Linn County author and blogger Linda Ziedrich has written books on pickling and jam-making. But she has outdone herself this year with two new books to tout. “The Curious Kitchen Gardener” came out from Timber Press earlier this spring, and now OSU Press has published “First Fruits: The Lewellings and the Birth of the Pacific Coast Fruit Industry.”

This latter book is a new endeavor for Ziedrich. Instead of sharing her hands-on experimentation in the garden or the kitchen, “First Fruits” is rooted in intensive historical research.

This true story covers multiple generations of the Lewelling family as they migrated across North America and pioneered the West Coast’s fruit-growing industry in the 19th century. The author does a heroic job of sorting through the various family members’ adventures, although the reader may sometimes get confused because several generations shared the same given names, while some of the Lewelling brothers periodically altered the spelling of their last name.

   Ziedrich begins with Quakers Meshack and Jane Lewelling, who left North Carolina in 1822 and walked with their children, numbering six at the time (two more were to be born later), all the way to Indiana. The author writes that it is likely that the Lewelling party also included Black people who were liberated as soon as they reached the free state of Indiana.

   At that time, the “westering” impulse was particularly strong among southern Quakers, who opposed the South’s legal enslavement of Black people — first for its cruelty, but also for the disproportionate economic advantage it gave slave-owning plantation owners over other farmers who performed their own labor. 

   Meshack’s and Jane’s children were imbued with the same sense of adventure and social justice. Their second oldest son —  Henderson — moved further west to Iowa and started up a flourishing nursery there, along with a frequently-used stop on the Underground Railroad. 

   By 1847, Henderson and his pregnant wife and young family moved again — this time traveling with a wagonload of fruit trees along the Overland Trail to Oregon, where they established Oregon’s first orchard of grafted fruit trees. 

   A couple of years later, brothers Jonathan and Seth also headed west, initially to California and the promise of the Gold Rush, but soon discovering they could more profitably “mine the miners” by selling fresh produce to the ’49ers, sometimes for as much as a buck an apple.

   John settled permanently in California and established the grape-growing region in Napa Valley. He was active in promoting the Grange movement. 

   Seth moved on to Oregon to assist Henderson. He became a key figure in expanding the Lewelling family orchards throughout the Willamette Valley and into the Washington Territory. He developed new fruit varieties, including the Bing cherry, which was named to honor one of his key employees, a Chinese immigrant, even as exclusionary practices were being carried out against Chinese workers up and down the West Coast.

Sharing the story of an influential family during a consequential century in Oregon’s history, “First Fruits” is a juicy read.

The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd McMichael, who writes this weekly column focusing on the books, authors and publishers of the Pacific Northwest. Contact her at bkmonger@nwlink.com

 

“First Fruits” by Linda Ziedrich

OSU Press — 320 pp — $29.95