CHAPTER XVIII 



The Stuyvesant Pear The Endicott Pear The Old French Pear 

 Trees of Detroit The Petre Pear The Seckel Pear Gavel 

 Made From Historic Trees The Traveling Nursery. 



The Stuyvesant Pear 



In 1644, Governor Peter Stuyesant, of New York, planted a 

 pear tree upon the grounds of his country home, as a token "by which 

 his name might still be remembered"; the first instance on record in 

 American history, of the planting of a memorial tree. 



The Governor's desire has been fulfilled, for his pear tree, as well 

 as his name, has become immortal in the chronicles of both the city and 

 State of New York. The spot where the tree stood, (the northeast 

 corner of Third Avenue and 13th Street, New York) was rapidly 

 included in the growing city, and for two hundred years the old pear 

 tree was a well known landmark. A section of its trunk is on exhibi- 

 tion at the rooms of the New York Historical Society, and a part of 

 one of its limbs is preserved at City Hall. A shoot from the old pear 

 was grafted upon a tree at the Ryder Farm at Ossining, N. Y. 



The Endicott Pear 



Still bearing plentifully "more fruit than the whole town can 

 eat," the Endicott Pear tree at Danversport, Mass., is nearing the 

 completion of its third century. 



Authorities differ as to the exact time of its planting, which 

 however, probably occurred about 1630, during the period when Gov- 

 ernor Endicott, one of the earliest settlers of the Bay State, was 

 importing a large number of trees to beautify his home grounds. 

 James Raymond Simmons tells us that "there is not much left of 

 beauty . . . about the venerable tree which still maintains its layer 

 of living bark from year to year, around a hollow trunk, and still drops 

 down its golden fruit into the laps of Endicott's grateful descendants 

 and admirers. . . . Soil has gradually collected about the trunk until 

 the two main branches appear to rise from the ground as separate 

 trees. They evidently join under a heavy covering of sod ... it is 

 one of the most quaint and strangely impressive of all the historic 

 trees." 



The Old French Pear Trees of Detroit 



In Water Works Park, Detroit, Mich., stands an ancient pear 

 tree, whose age is estimated to be at least two hundred years. It is 

 the sole survivor of a farm, owned by a Frenchman who named the 

 twelve "mission pears" on his land after the twelve apostles. 



96 



