem 

 in June. The farm on which the tree now stands, not having been granted 

 to Endicott until 1632, it is not probable that the trees were planted there 

 before that time, but they might have been at first set in the Governor's 

 town garden at Salem, where the Rev. Francis Higginson, on his arrival 

 in the summer of 1629, found a vine-yard already planted. The tradition 

 further states that the Governor said that the tree was of the same date 

 with a sun-dial which formerly stood near it. This dial, after having 

 passed through the hands of the Rev. William Bentley, D.D., is now in 

 the Essex Institute in Salem, and bears the date 1630, with the Governor's 

 initials. The farm, which early bore the name of ' Orchard,' was occupied 

 and cultivated by the Governor and his descendants for 184 years, from 

 1632 to 18 16, and was held solely by the original grant until 1828, a period 

 of 196 years. Under these circumstances the history of the tree is more 

 likely to have been handed down correctly than if the estate had changed 

 hands. It is certain that Governor Endicott was early engaged in propa- 

 gating trees, for in a letter to John Winthrop in 1644, he speaks of having 

 at least 500 trees burnt by his children setting fire near them, and, in a 

 letter to John Winthrop, Jr., a year later, of being engaged to pay for 1500 

 trees. 



" As early as 1763 the tree was very old and decayed. It was very 

 much injured in the gale of 1804. In the gale of 1815 it was so much 

 shattered that its recovery was considered doubtful. It was injured again 

 in a gale about 1843. For the last fifty years it has been protected by a 

 fence around it. In 1837 it was eighty feet high by measurement and 

 fifty-five feet in the circumference of its branches, and does not probably 

 vary much from these dimensions now. Two suckers have sprung up on 

 opposite sides of the tree, which bear the same fruit as the original, proving 

 it to be ungrafted. It stands near the site of the first mansion of the Gov- 

 ernor, on a slope where it is somewhat sheltered from the north and north- 

 west winds. The soil is a light loam, with a substratum of clay. Grafts 

 taken from the old tree grow very vigorously. From a pomological point 

 of view, the fruit is of no value. It is hardly of medium size, roundish, 

 green, with more or less rough russet, very coarse, and soon decays. 



" It may be of interest to state that the farm on which the old tree 

 stands is again in the Endicott name, having lately been purchased by a 

 descendant of the Governor. The tree stands in the town of Danvers 

 originally a part of Salem. 



" For further facts concerning this tree, see the Transactions of the 

 Massachusetts Horticultural Society for 1837, and also an article by Charles 



