Ypsilanti Woman, Eliza Kimball, Invents New Apple

Kind readers, did you know a whole new type of apple was invented right here in Ypsilanti?

It was invented by an amateur Ypsilanti backyard botanist, Eliza Kimball. She had wash every Monday and three meals a day to fix from scratch for her four children, Frances, Valeria, James, and the little one, John--but that didn't stop her from botanizin'. Her apple was displayed at the Ann Arbor Pomological Society and named the "Josephine." The Josephine still exists today and is known as an excellent keeper--it will last all winter in your cellar. A book called "Our Common Fruits" says this of the Josephine:

"...one very large and fine apple, of American origin, having been once called the Josephine Apple, though it had been known also by other names. . . and Poiteau, in thus dedicating it to this honored memory, only wishes, in order that the memorial might be more appropriate, "that this were the best of apples, as she was the best of women." The Josephine Apple has the peculiarity of approaching in internal structure to the special characteristic of the quince, the cells of the core containing each three or four pips, instead of only one or two, as is usually the case in apples."

Here's the original news item, from the April 18, 1885 Ypsilanti Commercial:

"Mr. Isaac B. Kimball brought a couple of specimens of a new apple to the office. Some sixteen years ago, Mrs. Kimball was in the garden. She was a natural horticulturalist and made many experiments. She shook the pollen of a Talman Sweeting on a Rhode Island Greening, only got one apple from that branch. This was saved until this next spring and the seed planted, when three years old set out in the orchard. All but one came to nothing bearing miserable fruit. At the end of thirteen years this one that bore the new apple produced a bushel. The next year three bushels and last fall seventeen bushels of a uniform, fine size and now the middle of April, sound and healthy. It is fine grained and juicy, a sweet apple and very pleasant tasting. It fills a gap long desired. Mr. Kimball is advanced in years, but would like some nurseryman to take hold of this fruit and so bless the coming generations. The pomological society at its session in Ann Arbor last week commended this apple highly and named it the Josephine."

At the time of this news item, Isaac was a 70-year-old widower, with a 5-acre farm just south of town, south off Harriet Street and west of Hamilton (between the modern-day Michigan Ave and I-94). His dearest Eliza had passed. He lived with his oldest daughter, 46-year-old Frances and her 23-year-old daughter Mary. Though Eliza was gone, her tree still stood in Isaac's yard, blooming every spring and yielding apples every fall, to put away in the cellar every winter, from which, in April 1885, Isaac selected some Josephines to bring downtown to the newspaper office.

Dusty D's hat is off to our own apple-inventing botanist Eliza Kimball!