Willamette Valley Life: Everything Great About The Willamette Valley
GeerCrest: A Nursery Homestead
By Linda Ziedrich
In the rolling Waldo Hills, about five miles south of the Oregon Garden, sits a 173-year-old homestead still in the hands of its founding family. It’s a fine place to contemplate Oregon history or just admire the stunning view to the west.
Ralph and Mary Geer founded this homestead in 1848, a year after arriving in the Willamette Valley as part of a wagon train. The Geers’ land claim was the second registered in Oregon Territory. From their former farm in Illinois, Ralph had brought along a bushel of apple seeds and a half-bushel of pear seeds. The family planted them and soon they had thousands of little fruit trees. To increase variety, Ralph traded with Henderson Luelling. Luelling, who had also come to the Valley in 1847, brought a big wagonload of grafted fruit trees with him. By grafting Henderson’s cuttings onto Ralph’s rootstock, both were eventually able to harvest dessert apples and pears of then-favorite varieties like seek-no-further, Rambo, and yellow bellflower apples and Flemish and winter Nelis pears. They also sold grafted trees to other homesteaders up and down the coast.
What to See at GeerCrest
The Geer family’s homestead features a rambling clapboard house built in 1851 and an above-ground, stone fruit cellar from 1880, both on a rise above a murmuring stream. Surrounding the buildings are perhaps two dozen tall, old fruit trees and a venerable butternut tree, all of which Ralph Geer likely planted himself. Together they are designated Oregon Heritage Trees. Also near the house is the “riding whip tree,” which Homer Davenport’s mother, Florinda Geer, planted in 1854 by stabbing her switch into the ground after a horse ride. There are also recently planted trees of antique varieties, a vegetable garden and some rare old breeds of livestock.
Famous Geers
The generations who grew up enjoying GeerCrest included Ralph and Mary’s grandson Homer Davenport, a nationally renowned political cartoonist; nephew T. T. Geer, Oregon’s first native-born governor; granddaughter Musa Geer, the first woman to climb Mt. Jefferson and a homesteader and storekeeper in Washington; and grandson Pearl Geer, who cofounded the Liberal University of Oregon and later won fame as an actor.
Arrange a Visit to GeerCrest
The Geer family homestead is now operated as an educational nonprofit. Most years, groups of schoolchildren come here to learn such skills as milking goats, making cider, and nixtamalizing corn.
Partially because of the pandemic, GeerCrest’s directors are now concentrating on restoring the buildings. “But we still love to have visitors!” says Adam McKinley, GeerCrest’s farm director. If you live nearby, you can volunteer to help at the farm once or twice per week (see geercrest.org/volunteer). In winter, you can order grafted trees of heritage varieties to pick up in the spring. You can even camp at GeerCrest—in your tent or RV, in a rustic cabin with a fireplace, or even in a treehouse (geercrest.org/stay). Tours are available by appointment. Call 503-873-3406 or write info@geercrest.org.
Linda Ziedrich writes about food from her home in Oregon's Willamette Valley, where she continually experiments with the fruits and vegetables she grows. The Joy of Pickling, The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves, and Cold Soups are fruits of her empirical research as well as her studies of culinary traditions around the world. For more information about Linda's work, see her blog at agardenerstable.com.
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