History of cranberries in North America

The cranberry is an important ingredient in American history. It is known that American Indians used cranberries to make poultices for wounds. Especially when it was combined with cornmeal, cranberry was used to counteract blood poisoning. In addition, they enjoyed cooked cranberries that were sweetened with maple syrup or honey.

The colonists named the berries ‘crane berries; because their pink blooms resembled the heads of cranes. 

By the beginning of the 18th century the colonists were exporting cranberries to England.

The revolutionary War Veteran Henry Hall planted the first commercial cranberry beds in Massachusetts on Cape Cod in 1816. Hall noticed that a wealth of large berries were produced when the tides and wind swept some sand into his bog.

Bogs became the ideal medium for cranberry growth. By 1820 he was shipping his cranberries to Boston and New York City.

It did not take long for cranberry cultivation to spread across the United States especially in the states of Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington.

Cranberries were first introduced to Holland when an American ship carrying barrels of cranberries was shipwrecked on the Dutch cost. The barrels were washed ashore, some berries took root and cranberries have been cultivated there from then on.

In the 1920s canned cranberry sauce was introduced and in the 1940s cranberry juice became commercially available.

Cranberry has been used to prevent and treat urinary tract infections since the 19th century.
History of cranberries in North America