John Rock (nurseryman)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Rock.[1]

John Rock (August 19, 1838[2][3][4]-August 9, 1904)[5] was a German-born American horticulturalist and nurseryman. John Rock was a leader in California in pomology and the nursery business from 1865 until his death in 1904.[6] Charles Howard Shinn wrote the biography for John Rock in L.H. Bailey's Cyclopedia of Horticulture[7] He said "John Rock's scientific spirit, his wide and ever-increasing knowledge, his very high standards of business and his unselfishness made him during his long life the leader of Pacific coast nurserymen. He introduced more valuable plants and varieties to American horticulture than any other man of his period. His connection with Japan, India, Australia and with the great establishments abroad was close and constant. He did much to encourage men like Luther Burbank, and his collections were always at the service of students and the public."

Germany[]

Johannes Rock was born in Lauter,[8] today a district of the city of Laubach in the district of Gießen in the state of Hessen in the Federal Republic of Germany.[4] Johannes Rock changed his name to John Rock, possibly when he came to the United States.[7] Some sources incorrectly say that his parents were named Roch[5] or that Johann Fels was his birth name.[9][10][7] Church and family records in Germany say that his birth name was Johannes Rock and that his parents were Johann Heinrich Rock V. (1814-1892) and Catharina (born Feldmann) (1811-1861).[4]

New York[]

By one account John Rock immigrated to the United States when he was 15.[7] However, his passport in 1889 for a trip to Germany says that he was 19 years old and that he had lived in Rochester, New York and in San Jose, California from 1857 to 1887.

For a time he worked for various florists and nurseries,[7][2] including [11] in Rochester, New York. He may have worked for the Genesee Valley Nurseries.

His passport in 1889 indicates that he immigrated to the United States aboard the William Tapscott from Liverpool in June 1857 and arrived in New York August 19, 1857.[3]

Civil War[]

John Rock enlisted in the 5th Regiment, New York Infantry on April 25, 1861,[12] (or April 11, 1861[2]) also known as Duryee's Zouaves. He served for two years and mustered out on May 14, 1863.

San Jose[]

After his discharge, John Rock headed to California by way of Panama. He arrived in San Francisco on June 19, 1863.[2] He settled in the Santa Clara Valley and may have first worked with James Lick. Rock was naturalized as an American citizen in 1864 in San Jose, California.[3]

Rock's Nurseries in San Jose[]

John Rock established his "Rock's Nurseries" along Coyote Creek in 1865. One of the earliest advertisements (1868) was for mulberry and fruit trees. It says that "J. Rock's Alviso Nursery" was on Coyote Creek across from Lick's Mill.[13] The first nursery was 48 acres on the Milpitas road. The nursery can be seen on Map 2 of the 1876 Thompson & West map.[14] His neighbor was pioneer nurseryman, B.S. Fox.

In 1879, John Rock was on the board for the first California Horticultural Society,[15] along with Charles Howard Shinn, Dr. John Strentzel, W.B. West, and Dr. Behr. The president was Professor E.W. Hilgard, Vice President was J. Lewelling, Secretary was E.J. Wickson, and the Treasurer was G.P. Rixford.

Around 1880, Rock moved to a location with 138 acres near Wayne Station on the Western Pacific line.[16][17] This nursery can be seen on "Part of Berryessa & Milpitas Districts Compiled for the Santa Clara Valley" in the Brainard Agricultural Atlas[18]

The San Jose Weekly Mercury wrote about John Rock and his nurseries in 1883 "Our Bonanza; Growth of the Fruit Interest of Santa Clara County; Immense Tracts of Orchards -- Who supplies the trees -- A Progressive Nursery."[19] His first nursery was 3 acres near Alviso. He next secured 40 acres "adjoining Lathrop's addition." His final nursery was 190 acres on the Milpitas Road. His nursery filled orders for Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, and Washington. A depot was located in downtown San Jose for the convenience of his customers.

Rock continued to sell nursery stock through his "Rock's Nurseries" (at least until 1892) even after the California Nursery Company in Niles was established. The San Jose City Directory for 1887 has advertisements for both "Rock's Nurseries" and for the California Nursery Company.[20] The directory for 1892 still listed John Rock under the "nurseries" category. He sold "Fruit & Ornamental Trees, Shrubs, Roses, Flowering Plants, Etc."

The California Nursery Company[]

Article on "The Nursery Business" features scenes from the California Nursery Company [21]

The California Nursery Company was established and incorporated in 1884 in the town of Niles (now a district of Fremont, California). The 1886-87 descriptive catalog lists the officers. John Rock was President and R. D. Fox was Vice-president; The directors were John Rock, James Hutchison, R. D. Fox, Thos. Meherin, Wm. J. Landers.[6] John Rock was the manager of the nursery.[22]

The California Nursery Company grew roses, ornamental trees and shrubs, and fruit and nut trees.

Fruit and Nut Trees[]

John Rock was an early believer in fruit growing in the state when others did not think fruit growing could be profitable in California.[23]

The 1902 catalog[24] describes the fruits and nuts that were grown in the nursery's specimen orchard shortly before Rock's death.

George C. Roeding bought the California Nursery Company 13 years after the death of John Rock in 1917. With this purchase, he gained a significant "test orchard" of fruit and nut trees. Roeding wrote about John Rock's "Mother Orchard" and his own specimen trees from his Fancher Creek nurseries in a 1926 publication, "Budwood, scions and cuttings : (embracing over 1000 varieties) from record performance fruit trees" [25] Rock's specimen orchard book from the late 1800s describes fruit varieties and where they were obtained.[26]

Figs[]

John Rock had the largest collection of figs on the Pacific Coast as reported by Gustav Eisen in 1901.[27] The figs came from Thomas Rivers & Son, from France, from the USDA (which had obtained the whole collection of the ), and from local nurserymen.

Olives[]

The Oroville Register said in 1893 about the Hatch & Rock orchard in Biggs:[28]

"Mr Rock is one of the most experienced nurserymen in California and he devoted much time to collecting the finest olives in Europe. For this purpose he visited all the noted olive regions of Spain, France, and Italy and has had agents in every locality obtaining the best olives in the world. As a result the Rio Bonito orchard contains 156 varieties of olives, which include all the standard and valuable kinds known to man."

Catalogs[]

Catalogs for Rock's Nurseries can be found at UC Davis (1873 to 1888).

Catalogs for the California Nursery Company can be found in these collections:

Death[]

Gravesite and headstone of John Rock. Chapel of the Chimes in Hayward California. The star on Rock's grave is a G.A.R. star.

John Rock died in 1904.[33] The 1904-1905 catalog[34] announced his death: "Our beloved Manager has passed into the Great Unknown. A familiar name and figure has gone-- a man and friend of sterling qualities is no more; one in whose judgement and abilities vast numbers of people and even governments have securely rested in horticultural matters can advise no longer. We mourn his loss". Rock is buried about 3 miles north of the California Nursery Company at the Chapel of the Chimes.[35]

John Rock was remembered by E.J. Wickson, at the 1911-1912 Pacific Coast Association of Nurserymen:[36] "He has gone to his reward, but his memory will always be honored by every nurseryman who ever knew him — Mr. John Rock, who began in this community in a small way and built up the nursery business and finally extended his interests into large commercial enterprises which I hope we shall visit while here. Mr. Rock has always stood to me as an example of what a nurseryman ought to be in his position as an educator to the community, because he possessed at the time when he was most active and energetic, a fuller and truer knowledge of the nursery business than any other man in California. He was a good student and possessed himself of all sources of information; he was a wonderful observer, and had a keen eye for a fruit or for a plant and, above all, had a sterling honesty and conscientiousness which led everyone who knew him to place implicit confidence in any statement which he might make, and you could trust Rock to give you facts, although it might not be immediately to his interest to do so. John Rock gave me a palm in 1879, a little palm in a pot, and I planted it in my garden in Berkeley, and that palm is today the handsomest and largest palm in the City of Berkeley — it must be 40 feet high and 30 feet across its branches. I see it every day that I am at home and never pass it without thinking that that palm stands as a monument to the life and service of John Rock in its community. It is stalwart, symmetrical and beautiful and sheds its beauty among all its environments; so Rock stood among the pioneer fruit growers and the more we know of his life and deeds the better we will be able to understand the possibilities of a nurseryman in the community."[37]

Henry W. Kruckeberg wrote "John Rock: a Tribute" in the proceedings of the 1912 California Association of Nurserymen. He did not know Rock personally but collected the remembrances from his living friends.[38] "In more ways than one, the name of John Rock is destined to become historic in California horticultural development. He had, in a marked degree, the mind and temperament calculated to stimulate fruit growing along sane and intelligent lines. Value was ever uppermost in his mind; no fruit, tree or plant commended itself to him unless it possessed utility or beauty, or both. So pronounced was he in this respect, that he never adopted a new fruit without first testing it out on his experiment grounds. Intensely in love with his work, it is no wonder that he spent thousands of dollars in exploiting new and little known fruits and plants, many of which proved worthless; nor that, on the other hand, his untiring zeal in the development of California horticulture has been the direct means of introducing a larger number of varieties of fruits and plants into this State than any other one man. His well known continuity of purpose was as pronounced as his ambition was strong and robust. For upwards of forty years he was untiring in his efforts to stimulate, broaden and intensify the importance of California horticulture."

E.J. Wickson wrote about John Rock as one of the pioneers of California's nursery business, in California nurserymen and the plant industry, 1850-1910 [39]

The nursery and pomological leader during the later '60s and thereafter for over a third of a century was John Rock, to whose memory a touching tribute by Mr. Kruckeberg was published in the report of the second annual meeting of the California Association of Nurserymen. Mr. Rock was more widely and deeply grounded in pomological knowledge than any of his contemporaries. To him came first the vision of the greatness of nursery enterprise of which California is capable and he lived to see his pioneer conception of such greatness attained not only in his own enterprise, but in the undertakings of the later generation. During his forty years of California life his leadership in his chosen art and industry and in the quality of his manhood and citizenship was unquestioned.

California Nursery Historical Park[]

After Rock's death, the California Nursery continued under various owners and was bought by George C. Roeding in 1917. It continued to be run by the Roeding family until the 1970s. The last 20 acres of the 463-acre nursery are a park in the Niles District of Fremont, California.[40] The archives of Rock's Nurseries and the California Nursery Company are in several locations: at the California Nursery Historical Park, managed by the Math Science Nucleus,[41] at the Fremont Main branch of the Alameda County library, and at the Washington Township Museum of Local History.[42]

References[]

  1. ^ "Transaction and proceedings of the annual meeting. v.02 yr.1912". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2017-12-16.
  2. ^ a b c d J. P. Munro-Fraser (1881). History of Santa Clara County, California. Harvard University. Alley, Bowen & co. pp. 736–737.
  3. ^ a b c Passport No. 2182, issued July 12, 1889 for travel to Heidelberg, Germany from July to October 1889.
  4. ^ a b c From Birth/Baptism record from Lauter, Germany
  5. ^ a b American Council of Learned Societies (1943). Dictionary of American biography. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. New York, C. Scribner's Sons.
  6. ^ a b Wickson, Edward J. (Edward James) (1921). California nurserymen and the plant industry, 1850-1910. Cornell University Library. Los Angeles, Published by the California Association of Nurserymen. pp. 27, 40.
  7. ^ a b c d e Bailey, L. H. (1917). The standard cyclopedia of horticulture :a discussion for the amateur, and the professional and commercial grower, of the kinds, characteristics and methods of cultivation of the species of plants grown in the regions of the United States and Canada for ornament, for fancy, for fruit and for vegetables; with keys to the natural families and genera, descriptions of the horticultural capabilities of the states and provinces and dependent islands, and sketches of eminent horticulturists /. p. 1593. hdl:2027/mdp.39015017880462.
  8. ^ "Lauter (Laubach)", Wikipedia (in German), 2020-09-25, retrieved 2020-11-29
  9. ^ "history". www.msnucleus.org. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  10. ^ Butterfield, Harry M.; Taylor, Judith M. Tangible Memories: Californians and Their Gardens 1800-1950.
  11. ^ Nurserymen, American Association of (1922). Proceedings, Annual Convention American Association of Nurserymen. American Association of Nurseryman. p. 90.
  12. ^ "Rosters of the New York Volunteers during the Civil War - Civil War Units from New York at the NY Military Museum and Veterans Research Center". dmna.ny.gov. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
  13. ^ "San Jose weekly Mercury 5 March 1868 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". cdnc.ucr.edu. p. 4. Retrieved 2020-12-18.
  14. ^ "Historical Atlas Map Of Santa Clara County, California. Compiled, Drawn And Published From Personal Examinations And Surveys By Thompson & West, San Francisco, Cala. 1876. Thos. Hunter Pr. Phil. N. Friend, Engr. Philad. C.L. Smith, Del [cartographic material]. in SearchWorks catalog". searchworks.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2018-01-02.
  15. ^ "Pacific Rural Press 8 November 1879 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". cdnc.ucr.edu. Retrieved 2021-09-13.
  16. ^ Rock, John (1880). J. Rock's Descriptive Catalog of Fruits Cultivated and for Sale at Rock's Nurseries, San Jose, Cal. San Francisco: Francis, Valentine & Co.
  17. ^ Foote, Horace S. (1888). Pen pictures from the garden of the world, or Santa Clara county, California. Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co.
  18. ^ "1880 Santa Clara County, Brainard Agricultural Atlas. :: Historic Map & Atlas Collection (SJPL California Room)". digitalcollections.sjlibrary.org. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  19. ^ "OUR BONANZA. GROWTH OF THE FRUIT INTEREST OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY. Immense Tracts of New Orchards— Who Supplied the Trees-A Progressive Nursery. ; San Jose weekly Mercury 27 December 1883 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". cdnc.ucr.edu. p. 6. Retrieved 2020-12-17.
  20. ^ "1887 San Jose City Directory :: San Jose City Directories - Business Classified Sections (SJPL California Room)". digitalcollections.sjlibrary.org. p. X, XX. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
  21. ^ "Pacific Rural Press 14 April 1888 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". cdnc.ucr.edu. Retrieved 2017-12-16.
  22. ^ Pacific Rural Press (27 November 1886). "Pacific Rural Press 27 November 1886 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". cdnc.ucr.edu. Retrieved 2017-12-10.
  23. ^ Rice, Bertha Marguerite (1957). Builders of Our Valley, a City of Small Farms. pp. 126–132.
  24. ^ California Nursery Co; Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection (1902). Descriptive catalogue of fruit trees, small fruits, etc. National Agricultural Library U. S. Department of Agriculture. San Francisco, Calif. : Mysell-Rollins Company.
  25. ^ California Nursery Co; Roeding, George Christian; Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection (1924). Budwood, scions and cuttings : (embracing over 1000 varieties) from record performance fruit trees / supplied by the California Nursery Co. ; George C. Roeding, president. National Agricultural Library U. S. Department of Agriculture. Niles, Calif. : California Nursery Co.
  26. ^ Rock, John (1887). California Nursery Ledger Book.
  27. ^ Eisen, Gustavus A. (1901). The fig: its history, culture, and curing, with a descriptive catalogue of the known varieties of figs. LuEsther T. Mertz Library New York Botanical Garden. Washington, Govt. print. off. pp. 70–71.
  28. ^ "Prolific Olives; Thrify Trees and Valuable Varieties; Olives for Profit - The Poor Man's Tree". Oroville Register. January 5, 1893.
  29. ^ "Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection : Free Texts : Download & Streaming : Internet Archive". archive.org. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  30. ^ "Nursery and Seed Catalogs". mertzdigital.nybg.org. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  31. ^ "California Nursery Co. - Biodiversity Heritage Library". www.biodiversitylibrary.org. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  32. ^ "California Nursery Company - Roeding Collection | California Revealed". californiarevealed.org. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  33. ^ ""The Late John Rock" San Jose Mercury-news 11 August 1904 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". cdnc.ucr.edu. p. 6. Retrieved 2020-12-02.
  34. ^ California Nursery Co; Landers, Wm J.; Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection (1904). Catalogue and price-list. fruit and ornamental trees, evergreens, palms, roses, etc., 1904-1905. National Agricultural Library U. S. Department of Agriculture. Niles, Calif. : California Nursery Company.
  35. ^ "John Rock (1836-1904) - Find A Grave Memorial". www.findagrave.com. Retrieved 2018-01-06.
  36. ^ "Proceedings of ... annual meeting. 1911-12". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  37. ^ "Proceedings of ... annual meeting. 1911-12". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  38. ^ "Transactions and proceedings of the ... annual meeting of the California Association of Nurserymen ... 1912". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2020-07-23.
  39. ^ Wickson, Edward J. (Edward James) (1921). California nurserymen and the plant industry, 1850-1910. Cornell University Library. Los Angeles, Published by the California Association of Nurserymen. pp. 26–28.
  40. ^ "Historical Parks & Facilities | City of Fremont Official Website". www.fremont.gov. Retrieved 2018-01-01.
  41. ^ "california nursery historical park". www.msnucleus.org. Retrieved 2018-01-16.
  42. ^ Barton, Janet (Winter 2021). "The California Nursery Company Archives - Far and Wide". Eden: Journal of the California Garden & Landscape History Society. 24:1: 24–33.
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