Henderson William Luelling was born on April 23, 1809 in Randolph County, North Carolina, United States, of a Welsh family which had been in America for a number of generations. His father was Meshach Luelling, and his mother, whose family name was Brookshire, was of English extraction. Both the parents were Quakers. The elder Luelling was a physician, but combined the practice of his profession with the nursery business. The family moved to Greensboro, Indiana in 1825.
In 1837, Luelling and his brother John went to Salem, Iowa, and started a nursery. Here he remained ten years, making numerous journeys to the East in search of the best varieties of fruit for his stock. Accounts of the Lewis and Clark expedition stirred in him a desire to see the Western country, and with the news of the beginnings of settlements in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, he conceived the idea of transporting across the plains by ox-team a small nursery stock, sufficient to start him in business there. He set about preparing for the adventure, and after much discouragement and delay he began the journey April 17, 1847. With him were his family and a friend, William Meek.
The nursery stock, consisting of 800 to 1, 000 young trees and shrubs, was planted in two long boxes, containing about a foot of soil, built to fit a wagon-bed. Racks were constructed about the cargo to prevent the trees being eaten by the cattle. The wagon was drawn by four yoke of oxen. The journey across the two thousand miles of wilderness was one of hardships and hazards. The party with which the Luellings traveled was a small one, and on one occasion an Indian attack was averted only by the fact that one of the wagons was laden with living trees, which the Indians regarded as under the special care of the Great Spirit. The trees were tended and watered with the utmost care, and about half of the total number ultimately survived. At The Dalles the nursery stock was taken from the boxes, wrapped in bundles and transported down the Columbia by flatboat to a point opposite Fort Vancouver. Here the party remained for some time, while Luelling was seeking a place for his nursery.
He chose a point near the present site of Milwaukee, a few miles south of Portland. It was already late in November, but the trees and shrubs were planted as soon as the ground could be cleared for them. They included apples, pears, quinces, plums, cherries, grapes, and the common berry-bushes, and were the first grafted fruit stock that had ever come to the Pacific Coast. The varieties had been selected with the greatest care. Luelling and Meek formed a partnership and the nursery throve. The settlers, of whom there were scarcely more than 5, 000 in the whole Oregon country, eagerly purchased every tree offered for sale. In 1850, Seth Luelling, a brother of Henderson, arrived and joined in the enterprise.
In 1854 he moved a part of his nursery stock to a point near Oakland, California, and began again. Here he prospered even more than in Oregon, and within five years he had accumulated a considerable fortune. Not content, a new adventure, the nature of which seems not to be recorded, took him, with two of his sons and their families, to Honduras, in a vessel purchased and equipped by himself. This venture ended disastrously, and he returned to California to engage again in the nursery business. He never regained what he had lost, and seems to have lived rather quietly for the remainder of his days, making his home in California.
On December 30, 1830, Henderson Luelling was married to Elizabeth Presnell, who had lived near his old home in North Carolina. They had eight children, the youngest one was named Oregon Columbia. He was an uncle of Lorenzo Dow Lewelling.
