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The Stacey Pear Tree is a very old and remarkably healthy tree, the only pear tree on an old farm near a much younger apple orchard. As its name implies, it is in Stacyville, a neighboring township to the northwest of Benedicta. Most, if not all, of the local residents knew about the tree long before Pete Grabber, Lou Riccadelli, and myself "discovered" the tree in the early 1980's while foraging for cider apples.

Of the three of us, I was the only one interested enough in the tree to promote it, sending boxes of the fruit to several nurseries including Stark Brother's. They are a large - most likely the largest - fruit propagation orchard in the world. But, since they sell mostly commercial varieties to temperate zone orchards around the world, an extremely hardy, self-fruitful, and disease free pear tree was not on their radar screen. Probably if it had fruit larger than Bartlett or Anjou they would have responded. Finally, a friend of mine gave me a catalog from St. Lawrence Nurseries in upstate New York. Bill MacKentley, who I have since developed a friendship with, was very enthusiastic about the tree, and was the first to ever offer the tree for sale in the early 1980's. From measurements taken by myself and Jack Kertesz, Bill estimated the tree to be upwards of 250 years old (meaning closer to 300 as the years have passed). He said that he had seen pears 300+ in Massachusetts that the ages were confirmed by rings in the wood, but that none of them were in as good shape as the Stacey. In fact, some had only a few remaining framework branches.

From Bill's advice, and from books, I was able to determine what had to be done to best ensure the longevity of the tree. At some point many years before, one of the major limbs had been broken out - possible from lightening, or a major windstorm. Whatever the cause, the limb was gone, and a large cavity was opened and rotting away in the tree. What needed to be done was to scrape out and remove any old rotten wood, tar the cavity, and fill it with concrete (God help any future lumberjack who mistakenly tries to fell the tree with a chainsaw!).

Around this time, a man from out of state bought the tree along with the land around it. I am very bad remembering names, so I don't have his name, and never did get his phone number. I told him what needed to be done to the tree, and he accomplished nearly everything I told him to do (if only my kids would do the same!). About the only complaint I would have - as you can see above - is that he didn't finish the concrete work.

As these next photos and close-ups show, however, he did an incredible job of putting eyebolts through the remaining framework branches, and running cables through the eyes. Outside of some major calamity - or combination of calamities and disease - besides old age, I can't imagine any natural disaster that could break these branches now. I doubt the tree will live forever, but my guess is it has another century ahead of it.