Happy fall, everyone! As a New England resident, one of my favorite fall treats to enjoy is a crisp apple from one of our many local apple orchards. Nothing says “fall in New England” more than a freshly picked apple (other than a pumpkin spiced latte of course). Do you know the history of the apple in the United States though? Today we’ll tell you the story of Reverend William Blackstone (or Blaxton) and how he brought the apple to this country.
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| Image courtesy of Boston Magazine |
Blackstone, born in Lincolnshire, England around 1595, was an early colonial settler with an interesting story. His mother passed away when he was a young boy. In 1621, he was ordained by the Church of England and then lost his father not long after. Left alone in England without parents, he heard of the Plymouth and Jamestown settlements and decided to make his way across the ocean for a new life, along with his collection of books. He arrived in what is now Weymouth, MA in 1623. The Weymouth settlement didn’t last long, and in 1625 the other settlers who had been with him traveled back to England. Blackstone, however, moved north to present-day Beacon Hill in Boston and lived there by himself for five years on the Shawmut Peninsula, becoming the first European settler in Boston.
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| Image from Rev. William Blackstone, the Pioneer of Boston |
In 1629, Isaac Johnson, one of Backstone’s fellow students from Emmanuel College (Cambridge), and the Puritans landed in nearby present-day Charlestown. The land was rocky there, making it difficult to tap wells. Knowing the difficulties they were facing, Blackstone wrote a letter to Johnson, letting them know about the natural spring on the land that he was living on and invited them to settle there. On September 7, 1630, the Puritans took Blackstone up on his offer, leaving Charlestown and settling on the land Blackstone was living on. Only a couple weeks later, on September 30, 1630, Johnson died and as his last act as the leader of the Charlestown community, he named the new settlement “Boston", after his hometown of Boston, Lincolnshire. Eventually the number of settlers grew in Boston and Blackstone decided to sell his parcel of land to the city. That land became a town common, where cattle were free to graze. Today, this land makes up most of Boston Common. It was on today’s Boston Common land where Blackstone planted the first apple seeds in the colonies. Historians also credit him with the nation’s first apple orchard, which grew in Boston Common sometime in the 1620s.
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| Image from William Blackstone, Boston's first inhabitant |
Upon leaving Boston in 1635, Blackstone moved to present-day Cumberland, Rhode Island a year before Roger Williams arrived. He married at 64 years old and had a son a year later. On May 26, 1675, Blackstone died in Cumberland, RI, where he had settled 40 years earlier. Today you can visit the Founders Memorial in Boston Common, which shows Blackstone greeting John Winthrop and inviting him and his group to the Shawmut Peninsula. You can also visit Blackstone’s grave in Cumberland.
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| Image courtesy of Digital Commonwealth via Boston Public Library |
Blackstone came to America and, as author Thomas Amory wrote of him, “here he dwelt, solitary and alone, raising apples and roses, and reading his books, of which he had a plentiful supply.” He was an interesting figure in history and if you’d like to learn more about him, feel free to reach out to us at reference.department@mass.gov and/or look through some of the resources below.
Works consulted and other articles of interest:
- William Blackstone, Boston’s first inhabitant by Thomas Amory, 1877
- William Blackstone in his relation to Massachusetts and Rhode Island… by B.F. DeCosta, 1880
- Rev. William Blackstone, the Pioneer of Boston by John C. Crane, 1896
- William Blackstone, the “First Settler” of Boston and Rhode Island by John Williams Haley, 1958
- An Intensive A-to-Z Guide to Apples, New England’s Most Iconic Fall Fruit by Boston Magazine, 2023
Jessica Shrey
Reference Librarian
