122(i THE FRUIT INDUSTRY IN XEW YORK STATK 



or America, married Antoinette Dufour), Francis Louis de Sie- 

 beiithal, John Francis de Sibenthal and Philip Bettens, together 

 with women and children. They crossed the Alleghanies to Pitts- 

 burg with wagons, the women and children who could not walk 

 going as freight at so much a hundred pounds. At Pittsburg, the 

 colonists took boats 011 the Ohio, and set their faces towards that 

 wild and rugged country which had been so recently the theatre of 

 Daniel Boone's adventures. The party arrived at the vineyard, 

 July 6, 1801. There the colonists, fresh from the snug and well 

 tilled fields of Switzerland, saw a raw river bottom, rolling 

 gradually up to rocky and wooded hills, which slope away to the 

 south and southeast, and upon which the new vineyard was grow- 

 ing. In the foreground was a log cabin. But they w r ere full 

 of hope, and fell to work with much good will. The brothers 

 had brought grape vines from home, and these, with loving solici- 

 tude, were planted with the vines which had been procured by the 

 founder. 



For years they labored, but finally the ente-rprise fell apart; 

 later they gave it up, and little now remains to mark the place. 

 Undaunted, a second experiment was undertaken by the Dufours, 

 this time on the Ohio at Vevay, Indiana. Congress passed an 

 act authorizing them to choose four sections of land on a credit 

 of twelve years, " to plant the vine and make their principal busi- 

 ness its cultivation. 77 But the vines in the new place also took 

 sick and would not bear; or if they bore, the fruit rotted before 

 it was ready for the harvest. Only the Cape grape gave any 

 important return. In May, 1832 or 1833, a killing frost ruined 

 most of the remaining vineyards; and the Catawba, which was 

 then coming into prominence, was set in the place of the old 

 varieties. 



FRUITION 



Twenty years ago I visited the old place and uncovered much 

 of the history. I was shown an old stock that tradition said wa: 

 the sole remainder of the Cape grape; but its fruit was that of 

 the Catawba, showing that the old kind has perished utterly. 

 With Longworth at Cincinnati and others elsewhere, the Catawba 

 gained in popularity; other varieties originated here and there 



