THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 4I 
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 1816, 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 
