The American farmer and "Father of the Concord Grape", Ephraim Wales Bull (1806-1895) was born in Boston. He bought 17 acres of land near the town of Concord in the US state of Massachusetts and began breeding experiments with wild grapevines and other fruits. His efforts were not successful at first, as severe winters with frosts destroyed his harvests. Then, in 1843, he planted the seeds of a wild vine of the species Vitis labrusca, which grew en masse in the forests of New England. From 22,000 seedlings, he selected a single vine that he found worthy of further propagation in six years of painstaking work by 1849. He continued to work with this vine and in 1853 introduced the vine which was then named Concord in 1854.
The vine quickly became successful and spread with great speed to several states in the northeastern USA and also to Canada. Today, about 75% of all grape varieties on the East Coast are descended from this variety. The open-pollinated seedlings Cottage and Ester were selected by Ephraim Bull. He sold Concord vines for $1,000 a piece, which was an enormous sum at the time. Nevertheless, he died embittered and in poverty, his tombstone in Concord's "Sleepy Hollow Cemetery" bears the inscription "He sowed, others reaped". His farmhouse, where the vine was developed, remains and now stands on Concord's Lexington Street.
Top left image: DeadFred Genealogy Photo Archive
Top right image: By unkown - Public Domain, Link
Bottom left image: Bikeable assumed, Own work CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Image bottom right: By Wolfgang Lendl - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
