Mid-Week Historical Newsbreak -- Osage You Can See

Delaware State Reporter, Aug. 24, 1855

I realized it's been a while since we've had a Newsbreak wherein someone or something didn't perish in a fairly gruesome manner, so here's a story about plants. It comes from the August 24, 1855 issue of the Delaware State Reporter and has to do with a new type of plant introduced into Corner Ketch. It says that Samuel Loyd started growing osage orange trees about ten years earlier, and now has a nice grove and over a mile of hedge.

The Samuel Lloyd of the article ran the store at the corner of Corner Ketch Road and Doe Run Road, and was the first Postmaster of the Pleasant Hill (Corner Ketch) Post Office. The osage orange is a small tree/large shrub often used in hedges. It has a round, bumpy, green fruit roughly the size of a softball, sometimes called horse apples or monkey balls.

I no longer have the email in which Donna Peters originally sent me this story, but I think she said that this type of tree can still be found in and around Corner Ketch. If so, these trees are no doubt descendants of the originals planted by Lloyd in 1845. Something cool to think about the next time you drive through the area.