The Muse: October 2009

It’s autumn in Amherst, and the museum has a full slate of programs and fundraisers! Be sure to read through this whole newsletter so you don’t miss the upcoming van tour in Coffeytown, the Election Day Cake Event, and our Celebration of the Apple of Amherst’s Eye. On Saturday, November 21, Tom Burford will tell us about Amherst County’s apple history (for a preview see his article inside this issue) and you’ll have the opportunity to sample different apples.

Jessica Boone spent much of her summer here processing the Cash collection of glass plate negatives from 1905-1915 and this fall we have a Sweet Briar student, Jordan McIntire, who has started organizing the museum’s collection of slides. The assistance of these students has made it possible to provide more assistance to those seeking images of Amherst County’s history. If you know of a student trying to find an outlet for his or her talents, the museum has a number of such projects from which to choose.

Finally, as we approach the holiday season, remember the many ways you can support it while doing your usual holiday shopping, whether buying groceries for the holiday meals, books for grandchildren, buying Christmas presents online, giving a gift membership to a friend or buying something from our gift shop! Page 5 has details. Enjoy the season! —Holly Mills, Director

Your County Van Tour on October 31 will visit sites out Rt. 60 west.  We plan to visit the remnants of a CCC Camp at Oronoco, Macedonia Church in Coffeytown, and Mt. Hebron Church.  Bring your lunch to enjoy at Emmanuel Baptist Church.  We will view Sandidge's Mill, Thrasher's Lake, and Mill Creek Lake as time permits.  The leaves should be beautiful, and Halloween ghosts may be out!

Call the Museum (946-9068) to reserve your space on the van.  Meet at the County Administration Building at 9:00 a.m.  We welcome donations to defray costs.

Did you know that whenever you shop online the Museum can benefit as well? If you start your shopping at Shop for Museums (at www.ShopforMuseums.com), you can select the Amherst County Museum to be your benefit museum and go on to shop from hundreds of online stores and services—Amazon.com, Sears, Target, Snapfish photography, Delta Airlines and Carnival Cruiselines are just a few of the possibilities. Check out this site when you shop online, and select Amherst County Museum to be your favorite museum!

Tom Burford, Amherst County's own apple expert and historian, has donated and will plant a historic apple tree at the Museum on Saturday, November 21.  He will speak about apples at 1:30 p.m.; he will also have books for sale and take orders for apple trees. We will have apple pies for sale.  Let's make it a great celebration! Mark your calendars now:  November 21, 1:30 p.m.

• Monacan Indian Nation of Virginia: the drums of life, by Rosemary Clark Whitlock, 2008, University of Alabama Press.
• Bedford County (Images of America), by Ben Martin, 2008, Arcadia Publishing.
• The Canal on the James, by T. Gibson Hobbs, Jr., 2008, Blackwell Press. Also available in our giftshop.
• A History of Clifford Baptist Church, 1909-2009, by Sandi Esposito and the Church History Committee.

The June Muse article about the Pixleys brought memories to me of that house called Locust Grove, the home of my grandparents. I remember visiting there, playing croquet, making playhouses with tobacco sticks, and savoring good pies.

The house was presumably built about 1850 by James Beverly Lewis Williams, a Methodist minister, for his son, James Fennel Williams (1848-1915); James F. and his wife Josephine raised twelve children there. James Fennel served in the Civil War and was postmaster of Amherst for 35-40 years. The farm produced tobacco, wheat, and corn.

James B.L. Williams was the son of John Morgan Williams, a large landowner in the “Merry Acres” Madison Heights area around 1780. —Marguerite Singleton

Caleb Ralls was born in 1750 near Stafford, Virginia and moved to Amherst County as a young man and established a fruit tree nursery on Tobacco Row Mountain. His father, Edward Ralls, was also born near Stafford in 1720. Court records indicate that Caleb Ralls owned and lived on 624 acres on Tobacco Row Mountain in Amherst County, Virginia in 1785. He had a wife named Polly whom he married about 1773. The spelling of the name is sometimes Rawls.

Fruit tree nurseries were established in America for not only cider making and fresh fruit but to provide colonists with trees to establish claim to property through the homestead movement. There were two locally significant ones. The Lynchburg Nursery with a Quaker origin operated in the 19th century, but an Amherst County one pre-dates it. The Caleb Ralls Nursery that was in operation around 1778 near Horsley’s Creek on the western slope of Tobacco Row propagated named varieties, and, from a seedling in that nursery, an apple variety appeared that has become internationally known in the apple world.

The Ralls apple was widely distributed in the early 1800’s and was planted at Monticello by Jefferson and at Bremo by Cocke and even though there are no records, very likely at both Montpelier and Poplar Forest.

But its most famous role comes out of Japan. In the early 1960s the Japanese developed an apple breeding program and crossed the Ralls, which had been widely planted in both Japan and China, with the Red Delicious to produce the Fuji, now one of the major commercial apple varieties in the world. Every Fuji apple has genetic material from an apple that came from Amherst County, Virginia.

A full description of the apple from Burford’s book Apples: A Catalog of International Varieties, 199l follows:

RALLS is frequently called Ralls Genet, Ralls Janet and Neverfail and is also known by dozens of other names as Rockremain, Rock Rimmon, and Winter Genneting. In Japan it is called Kokko and it migrated from Korea to China, where it is called Glory of the Fatherland. Efforts have been made to determine the relationship and interrelationship of the nurseryman M. Caleb Ralls, Thomas Jefferson and Edmond Genet, known as Citizen Genet and the French minister to the United States when Jefferson was secretary of state. Court documents do show that M. Caleb Ralls owned and lived on 624 acres on Tobacco Row Mountain in Amherst County, Virginia, in 1785. This property is only a few miles from Burford Brothers nursery and orchard and in the 18th century was the site of extensive apple and peach orchards. Jefferson’s summer home, Poplar Forest, is just across the James River from the Ralls property and it is likely that the two would have been acquainted. Genet’s role is unclear. Beach in Apples of New York, 1905 wrote: “First known about this variety is that trees were growing on the farm of M. Caleb Ralls in Amherst County, Virginia, something over a hundred years ago (Before 1850).” In the 1920’s Stark Brothers in Missouri sold the Ralls with the name Jeniton, as well as a Giant Jeniton. Until documentation can clarify the name, it is referred to as Ralls in all Burford Brothers literature. Medium in size and roundish oblate in shape, the greenish yellow skin is flushed, mottled and streaked various shades of pink, red and crimson over one half or more of the surface. Yellow or russet and white dots are conspicuous and scarfskin may be present on some fruit. Sometimes, the stalk is partly covered by a fleshy protuberance in the cavity, as it does in the Keswick Codling. Inside the basin around the stem is usually russeted. The yellowish flesh with a greenish tinge is dense, crisp and tender with a tart-sweet balance of flavor. When cut, the flesh exudes a sweet aroma. The moderately vigorous trees have an open framework with considerably twiggy growth that can be described as brushy which makes it difficult to prune and the oval medium green leaves are folded and reflexed and slightly waved with sharp, regular and prominent serrations. Seeds are brown, large and ovate and the stem is thick and can vary in length. Ralls will produce good fruit under a low spray program even with its slight susceptibility to scab and bitter rot. Blossom fireblight is its major disease problem, but even though it may be severe, the set and production is not affected. In thinning, consideration must be made that the “June drop” does not affect this variety. The tree seems to have high resistance to collar rot. Records of blooming dates kept from 1983 to 1994 by Burford Brothers show full bloom from May 4 to May 6. This very late flowering assures a crop set and accounts for its popular Central Virginia name of Neverfail. Ralls was one of a number of American seedling varieties imported by the Japanese to establish an apple-breeding program. From the cross of Ralls and Red Delicious has come Fuji, which is now a major commercial variety. Ralls is also widely grown in China, particularly in the northern provinces. It stores particularly well and ripens in Virginia the first week of October.

Saturday, October 10 at 2 p.m. the museum will sponsor a program for children about historical methods of spinning and weaving cloth. If you’ve wondered about how to manage a distaff and spindle, this is the time to find out how it’s done!

The November program will feature the nineteenth century story of several boys from Amherst County who decide to produce their own newspaper, Children will have an opportunity to try their own hand at several types of printing.

And don’t forget Cookies and Cocoa in December!

Our Election Day Cake Event will be held (surprise!) on Election Day, November 3. Donations to the Museum will be accepted at polling locations all over Amherst County. We’ll be giving away cakes at the end of the day!

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