One of America’s most popular and most cultivated garden plants is the tomato. But it has not always been so. It was well into the 19th century before the tomato was ever eaten in the United States, and then with trepidation, because it is a member of the nightshade family and was believed by many to be poisonous.
The plant was introduced to the United States by the Europeans - and this is one of the strange things about its history, because the tomato is of American origin. Early European explorers found it grown by the Indians in Peru, Ecuador, Central America and Mexico.
The earliest written record of the tomato is found in an Italian manuscript dating from around 1550, where it was called “poma Peruviana” suggesting it had been introduced into Italy from Peru.
Records from about 25 years later refer to its having grown in Spain, France, and finally England.
The French named it “Pomme d’amour” hence the English and early American term “love apple.”
Not until after the Declaration of Independence do we find any record of love apples being grown on this continent by white men. Thomas Jefferson, who was a progressive farmer, grew some at Monticello in 1781, supposedly from seeds brought to him by a French refugee from Santo Domingo. An Italian painter is credited with bringing seeds to Salem, Mass., in 1802.
So far as we know, love apples were first eaten in America in New Orleans about 1812, doubtless through French influence. But it was more than a quarter of century before they were grown for good on any other part of the United States.
The Rev. Harbard P. DeBruler is credited with introducing the plant into the Ohio Valley. DeBruler was born in 1796 on a plantation in North Carolina, the ninth of 10 children. At an early age he showed a marked interest in the scientific study of flowers and plant.
In 1818 he married Mary “Polly” Taylor. Two years later they moved to Indiana and settled three miles west of Otwell.
Almost as soon as he arrived, he began to plant and develop a flower garden. Many of his seeds and plants he brought from North Carolina, but others were collected from around the world.
His garden was on a knoll which he called Delectable Hill. Traces of it could still be seen a century later.
DeBruler also became a preacher of the Gospel. He and a relative, the Rev. William Hargrave, organized the first Methodist Society in Pike County.
In 1840 DeBruler sold Delectable Hill. He and his family moved to Evansville, where he built a greenhouse. That greenhouse, believed to have been the first in Evansville, was on the riverfront between Vine and Sycamore streets.
He became the first in the city to commercialize the culture of flowers. He also grew tomatoes. When they had ripened, he carried them to his friends and neighbors, saying, “I have brought you a love apple. Taste it. It is real good.”
DeBruler’s career was cut off suddenly by the cholera epidemic of 1846. His wife died 26 days before him of the same disease.
They were buried side by side in an old cemetery at Sixth and Gum streets, but later their remains were removed and placed in a common grave in Oak Hill Cemetery. The stone reads:
”Reverend Harbard p. DeBruler died in April 21, 1846 in his 50th year. Polly his wife, died April 5, 1846, in her 46th year.
Debruler’s rare love apple, now called tomato, has become one of the most popular garden plants in the Midwest. Even apartment dwellers frequently grow a plant or two in pots in their balconies or patios.
And the plant’s modern name has reverted to its Indian origin. The Spanish were the first to record it a “tomatl,” from the ancient Aztec language.
