Baldwin (apple)

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Monument to the Baldwin Apple at the site where it was discovered, Wilmington, Massachusetts.

The Baldwin apple is a bright red winter apple, very good in quality, and easily shipped. It was for many years the most popular apple in New England, New York, and for export from America.

According to S. A. Beach's Apples of New York, the Baldwin originated soon after 1740 as a chance seedling on the farm of Mr. John Ball, Wilmington, Massachusetts, and for about 40 years thereafter its cultivation was confined to that immediate neighborhood. The farm eventually came into the possession of a Mr. Butters, who gave the name Woodpecker to the apple because the tree was frequented by woodpeckers. The apple was long known locally as the Woodpecker or Pecker. It was also called the Butters. Deacon Samuel Thompson, a surveyor of Woburn, Massachusetts, brought it to the attention of Col. Loammi Baldwin of the same town, by whom it was propagated and more widely introduced in Eastern Massachusetts as early as 1784. From Col. Baldwin's interest in the variety it came to be called the Baldwin.

A monument to the Baldwin apple now marks the location (on today's Chestnut street in Wilmington). The monument's inscription reads: This monument marks the site of the first Baldwin Apple Tree found growing wild near here. It fell in the gale of 1815. The apple first known as the Butters, Woodpecker or Pecker apple was named after Col. Loammi Baldwin of Woburn. Erected in 1895 by the Rumford Historical Association.

Very little of this variety is commercially grown today. Its popularity as an eating apple waned, and some orchards were preserved for many years due to its desirability as a mixing apple for cider, however the orchards were not replaced when they played out.