Hi! Here's the story of the Rome Beauty Apple. In readying his new home in Lawrence County, Joel Gillet decided to have an apple orchard on his property. He brought about 200 grafted fruit trees from General Rufus Putnam of the Putnam Nursery near Marietta with him during the move. In early May of 1817, he was ready to set out the orchard. There was one seedling that was smaller and different from the others. He gave that one to his 14 year-old son, Alanson, and told him, "Here's a Democrat. You may have this one." (Joel Gillet was a staunch Whig at the time.) Young Alanson planted his seedling down by the river in a corner of the fence. A few years later, Alanson's tree was producing such nice fruit that people began to take notice of "Gillette's Seedling." The fruit was red and juicy and tasted sweet, and the apples were clustered together like grapes. Horatio Nelson "H.N." Gillett, a cousin of Alanson's, was the first person to take a graft of Alanson's apple tree. Other farmers also began to take grafts of the tree. H.N. Gillett started a nursery and began to promote this new apple. In about 1830, a neighbor, George Walton, named the apple the "Rome Beauty" apple in honor of Rome Township and the fine appearance of the fruit. After this, most of the orchards in southern Ohio contained mostly the Rome Beauty apple. The original tree lived 40 years on a sandy knoll in a corner of a field near the Ohio River. It stood until the river bank caved in during a flood in 1856. One of Alanson's cousins moved to Oregon in the 1860s and took seedlings of the Rome Beauty trees, thereby making the apple available and popular in the West. The Rome Beauty apple continued to be marketed by local Lawrence County farmers. Through much of the late 1800s, the Rome Beauty was considered one of the most important apples grown in the area. In my understanding, the Rome Beauties may have been the apples shipped to the soldiers during World War I. The Rome Beauty is still considered to be one of the best cooking apples. I recently read an article that stated that the ones grown and sold in Ohio are nice and firm. I have to say that the ones that I can get in the stores in Colorado are not very firm, and I have no idea of where they are grown. I descend from Joel Gillet through his oldest daughter, Chloe (Gillett) Gardner. At least five generations of this family (Gillet, Gardner, and Cox) have grown Rome Beauty Apples in Lawrence County. - Jean Griesan Colorado [email protected]