Location: NC 49 at Tot Hill Farm Road southwest of Asheboro
County: Randolph
Original Date Cast: 2017
“Father of the Pacific Fruit Industry,” Henderson Luelling was born in Randolph County in 1809. Deeds indicate that his father purchased 130 acres on Betty McGee Creek southwest of Asheboro. A Quaker active in the Back Creek Monthly Meeting, orchardist Luelling (originally Lewelling; he changed the spelling in 1850) took fruit trees to the West Coast via the Oregon Trail.
Also known as the "Johnny Appleseed of the West," Luelling moved in 1822 to Salem, Iowa, where he and others established the Abolition Friends Monthly Meeting and where a trap door in his house led to a haven for fugitive slaves. His house in Iowa is a National Historic Landmark.
In 1847 Luelling, travelling by ox-team, left Iowa in a seven-wagon caravan with his wife, eight children, and 700 grafted fruit trees, primarily apples but also pears, cherries, and peaches. Half of the stock of trees, buried in a compost of soil and charcoal, died enroute as did two of his oxen. Grafted fruit trees are required to produce commercially viable product.
With the assistance of Indian guides, Luelling arrived in the Willamette Valley drawn there by the writings of John C. Fremont and the accounts of Lewis and Clark. He established a nursery, sold thousands of trees in Oregon and California, and brought several new varieties of fruits to the market.
A writer for the WPA’s Federal Writers’ Project put forward that “these two loads of trees brought more wealth to Oregon than any ship that entered the Columbia River.” A recent dissertation in Washington credits Luelling with propelling the apple industry in that state. His brother Seth, who accompanied him, introduced the Bing cherry. Henderson Luelling died in Oakland, California in 1878.
References:
“The Luelling Family: Pioneers,” Iowa History Project (Oct. 1929)
Amanda Lan Lanen, “’We Have Grown Fine Fruit Whether We Would or No’: The History of the Washington State Apple Industry, 1880-1930” (Ph.D. dissertation, Washington State University, 2009)
Woodmen of the World Magazine (July 1982) San Jose Daily Herald, Dec. 31, 1878
San Jose Mercury News, Dec. 15, 2003
Portland Daily Journal, Apr. 10, 1920
“Oregon Oddities” (FWP, WPA, 1941)
Henderson Luelling House, National Historic Landmark: https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/ia3.htm