Two Old Trees and a Demonstration Orchard: Fruit Tree History in Rock Creek Park

The white blossoms of a mature cherry at Linnaean Hill in spring 2022. The stone house and carriage house are behind the trees (NPS).

Orchards and fruit trees were once common across Washington, DC, but few remain in Rock Creek Park. Two old trees, a pear and a cherry, near the Peirce-Klingle mansion at Linnaean Hill are the only documented remnants of what is often considered the first commercial nursery in the city, and a young demonstration orchard at nearby Peirce Mill keeps the history alive. The National Park Service, partner organizations and volunteers look after both.

Peirce Mill

In 1794 Isaac Peirce bought about 150 acres along Rock Creek, which included a house and a two-story mill, and went on to build a farm, sawmill, gristmill, distillery and nursery, mostly with enslaved labor. The mill was a custom mill, where local farmers brought grain to be ground into flour, powered by a wooden dam and a channel of water. The landscape around it had outbuildings, meadows, orchards and fences for gardens and livestock.

Peirce Mill viewed from the southeast, a picture by Titian Peale, 1858 (some sources suggest 1855). From the NPS Peirce Mill Historic Structure Report.

When Isaac died in 1841, the mill passed to his son Abner Cloud Peirce, a stonemason who grew grain and potatoes and kept bees but apparently did not grow fruit commercially. In 1851 it went to a nephew, Pierce Shoemaker. The census records no orchard production in his time, yet an 1861 map shows an orchard northwest of the mill. Shoemaker transferred the mill land to the federal government for Rock Creek Park in 1892. Even before the park, people came to the mill to relax, picnic, paint and walk, and visitors were reportedly offered apple cider. A mid-1930s restoration paid for with Works Progress Administration funds and labor changed the landscape considerably, and today the mill is used for interpretation and passive recreation.

Linnaean Hill

About half a mile north, Isaac Peirce deeded 82 acres to his son Joshua in 1823, the year the stone house was built. Joshua added a greenhouse and two potting sheds and within a few years started the Linnaean Hill Nursery, whose 1824 catalog advertised "Fruit and Ornamental Trees and Plants, Bulbous Flower Roots, Green House Plants, ETC." He probably inherited Isaac's nursery. To build a reputation he widened his selection, built business ties with well-known nurseries, and used propagation and grafting. The name may admire the successful Prince Nursery on Long Island, which was called the Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nurseries, and both names refer to Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who developed the binomial naming system.

A section of an 1861 topographical map of the District of Columbia. The grid-like vegetation pattern west of the J. Peirce property, now the Linnaean Hill landscape, marks orchards. Library of Congress.

In 1850 landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing was invited to landscape the White House grounds, and Peirce was apparently influenced by his style. By 1866 he had added specimen trees, fruit trees and shrubs and laid out walks and drives that curved with the terrain, while the nursery side of the property faded. He may have supplied plants for the Capitol, White House and President's Park, though that needs more research. After his death in 1869 the property went to his nephew Joshua Peirce Klingle, who changed little and kept the picturesque landscape that locals used for recreation. After Klingle's death in 1892 it passed to the United States for Rock Creek Park, which had been established by law in 1890.

Ruins of the greenhouse of the Peirce-Klingle Estate, about 1906, with the other nursery outbuildings and the main house. From the NPS Cultural Landscape Inventory.

Evidence of the orchard

Two maps, an 1861 one by Boschke and an 1867 one by Michler, show the orchard near the northwest of Linnaean Hill on a ridge. Peirce's catalog included an essay on planting orchards, recommending forty feet between trees, with the ground between them cultivated with vegetables or grain and fertilized with manure. To run the business he and his wife enslaved as many as 13 people, according to the 1840 census. His census occupation changed from "Nurseryman and Florist" in 1846 to "Farmer and Nurseryman" in 1850 and "Horticulturalist" in 1860. William Beckett was born at Linnaean Hill and enslaved there by Peirce, who relied on him as foreman of the garden, greenhouse and nursery. Beckett later became an accomplished coachman for distinguished people, including President Grover Cleveland, and worked at the Library of Congress for the last years of his life.

The pear and the cherry are old enough, by their size, to date from the 1800s, though their ages and varieties are not known. Techniques like dendrology can date such trees, and DNA analysis can compare varieties with the catalog. In the 1930s a Colonial Revival landscape was installed, and in later years the ground around the house went from open space to native and invasive vegetation.

A mature pear tree in the Linnaean Hill landscape, spring 2022 (NPS).

Caring for what remains

Overgrowth has reclaimed much of Linnaean Hill, so managers focus more on controlling invasive plants than on individual trees. Volunteers led by Rock Creek Park botanist Ana Chuquin meet regularly to remove invasives, and in spring 2023 she planned to guide them in looking for other mature fruit trees, which are easiest to find when blossoms show through overgrowth. They can use an app such as iNaturalist to identify and record pear, apple and cherry trees.

The demonstration orchard at Peirce Mill was installed in 2012 and is kept by the Friends of Peirce Mill, a partner of the Park Service. It has grafted trees, including a few varieties from Peirce's catalog. Its orchardist plants spring grasses such as wheat and rye as a cover crop, leaving a clear ring around each trunk to reduce competition and protect against voles; the grasses also show the mill's historic setting and help renew the soil. Most trees are pruned to a Modified Central Leader form, with three or four main branches, which lets light reach the middle, keeps trees low and favors fruit over vigor. Some are pruned to the Central Leader style so visitors can compare, and a fence keeps out deer.

Heirloom varieties in the Peirce Mill demonstration orchard in 2022 (NPS).

Sources

• National Park Service, Uncovering Fruit Tree History in Rock Creek Park Landscapes; the picnic photograph and the recommended reading are left out; the artist's name, spelled Peele in the source, is given as Peale; rewritten in hubnx's own words.