Who Brought the First Peaches to the United States?
There are two possibilities ...
Even though America’s first great botanist, John Bartram, assumed peaches were native to America, this “roseate pearl”—as
describes this exquisite fruit in his Backroad Portfolio story—was introduced either in 1565 by Spanish settlers in St. Augustine Florida, or in 1562 by the French in an isolated Gulf of Mexico settlement. Many historians believe peaches had been grown in Mexico even earlier than the 1560s.Native Americans brought peach culture with them as they migrated north with Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries.
By 1863 William Penn observed wild, Indian peaches as far north as Philadelphia.
And today, well, we enjoy them all over the United States!