Orchards and Groves

Apples 

Apples aren’t native to North America, but Europeans could not imagine life without them. They brought apple seeds from Europe, planted them widely, and ate the fruit fresh, stewed, in pies and pastries, and brewed into cider. Esopus people quickly adopted the practice of growing apple trees and making cider. The celebrated Esopus Spitzenburg apple, a variety that appeared here in the 1700s, still bears the Esopus name. 

Plums 

In 1524, Giovanni di Verrazano noted seeing “plums, filberts, and many other fruits” in vast groves maintained by Esopus and other Indigenous people. Flowering early in spring, plum trees feed not only people but deer and pollinators.

Cider 

Long before it was a special autumn treat, European colonists drank fermented apple cider daily. Cidermaking often relied on the skills of women and of enslaved Africans with experience brewing sorghum and millet beer. By the 1700s, local Esopus people were brewing their own cider.