New Jersey Tomato Trial of 1820: How One Man Proved that the "Love Apple" was Safe to Eat

  The Salem County Courthouse in Salem, New Jersey, was built in 1735.  It is the oldest continually operating courthouse in New Jersey and the second oldest in all of the United States.  In 1774 the Salem County Courthouse was the site of a petition denouncing King George III on behalf of the colonists of New Jersey for unfair and unlawful taxation.

On September 26, 1820 on the steps of that same red brick historic courthouse the tomato stood trial before a crowd of upwards of 2000 spectators all of whom had gathered that day believing that they might see a well known local celebrity and somewhat eccentric man drop dead.

Standing atop the steps that morning, with a wicker basket full of tomatoes at his feet, is Salem farmer, historian, horticulturist, judge and former soldier, Robert Gibbon Johnson, known affectionately at the time as Colonel Johnson for his past military service to the residents of Salem.

Earlier in the week Robert Gibbon Johnson had announced that he would prove that the tomato, a fruit he loved and cultivated in his own garden, was not poisonous and was, in fact, entirely safe to eat even in large quantities contrary to popular belief.

Just before noon on September 26, 1820 Johnson set out from his home on Market Street and began walking toward the courthouse.  The crowd cheered wildly as they saw him approach, and the cheers grew louder as he mounted the steps.  

He walked, dressed in a black suit and three corner hat, with an air of dignity and gravity that befitted a man of his age and station in life.  Johnson was over fifty years old and had served in the New Jersey State Legislature.  He was the head of both the New Jersey Historical Society and the New Jersey Horticultural Society.  He was already recognized as an authority on local history after he had published the widely popular An Account of the First Settlement of Salem in West Jersey in 1839.

In 1808, after a trip to Europe, realizing that the largely ornamental fruit he had seen growing in large quantities on both the Iberian and Italian peninsulas during his continental tour of Europe might do well in the marshy soil of his native southern New Jersey, Gibbon took back with him a number of tomato plants and seeds.

Right away, after planting the fruit on his own farm in Salem, and seeing how well it took to the climate of New Jersey, Johnson had realized that the tomato could be both a plentiful and profitable food source for his native state, but he also knew that first he had to remove the tomato’s lasting stigma.

Robert Gibbon Johnson

Although known to Europeans during the middle ages, the tomato prior to the 16th century was considered sinful due to its supposed aphrodisiac qualities and also due to the belief by many in the medieval world that the tomato, with its bright red color and soft texture, was the forbidden apple consumed by Adam and Eve referenced in the Book of Genesis.  For that reason medieval Europeans derisively referred to the tomato as “the Love Apple” and only the most desperately poor, or those already deemed witches or heretics, would dare to cultivate or consume a tomato.

Then sometime just after the year 1500 Spanish conquistadors, while slaughtering their way through the indigenous population in meso-america, noticed that the Aztecs grew tomatoes in large quantities and used them not only as ornamental garden plants but also as a plentiful and easy to grow food crop.

It is believed that around the year 1519 Spanish conquistadors brought tomatoes back to Spain with them in large numbers, but mired in tradition, the European public remained skeptical of eating them and used tomatoes primarily as an ornamental garden plant.

Though many of Europe’s poorest peasants, notably in Spain and Italy adopted the tomato as a dietary staple, most in northern Europe because of the tomato’s acidity still believed the fruit to be toxic and continued to denounce it calling it the Wolf Peach.  It didn’t help matters either that in 1597 British surgeon John Gerard in his work called Herbals was able to identify a chemical called tomatine in the fruit itself which he deemed poisonous.  While it is true that extremely large amounts of tomatine can be harmful to humans the small amount of the chemical actually found in the fruit has since been determined to have many beneficial health effects when consumed in moderation.

 John Gerard Title Page from 1636 Edition of Herbals

However, much more rigorous scientific research regarding the benefits of tomato consumption remained decades in the future when Robert Gibbon Johnson arrived back in Salem with his crop of tomato plants and seeds in 1808.

Though some horticulturalists in America by the early 19th century had taken to growing tomatoes as an ornamental fruit, only the most desperate or most daring of souls like Robert Gibbon Johnson would actually risk eating one!

Each year between 1808 and 1820 Colonel Johnson would hold a tomato growing contest throughout southern and western New Jersey in which he would offer a large cash prize to the local farmer who could grow the largest tomato. But most years, Robert Gibbon Johnson would be the only entrant in his own contest.  Despite his determination to promote the fruit and its benefits to his home state of New Jersey the tomato’s reputation as poisonous stuck.

Then came September 26, 1820.

At a quarter to noon Johnson stood atop the courthouse steps in Salem, placed the basket of tomatoes he was carrying down by his side, and gazed out over the assembled crowd.  A hush fell over the audience.

Johnson proclaimed that, “beginning at noon I will eat one tomato after another until I finish consuming the entire basket to prove that this fruit, oft derisively called the wolf peach, or the love apple, is entirely safe to eat.”

An audible gasp went up from the crowd.  “Colonel Johnson, don’t do it!” Many in the crowd shouted out of fear for the life of a man they had known for many years.

But Johnson silenced the crowd and told them of how he had seen many in Europe consume tomatoes without any ill effects.  And he stated that he had studied, and eaten the fruit himself for many years, and that not only was the tomato completely safe to eat, but that today he would prove it to them all.

At exactly noon, Johnson chose the largest and reddest tomato from the basket and held it up into the air.  He announced, “To prove to you that the tomato is not poisonous, I am going to eat one right now!”  He then bit into it.

People screamed and jeered, but Johnson proceeded to reach into the basket again and again and eat tomato after tomato until the basket was completely empty.

“Oh my God!” The crowd shouted.  “He’s done it!  He’s still alive!”

The Salem New Jersey firemen's band struck up a celebratory tune, the crowd cheered, Robert Gibbon Johnson walked home in triumph and word soon spread all over New Jersey, the United States and then the rest of the world that the tomato was safe to eat.

The world famous red ripe New Jersey tomato was born!

Or was it?

Actors Re-enact the Events of September 26, 1820

For a time in the late twentieth century the city of Salem New Jersey did celebrate a Robert Gibbon Johnson Day each year and reenact the fateful events of September 26, 1820 on the steps of their historic courthouse.  Many media outlets in the United States including History (the TV channel) and Good Morning America have reported the legendary story of Robert Gibbon Johnson and the tomato as true, but there are many tales about other American’s including one about Thomas Jefferson and the tomato which are similar to the famous “Tomato Trial” of Salem New Jersey.

It is hard to tell where fact regarding Robert Gibbon Johnson and the tomato begins and where the folklore ends. It appears that Johnson did write and publish widely about farming methods, and crops including the tomato, in the 1820’s in a scientific journal called The American Farmer.

And although the incident on the courthouse steps may, or may not have happened as recorded in the anecdotal record, Robert Gibbon Johnson is credited as being very influential in introducing the tomato as a cash crop to southern New Jersey where the fruit was able to be easily grown and shipped without spoiling to the major markets of New York City and Philadelphia.

The Delaware

The first written account of the famous Tomato Trial of 1820 dates to nearly 100 years after the supposed event and is based on folklore that had been passed down locally through generations.  Joseph Sickler, the then Salem Postmaster related the story of the tomato trial on the steps of the courthouse, which he had heard from his father, to Philadelphia based historian and writer from the University of Pennsylvania Harry Emerson Wildes in about the year 1910.

   Wildes then published the story in a book of local history and folklore called The Delaware that he wrote in 1940, long after the events of September 26, 1820 would have passed from living memory, so that no one was still alive at the time who could personally vouch for the veracity of the story of the New Jersey Tomato Trial.

The rest, as they say, is history....