I first heard rumors of a variety of Pears bearing my family name, in the summer of 2006 from my cousin Lindell Koonce (1926 – 2018). He had stumbled upon the image above in an internet search and it triggered childhood memories. We later discovered that the photo came from a book titled, The Pears of New York, by U.P. Hendrick. Lindell and my dad, Elmer W. Koonce (1916 – 2012), had only vague recollections of their elders discussing the Koonce Pear. Seventy or eighty years had passed, the subject was of no interest to them as young boys and the history predated them by a few decades.
Villa Ridge, Illinois, Circa 1900.
Could that be a pear tree?
This sent me down quite the rabbit hole. My research lead me to an array of horticultural society articles discussing its merits and more details in nursery catalogs from George Gould & Sons. Apparently, around 1885, Mr. Gould discovered that my great grandfather and name sake, Nicholas Koonce (1830 – 1906) was enjoying a unique variety pear in the town of Villa Ridge, in Pulaski county Illinois. In 1893 Mr. Gould introduced the Koonce Pear at the World’s Columbian Exposition. AKA the Chicago World’s Fair. There it was exhibited as a new fruit and “was pronounced by competent judges to be of good quality, and can surely be recommended for trial.” The American Pomological Society added Koonce to its list of fruits in 1909.
By 1921, when U. P. Hendrick published The Pears of New York, this variety appears to have grown to considerable acclaim. The full text of this book can be seen on the Cornell University website. The description of the Koonce pear is on page 183. The book states that “Koonce is a popular early variety grown rather commonly in nearly every pear region in the United States. It is listed by nearly all nurserymen”. Unfortunately, the author seems to have failed to thoroughly research the origins and states “no one seems to know by whom, or at what time, or in what locality” it originated.
Then around 1925, it simply faded in to obscurity. By the time I took an interest, in 2006, no verifiable sources were known to exist in the United States. Hendrick notes of the fruit, “The pears decay quickly after maturity and are suitable only for home and local markets”. No doubt that the lack of commercial viability contributed to this variety’s near demise.
The USDA Agricultural Research Service confirmed that most of the important heirloom pear cultivars listed in the Hendrick’s book were growing in the collection at the National Clonal Germplasm Repository (NCGR) in Corvallis, OR. However, through correspondence with NCGR in early 2007, I learned that of roughly 80 or so important pears listed in The Pears of New York, the Koonce was among 16 cultivars not in their collection at that time. However, their search had lead them to a specimen at the National Fruit Collection, in England. The NCGR purchased some scionwood in the winter of 2007. In February of 2008 the specimen arrived at the U.S.D.A. quarantine station in Beltsville, Maryland where it has undergone extensive testing. I patiently monitored progress as it remained in this state for almost 15 years, undergoing testing and related treatments for any potential pathogens.
It was finally provisionally released in the Spring of 2022 and on Tuesday, July 26th, 2022 I received 5 bare root trees from the NCGR. I have begun to propagate an orchard and in the years to come, I hope to share scion wood with anyone interested. I invite you to follow a series of blog posts chronicling my efforts to propagate the Koonce Pear.
