ORIGIN OP THE CATAWBA 55 



clearly those of the wild fox-grape, Vitis Labrusca . The 

 Oatawba was found wild in the woods of Buncombe 

 County, in extreme western North Carolina, by one 

 Murray, who emigrated to that country from Pennsyl- 

 vania about 1801, settling on the Kentucky and Warm 

 Spring trail. The farm and neighborhood was called 

 Murraysville, and it lies ten miles southeast of the 

 present Asheville. The grapes were found upon this 

 farm in 1802, growing wild in great profusion. An- 

 other variety was also found, bearing very long, 

 crowded clusters of dark purple grapes, but the fruit 

 was not so good as that of the variety whose history 

 we are tracing. This better variety had open clusters 

 of reddish grapes, features which the grape -grower 

 will recognize as characteristic of the Catawba. When 

 the forest was removed, the grapes became larger and 

 better. The following year, 1803, there came to Mur- 

 raysville commissioners to settle the disputed boun- 

 daries of North Carolina and Georgia, and these per- 

 sons tasted of the grapes and pronounced them good. 

 Quakers from Newberry District, South Carolina, 

 passed through the place in 1805 on their way to 

 Ohio, and they took some of these grapes with them, 

 but nothing is known of any offspring of these fruits 

 which may have originated with the emigrants. In 

 1807, General Davy, United States Senator, a resi- 

 dent of Rocky Mount, on the Catawba River, trans- 

 planted some of the vines to his own place ; and 

 some time between 1807 and 1816 he took cuttings 

 or vines to Washington and distributed them amongst 

 friends in Maryland as the Catawba Grape. Mrs. 

 Scholl probably obtained her vines of him or of his 

 friends, and from her Adlum secured his cuttings. 



