Johnson’s Fruit on Trial(Ed DeRousse) According to Smithsonian Magazine, in Salem Massachusetts more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft between 1692 and 1693. Ultimately, 20 people were executed during this brief time period that left a dark stain on American History. Proof that sometimes fear and hysteria cloud reason and logic.
The witch trials had been over for centuries. But on September 25 1820 a man in Salem, New Jersey had to take a stand against fear, hysteria, and the malicious claims being made against…. a fruit. Those claims involved poison. People were dying, they thought, because of the poison found within the fruit.
Indeed, people did die from eating that fruit. John Gerard, a barber and a surgeon, made claims of its supposedly ill effects and warned everyone against eating it.
The fear of the fruit’s deadliness was amplified by fear it was part of the deadly nightshade family of poisonous toxic plants. The fruit had the nickname “poison apple” because it was thought the European aristocrats got sick and died after eating them off their pewter plates.
It would be up to a local citizen to defend the alleged deadly fruit. Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson stepped forward to prove the citizens wrong.
Johnson was an American gentleman farmer, historian, renowned horticulturalist, judge, soldier, and former New Jersey State Legislature who lived in Salem. He grew the fruit in question and had, in fact, been eating the fruit regularly. He had travelled abroad and brought it home. Each year, Colonel Johnson held a competition on who could grow the largest one. Johnson claimed his fruit was edible and delicious. The townsfolk, though, thought his fruit to be strictly ornamental and believed him to be crazy.
In order to prove his claim, his fruit had to go on trial. His personal physician warned him against it. In fact, he predicted, "The foolish colonial will foam and froth at the mouth and double over with appendicitis. Should he by some unlikely chance survive his skin will stick to his stomach and cause cancer." Johnson, despite the dire warnings from his personal physician, believed the only way to prove his fruit’s innocence was to go to trial on its behalf.
2,000 spectators gathered that day in September on the steps of Salem’s historic red brick courthouse. They were expecting to see a well-known local celebrity and somewhat eccentric man drop dead.
The 50 plus year old Johnson ascended the steps of the courthouse dressed in a black suit and a three-corner hat and bravely addressed the crowd. At 11:45 a.m. 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 crowd.

A silence fell over the spectators.

Johnson announced, “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.”

Just in case, Johnson would suffer the consequence of eating the poisonous fruit, there was a physician on stand-by.

At precisely Noon, Johnson picked out the largest and reddest tomato from the basket and held it up into the air. “To prove to you that the tomato is not poisonous, I am going to eat one right now!”
He then bit into it.
Legend has it that a woman screamed.
Johnson consumed the entire basket and did not die. The crowd cheered, and a local band played a congratulatory tune.
The case against Johnson’s fruit was promptly dismissed. Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson walked home in triumph and word soon spread all over New Jersey, the United States, and the rest of the world that the tomato was safe to eat.
By The Way, it later turned out that the pewter plates of the wealthy had high amounts of lead. The acidity in tomatoes would leach into the pewter, resulting in many deaths. The tomato became the culprit. Of course, no one realized that at the time, but nonetheless, the deed was done.
Colonel Johnson had to undo the deed.

---