TNCAMPBE-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: [TNCAMPBE-L] Lewelling
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 09:49:49 EST

Group,

Lewelln/Lewallen/Lewelling/Llewellyn connection.

Here's information I rec'd from Billie's snail mail: That is unless I loose
power, one day it's rain, the next snow. Our day for rain today....

The Lewelling Quaker Shrine, Inc.
The Quaker & The Underground Railroad
Salem _ _ _ _ Iowa

Henderson Lewelling of Salem, Iowa
Father of West Coast Fruit Industry
"The Bing that made Milwaukee Famous" owes its Oregon to a man who was born in
Randolph Co., NC on 4-22-1810. Henderson Lewelling's parents were of early
pioneer stock and Quakers. His father, a Welshman, came of a family which had
been in America several generations. His mother was of English extraction.
The father, a physician ____ conducted a plant nursery in combination with his
efforts at physic and surgery. There were two other sons __ Seth and John.
The family moved to Greensboro, Ind. in 1825 where Henderson married Elizabeth
Presnell.

Henderson and his brother John operated a nursery first in Henderson Co.,
Ind., in Henry Co., Iowa at Salem to which state they moved in 1837. Here
they operated a nursery and store of general merchandise. They spent 10 yrs
in Salem cultivating shrubs, vines, trees and much nursery stock on the
grounds of the present Lewelling Quaker Shrine.

The present sand stone building housing the Lewelling Quaker Shrine. Was
completed some time between 1840 and the fall of 1845 when Henderson Lewelling
first began to talk of moving on to Oregon. The Lewelling home became widely
known as the: ticket office on the underground railroad" for runaway slaves,
especially out of Missouri. Slaves were hidden in various secret places of
the building until they could be safely moved on east and north to Canada and
freedom.

These hiding places are still intact in the Shrine which is being preserved in
Salem, Iowa as a monument to the memory of the Quaker settlers of the area,
who were opposed to the enslavement of the black man.

photo of Henderson Lewelling (Photograph Curtesy of Oregon Historical Society)

A Dozen Lewelling Dates to Remember

4-23-1810 Henderson Lewelling born in Randolph Co., NC
4-1825 helped father start nursery New Castle, Ind.
4-1837 Henderson & John start nursery in Salem, Iowa
4-1845 Grafted tree that was later sold to David Chamberlain who planted it in
Olympia, Washington (1849)
4-1847 Henderson and family load 700 trees and start for Oregon
1848 broke ground for 1st nursery in Milwaukee, Orgeon
1850 Seth Lewelling joined Henderson Nurseries in Oregon
1853 Henderson moved to California to start a nursery. History names him"
Father of Pacific Fruit Industry."
1854 John Lewelling starts nursery in California to be known as the largest
fruit industry in that state. Noted for prune and raisin drying.
1878 Seth Lewelling propagates the famous "Bing Cherry".
1967 Cuttings taken for grafts from the original trees still living in
Milwaukee, Oregon.
1969 Grafted trees planted at the Lewelling Quaker Shrine in Salem, Iowa.

Jean Franos CA

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