CHAPTER XII 

 THE ENDICOTT PEAR TREE 



The days that are no more, and come no more. 

 When as a child you sat upon my knee, 

 And prattled of your playthings, and the games 

 You played among the pear trees in the orchard. 



Longfellow 



WHEN selecting a young tree for 

 planting as a permanent, living 

 monument, capable of occupying 

 a given spot for from one hundred to five 

 hundred years, one would hardly choose, 

 out of all the available species, a fruit tree. 

 And yet John Endicott, the earliest pioneer 

 of the Massachusetts settlement under the 

 patent, has left behind him a pear tree which 

 he planted about the year 1632, and which 

 still "bears more fruit than the whole town 

 can eat " as the people say in Danvers. 



Endicott in addition to being a devout 

 Puritan, and an intrepid and successful leader, 

 was also a lover of trees and shrubs, with 

 an especial leaning toward the fruit-bearing 



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