Father Abraham (Abram) Apple
A seedling apple that came into existence in Virginia in the 1750s, the Father Abraham was a keeping apple and a cider variety. Its first notice occurs in Surry County Virginia in a nursery ad by William Smith. It became one of the first of the southern American propagated apples to have an extensive following. By the second quarter of the 19th century it was grown in most of the Piedmont South.
Modest in size, waxy, and curiously gray in appearance (the optical effect of mixing a greenish yellow background with a brownish red blush), the Father Abraham apple did not entice consumers with its appearance. Rather, the mellow, subacid flavor when properly aged, and the piquant juice when pressed for cider won Father Abraham a following. Never a first call fruit among cideries or produce marketers, it won respect as an additive apple in cider, one that reinforced the brightness of taste of the crabapples.
Philadelphia W. Cone said of the variety in his 1817 volume, The Cultivation of Fruit Trees, “This is a small apple of a flat form; the skin is red, with spots and blotches of red, with a little yellow; the texture very thin and tender—the flesh is tinged with red next to the skin—is white, breaking and juicy; of an agreeable taste though not rich: it is an early winter table apple, and will keep till April. In Virginia, whence I procured it, it is much esteemed and extensively propagated” (p. 159)
Requiring some mellowing after picking before its flavor peaked, it gained a reputation as a winter apple—one best consumed after the turn of the year.
Image: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705,