Apples from the past

WAITSBURG—Honeycrisp, Fuji, and Gala are all names we recognize. How about Fall Jeneting, McAfee, and Nero? Thanks to the work of Dave Benscoter and the Lost Apple Project, you may become familiar with a couple of recently-rediscovered lost apple varieties.

The Lost Apple Project came to be after Dave Benscoter was asked to help pick apples for a friend outside of Spokane. Benscoter grew up around apple trees and quickly determined that none of the fruit was usable, but he couldn’t quite kick the strange-looking apples from his mind.

Benscoter offered to help his neighbor trim trees in the spring and spent the winter looking up ancient varieties of apples. His research led him to discover abandoned orchards all over Eastern Washington. One location is on Steptoe Butte where James “Cashup” Davis built a hotel in the 1800s which he surrounded with apple trees. The hotel was destroyed by fire in the early 1900s, leaving behind the trees.

In 2016, the Lost Apple Project partnered with the Whitman County Historical Society. Since then, the Lost Apple Project has dedicated its mission to rediscovering and preserving apple varieties planted before 1920 across Eastern Washington.

While the project’s focus is in the Inland Empire, Benscoter isn’t afraid to look outside the county lines and has recently found a suspected lost variety on Jasper Mountain, on the LZ Conover property.

Benscoter first visited Waitsburg in September of 2017, after Kate Hockersmith arranged visits with property owners on Jasper Mountain. Joined by a couple of local history buffs, Benscoter found a few apples of interest in the abandoned orchards that once sustained the homesteading community just 15 minutes outside Waitsburg.

While it is unclear exactly when the first family moved onto Jasper Mountain, there was a healthy community until the mid-1930s, when an earthquake shook the entire Walla Walla Valley and damaged the springs that provided water for families and their livestock.

A hand-drawn map included in an essay by ‘Hap’ Cline, who spent their childhood on Jasper Mountain in the early 1900s, has an unnamed “log-cabin” dated 1880. Cline’s father, Joseph F. Cline, moved his family to Washington from Missouri after gaining employment at Waits Flour Mill in 1905. In 1910, the Cline family rented a farm, known only as ‘the Brooks place’ in Cline’s words. The plot of land sat at the head of Whiskey Creek.

Cline’s essay talks about moving to the Brooks place and describes the fruit trees and berry bushes, and how they would dry apples and other fruit on the summer kitchen roof.

‘They had to be turned every day,’ the essay reads.

On July 15, 1936, an estimated 5.75 magnitude earthquake shook northeast Oregon and southeast Washington. The quake’s epicenter was located near Milton-Freewater, permanently disrupting springs and other water sources in parts of the Blue Mountains, including Jasper Mountain. Families packed up and moved their homes closer to town shortly after.

“Some of them moved away faster than others,” said Pam Conover, daughter-in-law of the late LZ Conover, who purchased one of the old homesteads that are currently being explored. She and her husband Larry, shared secondhand stories of families hauling water up the mountain with horse-drawn carts.

Apples were a staple for homesteading families across America. The easy-keeping fruit could be turned into applesauce, juice, or preserved. Certain varieties, according to Benscoter, could be kept in root cellars throughout the entire winter, providing a hearty snack during the chilly seasons.

Currently, there are three lost varieties being explored in the Jasper Mountain area. The Autumn Grey, the Jackson Winter sweet, and the Streaked-pippin apples are promising, but Benscoter said it could be awhile before anyone knows for sure. Apple identification is a dying art, and Benscoter is only aware of five or six identifiers in the entire country. Many of the lost varieties have little to no digital record, and identifiers often have to sift through books full of paintings. Apple identification considers the skin color of apples, striping, shape, seed size and shape, and more.

During his recent visit, Benscoter visited the property owned by the Conover family in the rain as October released its first taste of fall weather.

He is also currently exploring trees on the Hockersmith property and on the Nordheim property, as well as suspected varieties in the Dayton, Walla Walla, and Pomeroy areas.

In addition to the hunt for apples, the Lost Apple Project hosts a grafted tree sale in the spring. Apple enthusiasts have the opportunity to purchase young trees and grow once-lost varieties in their own backyard.

The Lost Apple Project shares many of Benscoter’s adventures on Facebook, via The Lost Apple Project page. More information can also be found through the Whitman County Historical Society, http://www.whitmancountyhistoricalsociety.org/lostapple.