THE name of Nicholas Longworth has been so often before the public, and is so widely known in connection with the interest he has taken, during a period of thirty years, in the cultivation of the strawberry and the grape, and the making of native wine, that we have thought we could both entertain and instruct our readers by giving them some idea of the man, and a brief history of the origin and progress of the particular branch of Ameri-can industry to which he has so persevering-ly devoted his attention.
Mr. Longworth is a very peculiar speci-men of a fine old American gentleman—self-made, self-informed, and self-directed. He is strong and decided in his opinions, liberal in his sentiments, warm in his friendships, and generous in his charities. But all these sentiments and affections must be manifest-ed in his own time, and in accordance with his own plans and principles. His charities are regulated, and he will never give when he does not fully understand the case. He seldom refuses work to those who ask for it, devising it for the occasion when he really has none waiting, and furnishing the neces-sary implements to those who have none of their own. The class to which he has been accustomed to give work, chiefly of the sort requiring picks, and shovels, and garden tools, are not always of the most honest de-scription, and he relates numerous instances in which his spades and hoes, and similar implements—saws, pickaxes, and what not—have been carried off, at the close of the day, by those to whom he had loaned them to en-able them to earn what he paid them for their day's work. The chief objects of his usual charities are those utterly destitute, and the least likely to obtain assistance from any body else. He has a whimsical theory that those whom every body will help are not en-titled to any aid from him, and that he will confine his donations to the worthless and wretched vagabonds that every one else turns away from. That he does not strictly adhere to the rule, however, many worthy recipients of his bounty are ready to attest. A committee of Mormons, on a begging ex-pedition, was once sent to him by a friend, with a note intimating that, as these people were not Christians, and seemed to be aban-doned by every body that professed to be, they probably came within his rule, and he could consistently assist them. He did so without hesitation.
Over his immense wine-cellars, which will presently be described, he erected a large four-story building of brick, for the accom-modation of poor laborers of both sexes. The different floors are reached by separate stairs and galleries, and each is divided into four-teen good-sized apartments, suitable for a man and his family, or two or three women. These rooms are generally all occupied, and those who are unable to pay are charged no rent. The building is well known among those for whose use it was built as the bar-racks. Notwithstanding the really charita-ble design of this construction, its tenants are the most ungrateful and troublesome of any he has to deal with. They annoy him incessantly, and have frequently broken into the wine-vaults below and stolen his choicest wine.
Another of Mr. Longworth's permanent and quiet charities is the weekly distribution at his house, every Monday morning, of three to eight hundred ten-cent loaves of bread to whoever will call for them. Once, when flour was high, and the bakers reduced the size of their loaves, Mr. Longworth thought he would be doing his beneficiaries a good turn by having them made partly of rye, and thus considerably enlarging their size. His customers, however, as soon as they found it out, raised such a clamor, and called him so many dis-paraging names, and an-noyed him so much with their threats and com-plaints, that he was glad to order a return to the pure wheat. No crosses and ingratitude of this kind, of which he daily encounters his share, can weary the kindness of his heart, or distress him half so much as the sight of destitution and suffer-ing, to alleviate which is one of the most generous and unrestrained impuls-es of his nature. Indeed, it is the ever-present con-cern of his life how to save those with whom he is thrown in contact from suffering and want. To contribute to the comfort or necessity of another, no matter how utterly degraded, he will deprive himself of any personal gratification at any mo-ment.
It was stated by one of the daily papers of Cincinnati, during the war with Mexico, that Mr. Longworth had of-fered a contribution of ten thousand dollars to-ward the pay and equip-ment of a company of Ohio volunteers. A friend met him the fol-lowing day, and congratulated him on his liberality and public spirit. "But it isn't exactly true," said Mr. Longworth; "you must first understand my proposition. I will give the ten thousand dollars, but only on condition that I have the selection of the per-sons that shall join the regiment; and I think I should make money by the operation."
When Professor Mitchell took in hand the establishment of an Astronomical Observa-tory, and went about soliciting popular sub-scriptions for the purpose, application was made to Mr. Longworth to know whether he would part with his Mount Adams property, and on what terms, as a site for the proposed Observatory. He at once made a donation for the purpose of four acres of ground on the top of the hill, conditioned only that it should be only used for the contemplated object, for-ever. After the erection of the building some cynical and captious person asserted, in an article published in the Cincinnati papers, that Mr. Longworth deserved very little cred-it for doing a thing that served so greatly to enhance his own contiguous property. As the writer of the article was known to be pos-sessed of property quite as well suited for ob-servatory purposes, Mr. Longworth immedi-ately replied that if the objector would do-nate to the Astronomical Society the same amount of land, he would erect upon it, at his own expense, a building equal to the one just completed by the Society, and convey the spot formerly given by himself to the city, as a place of public resort and promenade; suggesting to the writer that he might thus secure to himself all the advantages such an improvement would be to his adjacent prop-erty, and at the same time confer a lasting favor on the citizens of Cincinnati. This, of course, put an end to the discussion.
Mr. Longworth is small of stature, his height being about five feet and an inch, an evident stoop in his figure making him ap-pear shorter than he really is. His hair, which is only partially gray, is thin, and scattered over the sides and back of his head. He was always regular and temperate in his habits, and is still vigorous and active, and gives daily personal attention to his busi-ness, spending much of his time with strings and pruning-knife in his grapery and garden. He was always a patient and willing work-er, and age does not seem to reduce his ac-tivity, or weaken his interest in the labors and enjoyments of life. He answers himself all questions in relation to his vast property, and personally inspects the varied branches of his business. His maxim is, that no one who has work to do, and health and ability to do it, has any just cause of complaint; and often refers, with great satisfaction, to the time when he raised money for his own boy-ish expenses by selling about the streets the first newspaper published in his native town.
In all these transactions he is quick and decided, and dispatches them all in the few-est possible words; demanding equal con-ciseness and brevity from all who converse with him. He will not conceal his uneasi-ness if you annoy him with long speeches, and do not come directly to the point of your business. Until a few years since, when a stroke of disease somewhat impaired the fac-ulty, he was possessed of a remarkably com-prehensive and tenacious memory, forgetting nothing he ever knew and nothing he ever said. He repeats his quotations and tells his stories, of which he has a varied and endless store, always in the same invariable words. Of late years he finds frequent occasion to complain, when at a loss for a name or a date, that "Old Longworth is getting so for-getful." A stranger, however, would scarce-ly notice the defect. To aid his memory in matters relating to his business and his daily engagements, he usually carries a miscellaneous assortment of papers in the crown of his hat, and a small paper memoran-dum pinned upon his coat-sleeve.
Mr. Longworth is ex-ceedingly talkative and companion able, perfectly sincere, and in his hospi-tality knows no distinc-tion of persons. He is sharp and sarcastic in repartee, thoroughly in-formed in his facts, fa-cetious and cheerful in his humor, which is one of his most characteris-tic traits, and abounding in quizzes and anecdotes of the most enlivening and laughable descrip-tion. He is particular-ly fond of banter, and sly, jocular personalities, and of speaking of him-self in the third person—most, commonly as "Old Longworth."
"Longworth ought to have a beating to-day," he will say, "for forget-ting that appointment." "These are very hard times, Sir," said a client to him the other day, excusing himself for not being able to make a payment, "very hard times, Sir." "Yes," he quickly replied; "but don't you know they are just as hard for Old Longworth as any body else?" A man applied to him not long since for two hun-dred and fifty dollars, to aid him in making a working model of a new machine he had invented, which was to perform unheard-of wonders. "I don't know any thing about your machine," said Mr. Longworth, "but I will give you the money if you will bring me the testimony of three com-petent persons of this city that it will do what you say it will." Mr. Longworth then named several persons whose approval would be satisfactory, and the man went off. The next day he returned with the information that Mr. G—,one of the gen-tlemen named by Mr. Longworth, and one of the first machinists of the city, had examined his in-vention, and pronounced it fully equal to all he had claimed for it. "I don't know how to believe that story," said Mr. Longworth; "for Mr. G— wouldn't have recommended your machine unless he had believed what you said of it; and if he be-lieved it was as good a thing as you said it was, he wouldn't have sent you back to Old Longworth at all; he wouldn't have let Longworth have any thing to do with it. I must have his approval in writing, Sir, or it won't answer."
Of personal pride Mr. Longworth has not a trace. It is to him a matter of thorough indiffer-ence whether his clothes are new or in any possi-ble resemblance to style and fit; and if they should be somewhat overworn, or soiled by labor in his garden, or here and there torn a bit, it is to him no matter. He may, when the dilapidation is a little excessive, and the company more elegant than he expected, get off a sly joke or two about his ap-pearance in such fashionable company, and say that his wife would scold him for not brushing up a little when he was going out among gentlemen; but he will feel not the slightest personal concern about it, and the very consciousness of it will pass away with the quizzical smile with which his apol-ogy will be accompanied. He boasts of being a Democrat in the strict technical meaning of the term. "You have never," said one to him while passing the fine facade of the new Opera House, "you have never interested yourself, Mr. Long-worth, in elegant blocks and costly buildings?" "No, Sir," he replied; "I have had too much to do putting up houses for the Democrats; the aris-tocrats can put up their own." His own house is a plain but capacious and home-looking building, and its fine locality and beautiful garden and sur-rounding grounds render it the most popularly at-tractive spot in the city. As "Mr. Longworth's Garden" it is known throughout the Western coun-try; and it is freely used, by citizens and stran-gers, as a place of visit and promenade. In it are several fine conservatories, well filled with exotic and rare plants, a grape-house for foreign vines, and an experimental forcing-house for new varieties of strawberries and other plants. In one of the hot-houses is a large basin, in which is growing a fine specimen of the Victoria Regia. A cactus-house, containing the largest collection of cacti in the United States, was destroyed by fire a few years ago.
Mr. Longworth is a native of Newark, New Jer-sey. After making a trial of mercantile business in the State of South Carolina for a couple of years, he went, in 1804, the year of his majority, to Cin-cinnati, and entered the office of Judge Jacob Bur-net as a law student. He pursued his studies about six months, and then dashed into the practice of his hastily acquired profession in the rough and ir-regular way peculiar to that primitive period. He foresaw, at an early period of his residence in the West, the future greatness of the then insignificant village of Cincinnati; and though unsustained in his opinions by those of his fellow-settlers in the new community, took advantage of their unbelief, and began a series of systematic investment of every thing he could make by his services as lawyer and land-agent in the well-wooded acres surrounding the original clearing of Fort Washington and Los-antiville. He bought for trifling sums whatever was rejected by every body else, and thus acquired the title, which he retains to this day, to some of the most valuable portions of the present city and its immediate suburbs. By this means he accu-mulated, in the course of a few years, an amount of property that, in 1830, rendered him the wealth-iest man of the city; and he then gave up his pro-fession that he might devote himself to the man-agement and improvement of his estate.
But his attention was not wholly occupied by the care of his real property. He always mani-fested a fondness for the cultivation of fruits and flowers, and at an early period astonished the Western people by the beauty and extent of his garden. He took much pains to gather from all parts of the West the most valuable and interest-ing of our native vegetable productions, and placed them in circumstances to test their susceptibility to improvement by aid of the best systems of gar-den and green-house culture then known. Many of our beautiful native plants, now familiarly known as favorite florists' flowers, are indebted to him for their introduction into cultivated society, their na-tive home being the forests and prairies of the West-ern States. He was always curious after new and interesting things of Nature's producing. It was the remark of an old citizen of Cincinnati that, if Mr. Longworth was to be suddenly thrown, neck and heels, into the Ohio River, he would come to the surface with a new variety of fish in each hand. His chief interest in horticultural matters, however, has been expended upon the strawberry and the grape. The perfection of variety and culture to which he has, by his experiments and labors, brought these two important fruits of the country, have established their extensive and systematic cul-tivation in all parts of the West.
It is with the grape, however, as a wine pro-ducer, that Mr. Longworth's labors have been most assiduous and most successful; and, with a notice of his operations in this regard, we shall close our present sketch. It will not, of course, be inferred from what we have said that Mr. Longworth is the inventor of native wine, or the originator of the Catawba grape, from which it is chiefly made. The Catawba, it must now be generally known, is a native of North Carolina, having been first brought into public notice as a wine-grape by Ma-jor Adlum, of Washington; and the knowledge of the fact that wine, in an experimental way, had been made from its fruit, induced Mr. Longworth to enter systematically upon its cultivation, and to take measures for manufacturing the wine on a scale extensive enough to encourage the estab-lishment of numerous vineyards, and to afford a market on his own premises for all the Must that could be made and delivered to him in a circuit of fifty miles. At the same time he offered a reward of five hundred dollars to whoever should discover a better variety. It proved a great stimulus to the growth of the Catawba vine in the neighbor-hood of Cincinnati, to know that a man of Mr. Longworth's means stood ready to pay cash, at the rate of from a dollar to a dollar and a quarter a gallon, for all the grape juice that might be brought to him, without reference to the quantity. It was in this way, and by urgent popular appeals through the columns of the newspapers, that he succeeded, after many failures, and against the depressing in-fluence of much doubt and indifference, in bringing the enterprise up to its present high and staple posi-tion. When he took the matter in hand there was much to discourage any one not possessed of the traits of constancy of purpose and perseverance pe-culiar to Mr. Longworth. Many had tried the man-ufacture of wine, and had failed to give it any economical or commercial importance. It was not believed, until Mr. Longworth practically demon-strated it, after many long and patient trials of many valued varieties from France and Madeira, none of which gave any promise of success, that a native grape was the only one upon which any hope could be placed, and that of the native grapes, of which he had experimented upon every known variety, the Catawba offered the most assured promise of success, and was the one upon which all vine-growers might with confidence depend. It took years of unremitted care, multiplied and wide-spread investigations, and the expenditure of large sums of money, to establish this fact, and bring the agricultural community to accept it and act under its guidance. The success attained by Mr. Longworth soon induced other gentlemen res-ident in the vicinity of Cincinnati, and favorably situated for the purpose, to undertake the culture of the Catawba, and several of them are now reg-ularly and extensively engaged in the manufac-ture of wine. The impetus and encouragement thus given to the business soon led the German citizens of Hamilton County to perceive its ad-vantages, and under their thrifty management thousands of acres, stretching up from the banks of the Ohio, are now covered with luxuriant and profitable vineyards, rivaling in profusion and beauty the vine-clad hills of Italy and France. The oldest vineyard in the County of Hamilton is of Mr. Longworth's planting. The annual pro-duct of these vineyards may be set down at be-tween five and six hundred thousand gallons, worth at present from one and a half to two dol-lars a gallon; but the price, owing to the rapidity of the consumption, will probably advance rather than decline. It is the prophecy of Mr. Flagg, Mr. Longworth's son-in-law, the gentleman who has charge of the commercial department of his wine business, that, in the course of comparatively few years, the annual product of the Sparkling Ca-tawba will be counted by millions of bottles, while that of the still sorts will be estimated by its mill-ions of gallons. Mr. Longworth alone bottles an-nually over 150,000 bottles, and has now in his cellars a ripening stock of 300,000 bottles. These cellars are situated on the declivity of East Sixth Street on the road to Observatory Hill. They oc-cupy a space ninety feet by one hundred and twen-ty-five, and consist of two tiers of massive stone vaults, the lower of which is twenty-five feet be-low the surface of the ground. Here are carried on all the various processes of wine-making, the mashing, pressing, fining, racking, bottling, label-ing, and boxing; and beneath the arches and along the walls are the wine butts, arranged and num-bered in the order of the several vintages; piles of bottles stand about, ready for the bottlers.
Mr. Longworth has for some years been laboring to encourage the more extended growth of the Her-bemont grape, having great confidence in its wine-making qualities. So far, however, the results of these efforts have not been very encouraging, though his estimate of the value of this grape for wine purposes still remains undiminished. The Isabella, which in the earlier years of vine-grow-ing was largely planted, soon fell into disfavor, and was very generally cast out of Western vine-yards, as unworthy of attention as a wine-making grape. Mr. Longworth's discovery of its excellent qualities in the manufacture of sparkling wines, in which he was the first successful experimenter in this country, and his undertaking—as in the case of the Catawba—to pay cash for all the raw juice that should be brought to him, has rallied its cul-ture, and it is now recovering its good standing as a useful and profitable product.
Another object that has long engaged Mr. Long-worth's attention, and toward the accomplishment of which he has already made many encouraging experiments, with numerous varieties of native and hybrid black and dark-skinned grapes, is the production of an agreeable, light-bodied, cool, ton-ic red wine, similar to the genuine Burgundy and the pure clarets of Europe. Red wines have been made in this country, but none that have fulfilled all the required conditions, or that promise much economical importance. Mr. Longworth is still extending his inquiries, and pushing his experi-ments, in full confidence that this desirable end will yet be attained; and still prophesies the day when a profitable, palatable, and wholesome red wine will be added to the native products of the Mississippi Valley; completely verifying the po-etic and cheerful vision of Mr. Flagg, Mr. Long-worth's friend and assistant.
