Lamon Orchard

Lamon Orchard sits at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley.

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Lamon's orchard.

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Orchard History

Lamon Orchard, dating from 1859, is the largest post-gold-rush era (1850s-1870s) orchard in California, the largest and most intact apple orchard from the 1850s within the National Park System, and the last above ground remnant of the first non-indigenous, settler homestead in Yosemite Valley.

The Yosemite Valley has long been the homeland of indigenous people who actively managed and cultivated black oak woodlands to collect acorns as an important and culturally significant food source. The attempted forced removal of the indigenous inhabitants by the Mariposa Battalion in 1851, followed by a US Army expedition in 1852, preceded a wave of homesteading in Yosemite Valley over the next decade. Land settle-ment laws (Pre-emption Act of 1841 and Homestead Act of 1862) enabled former miners with limited savings to develop farms and ranches on small acreages. As a condition of the laws, settlers needed to demonstrate land improvements. Settlers planted orchards both for the fruit and to demonstrate cultivation of the land.

Lamon orchard in 1970.

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James Lamon came to California from Virginia in 1851 during the gold rush to work as a miner. He purchased an unregistered land claim at the east end of Yosemite Valley in 1859 where he built a small log cabin and planted an orchard and garden, making it the first non-indigenous homestead in the valley. In 1861, he filed an additional pre-emption claim for 160 acres in the valley. By remaining in the valley during the winter of 1862-1863 he became the first European American settler to stay year-round, demonstrating the viability of perennial habitation to other settlers. Lamon bought his apple trees from two nurseries in the Sierra foothills near Mariposa and sold the fruit to businesses, fellow residents, and early tourists to Yosemite.

Lamon Orchard in 1944.

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After the passage of the Yosemite Act in 1864, the government contested Lamon’s land claims because the land had not been surveyed prior to the claims (as required by the Pre-emption Act of 1841). Lamon appealed to the State of California. After a multi-year lawsuit that ended in the Supreme Court, Lamon did not obtain a title to the land but in 1873 received a settlement and the opportunity to lease the property. Lamon died in 1875, and the orchard continued to be cultivated until the 1890s. In 1889, William F. Coffman and George W. Kenney leased the former Lamon property and built a stable complex at the location of Lamon’s northern cabin.

Today Lamon Orchard is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places and contributes to the Yosemite Valley Historic District. The orchard contains 182 apple trees and one pear tree. Genetic testing in 2016 and 2017 revealed a tremendous variety among the apples original to the orchard. The era in which Lamon planted his orchard is known as, “the golden age of pomology.” It was a time of unrivaled horticultural experimentation in US fruit production that resulted in the development of thousands of apple varieties. One USDA bulletin from 1904 states that 6,700 distinct apple varieties were grown in the US in the 1800s. Many of the trees in Lamon orchard are well-known cultivars from the mid-1800s, but several are rare trees, likely the last living examples of historic cultivars.

Apple Cultivars Found in Lamon Orchard

Ben Davis, Esopus Spitzen­burg/ Kaighn’s Spitzenburg, Greening/Rhode Island Greening, King, Northern Spy, Red Ralls, Roxbury Russet, Twenty Ounce, Whitney Russet, Seed Savers Exchange Baldwin, Seed Savers Exchange Swaar, and Seed Savers Exchange Smith’s Cider

See the complete list of apple cultivars growing in Yosemite National Park

Lamon's cabin marked the first non-indigenous homestead in Yosemite Valley.

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