Starkey

Starkey is a personal favorite and one of the perfect dessert apples. They are delicious. In fact they’re so good fresh, we’ve never done much cooking or cider-making with them. We just store them and eat them as quickly as we can. While we typically pick them later in mid-late October, this year (2023) they seem to be very good in early October. 

Starkey was a chance seedling discovered by Moses Starkey in the early 19th century. Starkey was a Quaker farmer in Vassalboro, one of the Quaker refuges and strongholds along the Kennebec River in central Maine. Finding what may be the last two Starkey trees in Vassalboro was a major obsession in John’s fruit exploring career. The success of the quest was facilitated by Frank Getchell. Frank was about 30 years his senior and a lifelong Vassalboro orchardist. For the thrilling, complete story of the search, see Apples and the Art of Detection, chapter 3.

For generations the apple was thought to be a seedling of the famous English apple, Ribston Pippin.  “Ribston” was brought over from England by the Vaughan family of Hallowell in the late 18th century. The variety quickly became one of the most popular apples in the midcoast and Kennebec River areas. The assumption about its connection to Starkey was nixed by the recent discovery that Ribston is a triploid (an organism that has an extra set of chromosomes). Alas, triploids can’t be parents. Maybe someday we’ll track down the parents of Starkey. For now, we’ll just call it “natural fruit” or “chance seedling.”