John Adlum (April 29, 1759 – March 14, 1836) was a pioneering American viticulturalist who was the first to cultivate the Catawba grape.

[4] He was captured by the British on November 6, 1776, at the Battle of Fort Washington,[6] but was imprisoned along with many American officers in homes in New York City where he had relatively good freedom of movement.

[6] Unable to participate in the war any further due to the terms of his parole, Adlum settled in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania,[4] where his father now lived and had a tanning business.

[2][8] Adlum was so well-regarded, and westward expansion was proceeding so swiftly, that he made a small fortune as a surveyor.

Although the exact nature of his farming efforts are not clear, it is known that he began a vineyard to begin experimenting with growing native American grapes and using them in winemaking.

Adlum wanted to keep planting European vines (knowing Americans would discriminate against a domestic wine, no matter how good).

But Jefferson advised him to stick to domestic varieties, as European vines would take "centuries" to adapt to the American climate and pests.

Two years later, on December 4, 1816, he purchased 45 acres (180,000 m2) from John Heath in what is now the Cleveland Park neighborhood north of the town of Georgetown.

Mrs. Scholl advised that a Roman Catholic priest from Germany told her the vine was a "Tokay" (Tokaji) from Hungary.

[22] Adlum's first vintage from his estate was produced in 1821 or 1822 (the history of winemaking at "The Vineyard" is unclear), and in 1822 had about 10 acres (40,000 m2) under grape cultivation.

During the presidential administration of John Quincy Adams, Adlum requested that the federal government lease a portion of "The Vineyard" and establish an agricultural experiment station.

How the vine got to Maryland, or whether Adlum knew that it came from the Catawba River region when he began using Scholl's nomenclature, is not clear.

The second great expansion of the Catawba grape came in 1845, when Ulster County, New York, winemaker William T. Cornell obtained cuttings from Adlum to found a major vineyard in the Hudson Valley.

He added significant amounts of sugar to his must, he often mixed poor-quality wild grapes with his Catawba in order to create more juice, and he preferred to allow temperatures to rise as high as 115 °F (46 °C) during fermentation.

But his lack of success at winemaking itself left Adlum without a good income, and in his later years his family came close to poverty.

In 1831, Adlum was forced to claim a minuscule pension for his Revolutionary War service (which he had long refused to do) in order to provide for his family.

[30][31] Gahn and winemaking historian Thomas Pinney claim that Adlum's grave was lost for many years.

It was not until the end of the 1800s when botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey rediscovered his work, and popularized Adlum's contributions to vine-growing and winemaking.