How does one achieve a legacy? In the American landscape of opportunity, it seems almost a requirement that we leave something behind to influence succeeding generations—something that symbolizes our struggles, something that tells a story of character and risk and ambition. In nineteenth-century Hastings, that idyllic river town south of St. Paul, William Gates LeDuc aspired to pave his path to glory—with fruit.
Back then, the frontier mentality was in full flower. LeDuc was one of numerous folks who were as ambitious as they were idealistic, seeking both to forge an identity and tame the land. William and his wife Mary may not have been moneyed, but they were educated and driven. Having attained an admirable social standing in St. Paul, the LeDucs turned their gaze to Hastings. There they would build their dream home and cultivate the land, leaving a genuine legacy for years to come.
Like so many others in the burgeoning middle class, the LeDucs had become smitten with Andrew Jackson Downing, the Martha Stewart of his day. Described as an “apostle of taste,” Downing had a keen understanding of the desires of these people, reaching out to them by publishing “idea books” that were inexpensive yet attractive. These provided models for living, complete with detailed instructions—for example, the house plans for which he is now best known. At the center of Downing’s philosophy was the ideal of harmony between the natural world and the domestic world. One embodiment of this ideal was the ornamental farm, with beautiful plants, picturesque landscapes, and, of course, agricultural products.
Mary found the architectural basis for her family’s dream house in one of Downing’s most influential books, Cottage Residences. After a lengthy construction phase in Hastings—not to mention the interruption of the Civil War, in which LeDuc attained the rank of brigadier general—the LeDucs took up residence in their stunning Gothic revival home around 1865. But it was behind the house, in the apple orchard and fruit groves, where the LeDucs’ legacy in Minnesota would truly take root.
LeDuc has been described by a Minnesota historian as a man of “positive convictions, fertile expedients, restless brain and unbounded energy.” He apparently also had great inspirations for business ventures, but was never quite as successful with them as he wished to be. He seems always to have been looking for the next way to make a great fortune, and to leave his mark on the frontier. Investments in railroads, mining, milling, and manufacturing , however, failed to bring the kinds of riches and fame to which LeDuc aspired. Facing the costs of building his dream home, he found himself turning his opportunistic eye toward the ornamental orchard in his own backyard.
Orchards were an emblem of nobility in East Coast society. The cultivation of fruit was considered a sign of “country civility, independence and republican virtue, an enterprise for enlightened gentlemen,” according to a document from the Minnesota Historical Society. On the frontier, practicality and economy were paramount, yet it was hard to deny an Eastern upbringing rooted in civility and enlightenment. In the late nineteenth century, many of these gentleman farmers experimented with growing fruit, as is evidenced by a horticultural record dominated by fruit growers.
By the 1870s, LeDuc was heavily into the foundation of his own horticultural nursery. Having left his Ohio family farm as a young boy to seek higher education, he felt no love lost for the labors of farm life. But his orchard in Hastings held more promise. More than a simple source of food, the apples were a means to be creative—and entrepreneurial. LeDuc’s eye for opportunity sought a way to produce a viable apple crop in this harsh climate with a short growing season. He imported the hardy Russian Siberian varieties of apples and crab apples that were being grown in the East: the Charlamoff, the Red Astrachan and the Orange, among the known varieties that flourished in Midwestern weather.
The science of planting and growing apples was seductive to LeDuc; cutting plants and cross-breeding them was itself a new frontier. Within those rows of beautifully twisted boughs, LeDuc may have seen the chance finally to make his mark on the soil, to bring forth something from the land that hadn’t been there before.
LeDuc’s legacy may well have blossomed with the continued survival of his cutting-edge crops, but President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him the commissioner of agriculture in 1877, calling the family to Washington, D.C. LeDuc abandoned the laboratory of his orchard for the glittering city and the possibility of fame on a national level. Mary, having had plenty of Minnesota winters, bloomed in the warmer southeastern clime, and thrived socially as well. William saw the appointment as an opportunity to make the department a meaningful agency in Washington; he truly believed in agriculture as the generative source for the future. Despite his enthusiasm, he unfortunately championed American independence from foreign tea and sugar, spending public funds on crops of tea plants and sorghum, which ultimately failed to gain popular backing. Politics were not to be a part of LeDuc’s legacy. He was not reappointed, and the family regrettably returned to Hastings in 1881. The dream home and its orchards never again held quite the hope and potential that they once had.
Bequeathed to the Minnesota Historical Society, the estate has been restored and reopened last month. One wonders what might have happened had LeDuc not gone to Washington, and continued instead with the development of his orchard. Would his legacy have been a delicious LeDuc variety of Minnesota apple? His name has faded from memory, but with the reopening of his home and revival of his story, LeDuc’s hard-won legacy may come through after all. The vanished orchard, which once symbolized the ideals of economy, science and beauty, is slated to be replanted. However indirectly, LeDuc has another chance to impact our landscape.
Crab Apple Bread
½ cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 T milk
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1tsp nutmeg
2 cups chopped red crab apples
¼ cup chopped crystallized ginger
Cream butter and sugar, adding eggs one at time, then add milk. Combine flour, soda, salt and spices together in separate bowl, then slowly add to wet mixture. Fold in crab apples and ginger. Dough will be sticky; press into greased loaf pan and bake for 350 degrees for one hour, or until inserted skewer comes out clean.
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