[80] Little is known of the early life of Seth and Henderson Lewelling. They were of Welsh ancestry and both were born in Salem, North Carolina, Henderson on the 25th of April, 1809, and Seth on the 6th day of March, 1819. Henderson died in California December 28th, 1878, while Seth died in Milwaukee, continued: Oregon, February 21st, 1897. When the boys were still very young their parents moved from North Carolina to Ohio and founded the town of Salem in Ross County; later they moved to Indiana where their father established a nursery and became one of the pioneer fruit-growers of what was then the West and here again they founded a town of Salem. We next hear of Henderson Lewelling in Salem, Henry County, Iowa, the town of his naming, with the statement that in 1837 he planted a small nursery of 35 varieties of apples and some peach, plum and cherry trees. The history of the Lewellings now becomes more definite for we have it from Seth Lewelling[81] (we spell the name as does he and not "Luelling" as do many in writing of him) that in March, 1847, Henderson Lewelling planted an assortment of apples, pears, peaches, plums and cherries and loaded them into two wagons and started to Oregon. This traveling nursery was on the road from March to November and one can imagine the labor of watering and caring for the trees in this trip across mountains and plains. Henderson Lewelling formed a partnership with William Meek under the firm name of Meek & Lewelling, Milwaukee, Oregon. Seth joined his brother in the fall of 1850 bringing with him from the East a considerable quantity of fruit seed. For the next few years their nursery operations were on a large scale, over 100,000 grafts being planted in 1853. From time to time they made new importations of plants and fruit seeds from the East. Seth says that his brother quit the business and moved to California in 1853 and we hear no more of him until his death in 1878. In 1857, the partnership between Meek and Seth Lewelling was dissolved leaving the latter the owner of the Milwaukee nurseries. It was in 1860 that Seth Lewelling raised his first seedling cherry, the Republican, called by him Black Republican, which was sold to George Walling of Oswego and Mr. Hanson of East Portland, the proceeds bringing Lewelling $500. Mr. Lewelling counts the Republican and Bing cherries and the Golden Prune as his most notable contributions to pomology. The Lewellings are types of fruit-breeders who have done noble work for pomology in the settlement of all our states--men of for indomitable courage and will who have bred and grown fruits throughout their lives in spite of every adversity. Few other men labored longer and more devotedly to improve the cherry than Seth Lewelling. [81] _Oregon St. Bd. Hort. An. Rpt._ =2=:242. 1893.