On the Grapevine
Grape arbor near the barn in the Emerson House garden. Photo by R. Davis.
One of the delights of autumn at the Emerson House is the fragrance of ripening ‘Concord’ grapes drifting from the arbor just west of the barn. A living legacy, the rustic vine foliage provides welcome shade in the heat of summer, and by September its picturesque clusters of fruit are becoming more purple and sweeter by the day. Remarkably, a ’Concord’ grapevine has grown here ever since Henry David Thoreau first set out a scion of the original stock in the 1850s.
In the decades leading to the Civil War, pomology—fruit growing—was a major trend in horticulture, centered in Eastern Massachusetts and the Hudson River Valley. Gentlemen landowners like Emerson, small farmers, and commercial growers alike were obsessed with cultivating superior strawberries and orchard fruits, such as apples, pears, and table grapes. The landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and the Cambridge nurseryman Charles M. Hovey were among the leaders of the mid-century fruit-growing mania.
Small wonder that America’s most renowned cultivated grape would emerge from Ephraim Wales Bull’s home vineyard on Lexington Road in the town for which it is named. The Boston-born metalsmith had moved to Concord for his health in 1836, and as an amateur took up the cause of improving the native ‘fox grape’ in the 1840s. According to the late botanist and Thoreau scholar Edmund Schofield, “during these years of struggle” Bull was “assisted and encouraged” by Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, and other townsmen (Schofield, 8).
Concord’s best known naturalist—Henry David Thoreau—of course frequented the Emerson House and would have had ample opportunity to plant Bull’s exciting new ‘Concord grape’ here. Evidence of Thoreau’s keen interest in wild grapes and other native fruits abounds in his journal entries, his late unfinished work Wild Fruits, and, notably, at Harvard University’s Gray Herbarium, to which he often contributed botanical specimens; among these are many of Vitis labrusca, the wild fox grape.
Although experts still debate its exact parentage, the ‘Concord grape’ is probably related at least indirectly to the European wine grape, Vitis vinifera, through an early American grape cultivar named ‘Catawba’. In any case, ‘Concord’ and kindred cultivars such as purple ‘Isabella’ and white ‘Niagara’ are often listed under the botanical name Vitis labruscana. Thus, as a metaphor the ‘Concord’ is more an example of strength through diversity than native purity.
Clusters of ripening grapes from Emerson’s vine, September 16, 2022. Photo by R. Davis.
In his well-received 2007 history of fruit-growing and its importance to American culture, Philip Pauly traced Thoreau’s acquaintance with the legendary grape variety to an August 28, 1853 journal entry which appears to refer to Bull’s vineyard near his house, “Grapevine Cottage.” Thoreau wrote: “Walking down the street in the evening I detect my neighbor’s ripening grapes by the scent…though they are concealed behind his house” (Pauly, 75, note 59; Thoreau, 152).
Native to the Caucasus region, the incomparable Old World wine grape is honored by history along with such ancient crops as wheat and olives. However, North America boasts many more species of wild grape—a few of which are edible, and others which are used by wildlife for food, nesting, or cover. Despite our native abundance, however, until the ‘Concord’ burst on the scene horticulturists had made little progress in developing premium hardy grape varieties from the many New World species.
After laboring to develop a grape that could weather bitter winter temperatures and produce ripe fruit in a relatively short growing season, Bull brought ‘Concord’ to the attention of nurserymen in 1852; thereafter it was enthusiastically distributed.
As a vine, the ‘Concord’ would prove vigorous, more cold-hardy, more adaptable to various climates and soils, and easy to propagate. Its sweeter fruits ripened earlier than its predecessors. The robust flavor of the lustrous slip-skin grapes could withstand heat, making them excellent for preserves. Pasteurization opened the way for the bottled juice industry, a boon to 19th-century temperance advocates. In the 20th century, ‘Concord’ became the standard source of kosher wine (Birnbaum). It has also been used extensively in breeding—besides ‘Niagara,’ its improved progeny include ‘Dutchess,’ ‘Diamond,’ ‘Jefferson,’ and hundreds of others (Casscles, 72).
An extraordinary grape, ‘Concord’ remains justly popular for its adaptability, disease-resistance, yield, and flavor. Robust and versatile, it lives on in Emerson’s neighborhood—and many others—as one devoted gardener’s lasting contribution to his nation’s larder.
— R. Davis, Emerson House guide
WORKS CITED:
Birnbaum, Ben. “Strange Fruit, The Nativist Roots of America’s Quintessential Jewish Wine.” The Boston Globe. April 24, 2005. http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/04/24/strange_fruit/ Accessed August 2022. Web.
Casscles, J. Stephen. Grapes of the Hudson Valley and Other Cool Climate Regions of the United States and Canada. Coxsackie, NY: Flint Mine Press. 2015. 72-74. Print.
Pauly, Philip J. “The Development of American Culture with Special Reference To Fruit.” Fruits and Plains: The Horticultural Transformation of America. Cambridge and London: Harvard UP. 2007. 51-79. See Note 59, page 284. Print.
Schofield, Edmund A. “‘He Sowed; Others Reaped’: Ephraim Wales Bull and the Origins of the ‘Concord’ Grape.” Arnoldia 48 (4): 1988. 4-15. Accessed August 2022. Web.
Thoreau, Henry David. Circa 1859. “Wild Grape.” Wild Fruits: Thoreau’s Rediscovered Last Manuscript. Edited and introduced by Bradley P. Dean. NY: W.W.Norton, 2000. 150-157. Print.
