Introduced by St. Lawrence Nurseries, Potsdam, New York. Fruit small but sweet, ripe mid-August. The original tree, growing near Staceyville, Maine is at least 250 years old and 108 inches in circumference. Fruit should be picked in mid-August before fully ripe and allowed to ripen in a cool storage space. Brought to the attention of St. Lawrence Nurseries by Clarke Nattress. -- St. Lawrence Nurseries Catalog, 2005The Stacey Pear Tree is a very old and remarkably healthy tree, the only pear tree on an old farm near a much younger apple orchard. As its name implies, it is in Stacyville, a neighboring township to the northwest of Benedicta. Most, if not all, of the local residents knew about the tree long before Pete Grabber, Lou Riccadelli, and myself 'discovered' the tree in the early 1980's while foraging for cider apples. Of the three of us, I was the only one interested enough in the tree to promote it, sending boxes of the fruit to several nurseries including Stark Brother's. Since they sell mostly commercial varieties to temperate zone orchards around the world, an extremely hardy, self-fruitful, and disease free pear tree was not on their radar screen. Probably if it had fruit larger than Bartlett or Anjou they would have responded. Finally, a friend of mine gave me a catalog from St. Lawrence Nurseries in upstate New York. Bill MacKentley, who I have since developed a friendship with, was very enthusiastic about the tree, and was the first to ever offer the tree for sale in the early 1980's. From measurements taken by myself and Jack Kertesz, Bill estimated the tree to be upwards of 250 years old (meaning closer to 300 as the years have passed). He said that he had seen pears 300+ in Massachusetts that the ages were confirmed by rings in the wood, but that none of them were in as good shape as the Stacey. In fact, some had only a few remaining framework branches. http://www.benedicta-maine.com/Stacey_Pear_Tree/stacey_pear_tree.html -- accessed December, 2006.