Living History

The Osage Orange takes its name from the people of the Osage Nation.  The trees grew primarily in a swath of land running from southern Oklahoma and south-western Arkansas into eastern Texas.  It was well-known to native people, who prized the wood for bow making.  In fact, one of its other names is "bodark", from the French phrase "bois d'arc", which means bow wood.

Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis & Clark fame, obtained slips of this unique tree in early 1804, right before setting out on his journey.  It was a new species to him, and he sent the slips back home to President Thomas Jefferson, with whom he had lived and for whom he had worked as a secretary for two years.  Lewis called them Osage apples.  Sometimes today they are called hedge apples.

Both Jefferson and Lewis were naturalists.  Jefferson wanted to find a water route to the Pacific for his country, but he also had an interest in the new-to-him plants and animals that the expedition would encounter.  As a result, specimens of plants and animals were sent to him from the trail as often as circumstances allowed. The first shipment was in March of 1804, and included the Osage Orange cuttings.  During the two-year expedition, whole animals were prepared with taxidermy skills and sent back, as well as furs, bones, teeth, eggs, feathers, and plants, with written descriptions and sketches.  Theirs was a scientific journey of discovery, as well as a political one.

The slips had originally come from an Osage village about 300 miles west of St. Louis.  They were obtained by Pierre Chouteau, of the great fur trading family headquartered in St. Louis.  Lewis got them from Choteau and sent them to Jefferson.  Some cuttings were sent to Bernard McMahon, a Philadelphia horticulturist.  To this day, you can go and see Osage Orange trees from these first slips, growing in the St. Peter's Episcopal Church yard, and at the University of Virginia, founded by Jefferson - pieces of living history.