Last week Karen bought a flat of fresh strawberries at the Mayhew Tomato Farm. Besides enjoying the strawberries in a pie, on pound cake and with a scoop of ice cream, I reflected on the relationship of strawberries to local history and to Mayhew in particular. That story began more than 300 years ago.

In spring 1708, Capt. Thomas Nairne of Charles Town, North Carolina, traveled to the Chickasaw villages in the Black Prairie at present-day Tupelo. Nairne wrote that (when he) “… arrived within 20 miles of the Chickasaw, and we had done with sand, stones and pines, the country being pleasant open forest of oak, chestnuts and hickerey so intermixt with savannas (prairies) as if it was a made landscape.”

Nairne also commented on spring time in the prairies. “It’s now the season of the year, when nature adorns the Earth with a livery of verdant green, and there is some pleasure in an evening to ride up and down the savannas. When among a tuft of oaks on a rising knowll, in the midst of a large grassy plain, I revolve a thousand things about the primitive life of men.”

Thickets of plums and peaches were found by Nairne in the Chickasaw villages and on the old fields he found “strawberries innumerable.”

Traveling in 1771 through the prairie in what is now the West Point area, Bernard Romans also found “… the fragaria or strawberry is very common in them (the prairies).”

Wild strawberries were also evidently at the Mayhew Choctaw Indian Mission (between Starkville and West Point). I have a book, “Memories of Rev. David Brainard, Missionary to the Indians” by Rev. Jonathan Edwards, dated 1822. A bookplate shows that it was book number 329 from the Mayhew Mission library. In it I found strawberry leaves pressed between the pages.

It is interesting that the earliest references to strawberries I found in Columbus newspapers were for the sale of strawberry flavored candy. On June 1, 1843, Keeler’s Cheap Cash Store announced he had “just received Vanilla, Rose, Peppermint, Liquorice, Coltsfoot, Lavender, Strawberry, Sassifras, Pine Apple, and Wintergreen & Lemon Lozenges.” In May 1852, James Blair was advertising that he had received a shipment of Rushton, Clark & Co.’s Acidulated Fruit Drops. These drops he said “have the pure rich flavor of the Fruit, in the highest state of perfection.” Among the flavors of the drops was strawberry.

The earliest reference to growing strawberries was copied from a Texas newspaper by the Columbus Whig on Feb. 29, 1844. The account said: “The editor of the Morning Star is crowing over a basket of ripe strawberries which has been sent to him. He says: ‘The vines which yielded these strawberries were brought from Tennessee, and they have apparently mistaken the mild Texan winter for the spring of their own chilly clime.'”

In 1851 the Columbus Democrat had reported that there was a lady who had been “greatly shocked the other day on reading that the male and female strawberry plants were frequently found in the same bed.”

Apparently enjoying a bowl of strawberries and ice cream is nothing new. On May 5, 1852, the ladies of the Presbyterian Church in Columbus had a fundraiser for the purchase of an organ for the church. They publicized that there would be, “a sumptuous feast of good things, prominent amongst which will be a profusion of Ice Cream and Strawberries.”

While strawberries have a long history of being enjoyed in the South, their cultivation seems to have mushroomed in the 1870s. Columbus newspapers were filled with advertisements by the producers of strawberry seedlings. One of the major producers was J.S. Kreigh in Catawissa, Pennsylvania. He advertised extensively in the Columbus papers during the late 1870s. He would ship strawberry seedlings by mail, 12 plants shipped by mail were $1, 100 plants by express were $3 and 1,000 plants by express were $20. Kreigh also made sure that his advertisement reflected references by leaders in the Grange, a national fraternal order of farmers. Most of his ads appeared in the Patrons of Husbandry, a Columbus newspaper associated with the Grange movement.

Wild strawberries are still a common plant in local yards and fields where they are usually considered a weed. The much larger and tastier modern hybrid strawberry is commonly cultivated both commercially and in gardens. What most people do not realize is that the strawberry is in the rose family.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

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