Peter Stuyvesant’s pear tree

[Raphael Saltwood]

https://greatesttreesofnyc.tumblr.com/post/125122377870/peter-stuyvesants-pear-tree-east-13th-street-and#notes

At the northeast corner of East 13th Street and Third Avenue in today’s East Village, for almost two centuries, a gnarled pear tree grew. It was planted as a Dutch sapling in the 17th century by Peter Stuyvesant<https://href.li/?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Stuyvesant>, the final Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland. Long after the English takeover of the colony, Stuyvesant’s death in 1672, and the division of his estate into an urban grid, the pear tree blossomed and bore fruit. In 1820 the New York Evening Post reported<https://href.li/?http://www.examiner.com/article/little-old-new-york-peter-stuyvesant-s-pear-tree> the fruit had “a rich succulent flavor.” It was not just a famous tree in New York City, but across the United States as one of the new country’s living colonial reminders….