Upper Ground Sweet Potato Squash (Cucurbita moschata cv.)
This rare heirloom is a rugged variety that is tolerant of hot, dry weather, rendering it especially well-suited to the South. The vines are vigorous, with large, dark, metallic green-striped leaves, and it produces an abundance of medium-large, round-to-bell-shaped, tan-skinned fruit and moist orange flesh that resembles that of the sweet potato, hence the name.
In 1790, Jefferson sent to Samuel Vaughan Jr. seed of a melon species resembling a pumpkin and tasting like the sweet potato, calling it “potateo-pumpkin.” The Upper Ground Sweet Potato Winter Squash can weigh up to 20 pounds when ripe.
Chronological Quotes: Upper Ground Sweet Potato Squash (1600–1825)
Abbé Robin’s Account of America (1780s)
I was served a kind of gourd, resembling the sweet taste of batatas, though it was indeed a form of pumpkin, as the host said
This French visitor to Revolutionary-era Virginia likely encountered the sweet potato pumpkin cultivated by American colonists in the South for its dense, orange, sweet flesh
Source: Robin, J.F. (1782), New Travels in America – https://archive.org/details/newtravelsinamer00robi/page/n5
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Vaughan Jr. (1790)
I send you seeds of a kind of melon which is much cultivated here, and which we call the ‘potateo-pumpkin,’ as it tastes like the sweet potato and has the form of a pumpkin
Jefferson’s seed exchange clearly names the cultivar and confirms its valued role at Monticello, reflecting its adaptation to Southern climates
Source: Founders Online – https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson
William Bartram, Travels through North and South Carolina (1791)
The natives grow divers varieties of squash and pumpkin, one especially sweet and of deep orange flesh, almost akin to the batata
Bartram describes Indigenous cultivation of Cucurbita moschata-like squashes that early colonists would have adopted and rebranded under various names including potato pumpkin
Source: Bartram, W. (1791), Travels – https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51233
Bernard McMahon’s The American Gardener’s Calendar (1806)
In the South, plant pumpkin or squash varieties known for their drought resistance and sweet, orange flesh, especially after the last frost
While not naming it directly, McMahon’s description fits what we now know as Upper Ground Sweet Potato Squash, indicating its place in Southern horticulture
Source: McMahon, B. (1806), The American Gardener’s Calendar, Philadelphia
American Farmer Journal (1823), John S. Skinner
Among the rustic vegetables best suited for the Southern plantations is the ‘sweet-potato pumpkin,’ noted for its deep-colored flesh and hardy vine
This agricultural journal documents the crop’s identity under its colonial nickname in a practical context for plantation farmers
Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=VjNZoMeZfqkC
Contribución de plantas nativas a la seguridad alimentaria... (1824)
While this 1824 source discusses native plant nutrition in Guatemala, it makes general reference to sweet-fleshed squashes, though it falls outside the U.S. colonial/American context and likely refers to related cultivars used by Indigenous Mesoamerican communities
Source: https://publications.iadb.org/publications/spanish/document/Contribuci%C3%B3n_de_plantas_nativas_a_la_seguridad_alimentaria_en_comunidades_mayas_de_Guatemala.pdf
For more information & the possible availability for purchase
Colonial Era Cookbooks
1615, New Booke of Cookerie, John Murrell (London)
1798, American Cookery, Amelia Simmons (Hartford, CT)
1803, Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter (New York, NY)
1807, A New System of Domestic Cookery, Maria Eliza Rundell (Boston, MA)
1808, New England Cookery, Lucy Emerson (Montpelier, VT)
Helpful Secondary Sources
America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking/Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Colonial Kitchens, Their Furnishings, and Their Gardens/Frances Phipps Hawthorn; 1972
Early American Beverages/John Hull Brown Rutland, Vt., C. E. Tuttle Co 1996
Early American Herb Recipes/Alice Cooke Brown ABC-CLIO Westport, United States
Food in Colonial and Federal America/Sandra L. Oliver
Home Life in Colonial Days/Alice Morse Earle (Chapter VII: Meat and Drink) New York : Macmillan Co., ©1926.
A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America/James E. McWilliams New York : Columbia University Press, 2005.
