History:
Our history goes back almost 250 years when, in 1763, Jean LaFramboise settled in Baie des Francois in what is now the town of Chazy, New York. Part of his original property is now included in the 1300 acres owned by Chazy Orchards.
Around 1800, John Mcintosh moved from Schenectady, New York, to Ontario, Canada, where he found a clump of trees that had sprung up from the core of an apple that had been dropped. Of this original group of trees, only one tree survived, which Mcintosh's son, Allan, propagated as the Mcintosh Red. This was the parent of the apple which has developed into what many believe is the best tasting apple in the world.
By the 1890's, there were between 60 and 100 Mcintosh trees in Clinton, N.Y., and the apples they produced became a hit in New York City.
The original Chazy Orchard, in our current location, was planted in the mid-1920's. Owned at that time by a subsidiary of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad Corporation, the orchard was planted to generate freight shipments across the country for the railroad.
The original planting included 29,000 Mcintosh trees, 6,673 Snows, 3,226 Northern Spy, 685 Cortland, 82 Lowry - and 500 other apple trees of miscellaneous varieties. Even now, some of the trees from this original planting remain part of our orchard. In 2000, a delicious new variety, Honeycrisp, was added to our varietal mix.
Today, Chazy Orchards has grown to about 120,000 trees (plus 20,000 seedlings), including Mcintosh, Honeycrisp, Cortland - and the brand new SweeTango variety.
That's a brief recap of our history and, for you apple lovers of the world, the future never looked brighter!
