Hancock's Orchard Industry

Hancock and its surrounding area was one of the nation’s largest fruit-producing regions during the main span of the 20th century. In 1886 Edmund Pendleton Cohill began cultivating fruit crops, expanded his planted acreage over the years, and formed the Tonoloway Orchard Company. Other orchard companies and families followed, including Millstone Orchard Company, Locher Orchards, Daniels, Funk, R.S. Dillon, Corona Orchard Company, Round Top Orchard Company, Green Lane, Roy Daniels, John Mason and L. Resley, and Hepburn Orchards, and many were later incorporated into larger companies such as Fairview Orchards. At the industry’s peak from the mid 1940-60's, five thousand acres produced apples, peaches, cherries, and plums for fresh markets and canning factories, while Fancy Packs were shipped abroad. Laborers from Florida, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica joined local farmers each fall for the harvest, greatly boosting the local economy, and cold storage warehouses held excess fruit until markets opened. Much of the industry declined in the 1970-80 period because of labor problems, and most of the area that had once been a fruit basket for the nation now lies fallow.

Hancock, Maryland · United States