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Front view of the Henderson Lewelling House.
Photograph by Jean Leeper, NPS-NHL.
North side of the House. The red dot marks the north room where the second trap door was.
Photograph by Jean Leeper, NPS-NHL.
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The Henderson Lewelling House is located in Salem, Iowa, the first Quaker community
in Iowa, founded in 1835. Henderson Lewelling, a Quaker from Indiana, moved to Salem in
1837 with his brother and opened a general merchandise store and established a small
commercial nursery. Like other Quaker Meetings across the country, the Salem Monthly
Meeting experienced a schism within in its membership over the action the community should
take in opposing slavery. The Society of Friends opposed slavery, but some members felt that
they should not participate in helping fugitive slaves to freedom. Lewelling represented the more
active side of this decisive question and in 1843, along with other members of the Salem
Monthly Meeting, established the Abolition Friends Monthly Meeting. By 1845, Salem Meeting
had disowned 50 of its members, an indication of how divided the Society of Friends was over
participation in the Underground Railroad. Some of the Abolition Friends most probably met in
the Lewelling House, built c.1840, to discuss their Underground Railroad activities, and the
house may have also been a haven to fugitive slaves. Salem was only 25 miles from Missouri, a slave state, and many of its residents had strong anti-slavery beliefs, making the town an active stop on the Underground Railroad.
Lewelling is also known for promoting the fruit industry in Iowa and later in Oregon and
California. He and his brother were the first people to plant fruit trees in Iowa. In 1837 they
planted 35 varieties of apples, pears, cherries, peaches, plums, and small fruits. Ten years after
arriving in Salem, Lewelling moved to Oregon and established a new nursery with 350 plants
that had survived the long journey--the first grafted nursery stock planted on the Pacific Coast.
Lewelling's brother later joined him and was responsible for propagating the Bing cherry. In
1853, taking advantage of the Gold Rush, Lewelling moved to California, established a nursery
and founded the community of Fruitvale. Today, Lewelling is known as the Father of the Pacific
Fruit Industry. His activities in Salem, Iowa, also make him an important figure in the
Underground Railroad movement.
The Henderson Lewelling House is located on 401 South Main Street in
Salem, Iowa. It is open to the public May through September on Sundays
only from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. During the rest of the year, tours are
given by appointment by calling the Museum at 319-258-2000.
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