Requiem for the 1820s Fort Vancouver Apple Tree, and a New Dawn (U.S. National Park Service)

A person uses a cell phone to take a picture of the Old Apple Tree, surrounded by a metal fence and backed by an elevated highway — Admiring the Old Apple Tree in 2019.
NPS

The venerable “Old Apple Tree” of Fort Vancouver, Washington has died. With sadness, Charles Ray, Urban Forester with the City of Vancouver announced that the tree had succumbed to mortality on June 25, 2020. The nearly 200-year old tree was a local landmark and the oldest living feature associated with Fort Vancouver, first celebrated in The Morning Oregonian in 1911. Few apple trees in the United States have graced the earth longer than this tree. Recognized as the oldest apple tree in the Pacific Northwest, its longevity derived from its anatomy as a seedling tree that grew upon its own roots, as well as from the particular robustness of its genes.

By 1827, when the Old Apple Tree’s seed is thought to have germinated, apple trees throughout the world had been propagated for more than 2000 years by grafting. It was well-recognized that some trees produced exceptional fruit, and their uniqueness or “variety” could only be reproduced by grafting. In grafting, a form of vegetative propagation, variety trees are joined to the roots of a different, more durable tree, the rootstock. Grafting reproduces the variety but inadvertently shortens the natural lifespan.

A lithograph shows the fort to the right, surrounding buildings and orchards, and Mount Hood in the background. — Lithograph of Fort Vancouver, 1854.
Created by Gustav Sohon, NPS/Fort Vancouver National Historic Site Archives

In the 19th-century, variety trees grafted to seedling rootstocks were perceived as an investment for at least three generations. Nowadays, apple trees are grafted onto dwarfing rootstocks which shorten the tree and confer a lifespan of less than 50 years. As a seedling tree, the Old Apple Tree was not a variety and lacked exceptional fruit, but it had its own vigorous root system, an enduring advantage.

As the apple seedling anchored its roots in the New World, its location north of the Columbia River was occupied by the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), a Royal-chartered fur-trading corporation of Great Britain. The seed may have been transported on the 17,000-mile sea voyage from England by Captain Æmilius Simpson, a cousin of HBC Governor-in-Chief George Simpson, head of the HBC’s North American operations. Æmilius reportedly carried seed in his vest pocket for planting in a country where apples were unknown.

The edge of an apple orchard beside the wooden palisade of a fort, seen from across a grassy field — The orchard and the fort are reconstructed features of the historic landscape at Fort Vancouver.
NPS

The HBC had already introduced sheep into the territory and were raising crops to feed the workers. Our apple seed was planted in the HBC’s Fort Vancouver employee village, within a hamlet of craftsman of a slightly higher socioeconomic class than the average village resident. The HBC maintained a rigid caste system between the “Gentlemen” of the Company and the “Servants”, which included French Canadians, Métis, British, Scottish, and indigenous and aboriginal people—spanning the North American continent and the Pacific from the Iroquois to Native Hawaiians. Archeological investigation has placed the young tree in the yard of John Johnson, a Scottish cooper, by 1833.

Black and white photo of a sign that says "The Oldest Apple Tree in the Northwest" — Sign marking "The Oldest Apple Tree in the Northwest."
Oregon Historical Society

The tree would have been developing vigorously as Fort Vancouver became the principal colonial settlement west of the Rocky Mountains between Russian Alaska and Mexican California. It switched nationalities in 1846, when the Oregon Treaty established the 49th-parallel as the international boundary. Dominion passed from Great Britain to the United States, sending the HBC north to Canada and requiring the US Army to defend the new territory.

As the Army burned or demolished traces of the HBC in building a military reservation, remarkably, the Old Apple Tree escaped the axe. The tree saw the first US Army post in the Pacific Northwest serve as a major headquarters and supply depot during the Civil War and Indian War eras, and as a training post during the Spanish-American War. In 1906, it survived the completion of the nearby Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railroad, and in 1911 was recognized with a commemorative plaque, declaring it the “Oldest Apple Tree in the Northwest”. During World War I, the apple tree flourished near the world’s largest lumber mill that turned spruce timber into boards for military aircraft. By 1920, the Army had installed an elegant, protective railing, potentially in response to burgeoning development in the vicinity.

An low fence, with a plaque in front, surrounds an apple tree. Barracks structures are visible in the background. — The Old Apple Tree beside Vancouver Barracks circa 1920 showing a commemorative plaque and a protective railing.
Courtesy of The Columbian

During the Great Depression, its green apples may have been plucked by hungry young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) when the post became a district headquarters for all Pacific Northwest’s CCC camps. The tree survived the transformation of a nearby wagon road into the principal east-west route along the Columbia River, and in the 1940s, the road’s replacement of the Columbia River Highway. During World War II, the tree witnessed Vancouver Barracks become a staging area for the Pacific Theater.

In the 1980s, when major state and interstate highway construction threatened impacts, the Old Apple Tree was duly considered, along with nearby archeological resources. Plans led to extensive archeological investigations in the former Fort Vancouver employee village area, and the creation of a pocket park around the Old Apple Tree known as “Old Apple Tree Park”. The park has since been the venue of the Old Apple Tree Festival every October, in celebration of the tree. Over the years, cuttings have been shared at the festival, with some taking root in neighborhood yards.

At the turn of the 21st-century, the National Park Service and the City of Vancouver partnered with the National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Corvallis, Oregon, to clone the Old Apple Tree and conserve its germplasm in perpetuity. Clone trees were propagated from rooted cuttings and planted out within a reconstructed HBC orchard as part of the NPS fort reconstruction efforts. Since their planting in 2004, the clone trees have far exceeded the vigor of other young apple trees in the orchard that were derived from the seeds of old English cider varieties.

The Old Apple Tree clones that form the first orchard row nearest the stockade were quicker to establish and more resilient from the start. Clearly, the genes of the Old Apple Tree were particularly robust. A volunteer’s recent efforts in genetic testing in collaboration with Washington State University and the University of Wisconsin have indicated a potential connection with the French variety Reinette Franche, originated in the 1500s.

A row of leafy apple trees in an orchard, surrounded by dry grass — The historic character of the HBC orchard at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site is reflected by historically appropriate apple tree species, tree form, and maintenance techniques.
NPS

Two people in hardhats stand beside the trunk of a tree, where a ladder stands near where a branch was removed. — Workers carefully remove storm damaged limbs from the Old Apple Tree in the winter of 2009-2010.
NPS

The demise of the Old Apple Tree probably began in summer 2009 when a fierce windstorm swept down the Columbia River, breaking two of the major limbs. The City immediately brought in arborists to perform surgery and fertility treatments, and the NPS attempted to repair the limb cavities by bridge grafting - using cuttings anchored above and below each cavity to restore connectivity - rather like coronary bypass surgery.

Despite a huge reduction in the canopy, and the fragility of the now almost-hollow trunk, the Old Apple Tree responded with some new aerial growth and suckered from the roots. Arborists stepped up their regular maintenance to shape a smaller canopy and reduce the wind-sail effect. Some rootsuckers were protected and allowed to form branches, becoming replacement trees in-waiting.

The Old Apple Tree held on for another 11 years until late June 2020, when part of the trunk gave way, causing the canopy to desiccate. The young rootsucker trees were unaffected, however, and are now ready to supersede their progenitor. While the young trees currently lack the stature and character of the Old Apple Tree, in having the same genetic makeup they do, in fact, embody the Old Apple Tree.

An old, flowering apple tree protected by a metal fence, between a highway overpass and a railroad — The Old Apple Tree in Apple Tree Park circa 2015, showing vigorous new growth after canopy reduction.
Courtesy of City of Vancouver

Thanks to good stewardship and forethought by the City of Vancouver, local arborists, the National Park Service and many volunteers, the Old Apple Tree will have a new dawn. Its history will live on in its replicas at Apple Tree Park, in the reconstruction orchard at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, and in various residential yards across Vancouver, Washington.