Pear Square Collaborative, Inc.

By the 1800’s, Dorchester had become home to large estates where orchards and gardens produced the finest fruits and vegetables. Many of these were new varieties, cultivated through experimentation and grown for the first time by gentleman farmers such as Dorchester’s William Clapp. The Clapp’s Favorite pear, a hybridization of the stout and sturdy Bartlett pear with the sweet and fleshy Flemish beauty pear, was first grown on the 300 acre Clapp estate and orchards not far from Edward Everett Square. Other examples of fruits grown in Dorchester include the Downer cherry, the Dorchester blackberry, and the President Wilder strawberry. Image courtesy of the Dorchester Historical Society