Bartlett Pear

The benchmark dessert pear worldwide, and one of the best-documented naming mix-ups in fruit history. It was first found in England around 1765 by a schoolmaster named John Stair, who sold cuttings to a nurseryman named Williams, who further developed and commercialized it under his own name as the "Williams" pear. American nurseryman James Carter imported Williams trees to Massachusetts around 1799, planting them on Thomas Brewer's estate in Roxbury; when Enoch Bartlett acquired that estate in 1817, he propagated and distributed the fruit under his own name, genuinely unaware it was already an established English variety. Not until 1828, when new stock arrived directly from Europe, was it discovered that "Bartlett" and "Williams" were the same pear — by then too late to undo, which is why the same fruit is still called Bartlett in North America and Williams nearly everywhere else. It remains the standard by which other pears are judged for flavor and texture.