In the early years of Smith, students didn’t wait for Mountain Day to go apple picking. An apple orchard spread across much of what is now Chapin Lawn and the surrounding area. As the campus expanded, especially throughout the early 20th century, the orchard got smaller and smaller until it eventually disappeared altogether.
For students in these first decades of the college, the orchard played a prominent role in student life and campus culture. Photos from the College Archives show students spending time under the trees and swinging in hammocks. According to the Smith Alumnae Quarterly from February 1924, students would tack calling cards to the trees they wanted to swing from in order to reserve spots for their hammocks.
The orchard was also used for more formal student events, notably Junior Prom. Many issues of the Smith College Monthly, a combination literary magazine/school newspaper from the early to mid 1900s, give descriptions of Junior Proms occuring in the orchard. The orchard was an integral part of this event for many students, as was shown in a poem by Mary Rice, class of 1911, titled “The Plea of Future Promenades.” The poem was written about the first time the prom was held outside of the orchard. “Was there no room, save only ’mongst the trees/ of our loved orchard, which they cruelly judge…” Rice wrote in the beginning. She ended the poem with the statement, “By all that makes our Prom what it is not — / give us our dear old orchard back again!” Perhaps her plea was successful, as in later years, descriptions of the junior prom again mention it being in the orchard.
The prominent theme in the story of the orchard is that it was a space highly important to students but often unacknowledged by the college. As buildings were constructed, sections of the orchard often had to be torn down. A description of a photo from 1894 places it where Chapin House now stands, so the house’s construction in 1903 must have required destruction of the orchard there. However, this does not seem to have been a concern of the college, as the orchard is not mentioned in the files on the history of Chapin House in the College Archives. In even earlier photos, hay bales are visible on the lawn beneath the trees. According to Nanci Young, the College Archivists of Special Collections, Burton Lawn used to be a hay field, so it’s possible that at one point, the orchard spread from Burton to Chapin Lawns, perhaps even further.
When Smith was planning to build Neilson Library, students realized that it would mean further destruction of the orchard. They turned to the Smith College Monthly, where, in 1906, Katherine D. Hinman wrote “A Plea for the Orchard,” asking the college not to “sacrifice” the old orchard. “Oh cannot we find another place just as suitable, and at the same time preserve the orchard?” Hinman asked. She added that the orchard provides a “free and open space” which was important to the college. As a final question, she asked, “what would we do without it on Prom afternoon?”
Even so, over the years, the orchard did slowly disappear. In the Smith Alumnae Quarterly, alumni reminisce about when the orchard was more robust. In February 1932, Harriet Bliss Ford, class of 1899, returned to look at campus, and wrote, “beyond Wallace and Dewey the old orchard has been invaded, vistas opened, buildings stood oddly where hammocks had swung.” The orchard is still mentioned, but mostly just as a meeting spot, such as for the Ivy Day alumnae parade. In the July 1924 issue, the Smith Alumnae Quarterly acknowledged that “we believe the program doesn’t call it ‘orchard’ anymore, but we are sure there is still one apple tree.” As time moved on, from the ’20s to the ’30s and beyond, mentions of the orchard slowly stopped, until now, when hardly anyone on campus knows about it.
But while the old orchard may be gone, that doesn’t mean there isn’t hope for a new one, according to John Berryhill, Landscape Curator for the Smith College Botanic Gardens. Berryhill showed a row of trees sitting in the back of Capen Gardens. According to him, these are dwarf varieties of apple trees, grafted onto smaller trees so they’ll produce fruits earlier, and they were planted about three years ago.
The overall design of the Capen Gardens are “reflective of a very white Eurocentric Smith history,” Berryhill said, as they are modeled after European botanic gardens. Berryhill says they are currently being reimagined, not to erase every bit of history in the garden but to focus on conservation, food and community. To him, part of this reimagining includes focusing more on food producing plants, like apple trees. He imagined that the old apple orchard would have been used in this way by Smithies of the past. “Food and community is an easy entry to the botanic world,” Berryhill said. He added that this is something he feels passionate about, to give more people access to botanic garden education.
Al Torrens-Martin ’25 said they were excited about the possibility for a new orchard at Smith, especially in regards to sustainability. “I think that revitalizing the orchard space at Smith would uphold our commitment to becoming a greener campus and continue to create a culture of regenerative agriculture and community,” Torrens-Martin said. “Additionally, by doing this, we would be contributing to reforestation, which is a process that is so sadly lacking in the world today,” they added.
“I would like to make the landscape more valuable and therefore more memorable to Smith students,” Berryhill said. He hopes that having a visual reminder of the cycle of food production, such as through an apple orchard, will help to make this happen.
