Last Orchard Threatened in Appleseed’s Hometown

LEOMINSTER, Mass. — Johnny Appleseed’s hometown might lose its last working apple orchard because, after all, money doesn’t grow on trees--it comes from new subdivisions with four-bedroom homes.

The owner of Sholan Farms has asked the city for permission to convert its 50 acres of apple trees and cupola-capped barn into 161 residential lots.

The issue goes to the very core of a place that for years has been dealing with its changing identity from a rural outpost to a Boston bedroom community of 41,000. Leominster (pronounced LEM-in-ster) is also known as Pioneer Plastics City and the birthplace of the plastic pink flamingo.

“How could you let a piece of property like this get developed?” asked David Chandler, who has leased the orchard since 1983 and comes from a long line of apple growers. “It’s just a perfectly gorgeous piece of land.”

With sweeping views of hills to one side and a valley to another, the land could go the way of other farms in the area. Colonial-style housing developments stand on nearby hillsides where cows once grazed and trees once bore fruit.

About an hour’s drive west of Boston, Leominster has attracted people looking for a more pristine and safe place to live. New businesses, particularly in high-tech, have cropped up nearby, bringing young employees with money to spend. New homes sell for as much as $350,000.

Leominster didn’t start capitalizing on its Johnny Appleseed connection until a decade or so ago, when business leaders and city officials realized its marketing power.

Today, the Johnny Appleseed rest stop greets visitors on Route 2 as they approach the city limits. A marker designates the spot where the historical society is “95% sure” Appleseed’s home was built.

And an annual festival in September--marking Appleseed’s birthday, Sept. 26, 1774--honors all things apple and New England, from pies to sauce to orchard-scented candles.

Never mind that Appleseed--real name: John Chapman--only lived in Leominster until he was 6.

A nurseryman and a minister, Appleseed didn’t scatter seeds across the country, as myth has it. He did, however, realize the practical need for apple seedlings and moved ahead of the westward-heading pioneers, starting nurseries with seeds he bought from cider mills in Pennsylvania.

He sold and gave away trees to the struggling settlers, for whom apples were a dietary necessity.

With that history in mind, local folk find a sad irony in the idea of losing Leominster’s last remaining apple orchard.

The land has been owned since 1978 by Dr. Paul Possick, a Leominster native but now a dermatologist in Woodcliff Lake, N.J.

Once the subdivision plans are approved, Possick “probably would either develop it or sell it,” said his lawyer, Peter Dawson.