I have written this page to share the story of the Koonce Pear, a once prolific heirloom fruit that quite nearly became extinct.
Nicholas & Margaret Koonce under pear tree circa 1890
It would appear that sometime in the late 1800's, my great grandfather and name sake, Nicholas Koonce cultivated a pear in the town of Villa Ridge, in Pulaski county Illinois. According to a report I found on the
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
The USDA Agricultural Research Service website also states that most of the cultivars listed in the book are growing in the gerplasm collection at the National Clonal Germplasm Repository (NCGR) in
It was provisionally released in the Spring of 2022 and on Tuesday, July 26th, 2022 I received 5 bare root trees from the NCGR. It is my intent to propagate an orchard and share scion wood with anyone interested.
The Heir Apparent,
Nicholas Koonce