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17-556: Nicholas Longworth was a winemaker who has been called the "Father of the American wine industry." He capitalized on the German-American movement into Cincinnati, producing a wine that replicated a drink native to Germany . During the late 1840s and throughout the 1850s, the family patriarch's wine ventures were increasingly profitable. However, the root of the Longworth family wealth

34-614: A book called The Making of Nicholas Longworth: Annals of an American Family. Nicholas Longworth (1783 - 1863) Nicholas Longworth (January 16, 1783 – February 10, 1863) was an American real estate speculator and winemaker as well as the founder of the Longworth family in Ohio. Longworth was an influential figure in the early history of American wine , producing sparkling Catawba wine from grapes grown in his Ohio River Valley vineyard. He also made significant contributions supporting

51-642: A fairly well known central Virginia family, and Landon Cabell Rives was a doctor who studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania . Anna, her sister Margaret, and brother Landon Jr. were born in Nelson County, Virginia , and had come to Cincinnati with their parents in 1829. Their uncle was the American ambassador to France , United States Senator and member of the Confederate Senate , William Cabell Rives . Joseph and Anna Maria (Rives) Longworth had

68-608: A few descendants of note. Their daughter Maria Longworth Nichols Storer founded Rookwood Pottery in Cincinnati, named for the Grandin Road home of the Longworth family on the east side of Cincinnati (the house was so called because loud rooks – blackbirds of the family corvidae – constantly hovered around the place). Their son Nicholas Longworth II was a justice on the Ohio Supreme Court . His son, Nicholas Longworth III ,

85-591: A flurry of plantings along the Ohio River Valley and up north to Lake Erie and Finger Lakes region of New York . So successful was he that he has been called the Father of American Grape Culture. The growing tide of German immigrants coming down the Ohio Valley to Cincinnati liked his wine. Longworth had found a lucrative market: the new German immigrants wanted an affordable, drinkable table wine to continue with

102-592: A journalist from The Illustrated London News noted that the still white Catawba compared favorably to the hock wines of the Rhine and the sparkling Catawba "transcends the Champagnes of France " . The wines were also well received at home in the United States where Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published a poem dedicated to Nicholas Longworth titled Ode to Catawba Wine . The popularity of Longworth's wine encouraged

119-513: A successful venture on the hills adjoining the city. He planted a vineyard of Catawba on the Mount Adams hillside and began making a sparkling wine from the grapes using the traditional method used in Champagne . From the 1830s through the 1850s, Longworth's still and sparkling Catawba were being distributed from California to Europe where it received numerous press accolades. In the 1850s,

136-525: A wide influence in his day. His former vineyard is now Eden Park . Jacob Burnet Jacob Burnet (sometimes spelled Burnett ) (February 22, 1770 – May 10, 1853) was an American jurist and statesman from Ohio . He served as a U.S. Senator . Burnet was born in Newark, New Jersey , the son of Dr. William Burnet . He graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1791, studied law, moved to

153-652: The Northwest Territory and settled in Cincinnati in 1796. He was admitted to the bar in 1796. He was a member of the Territorial councils of Ohio from 1799 to 1802 and served in the Ohio State House from 1814 to 1816. Burnet was considered the "father of the Ohio constitution" and was an associate justice of the Ohio Supreme Court from 1821 until his resignation in 1828 to serve as United States Senator. He

170-417: The arts, impacting the careers of Robert S. Duncanson , Hiram Powers , and others. Longworth was born in Newark, New Jersey on January 16, 1783. He moved to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1804 and married Susanna Howell, three years his junior, daughter of Silas and Hannah (Vaughan) Howell, on Christmas Eve, 1807. She was already a widow as her first husband had died from hazardous frontier life. Nicholas pursued

187-555: The arts. He made contact with every artist in Cincinnati between 1829-1858. He offered financial aid, letters of introduction, critique, and commissions. He hired Robert S. Duncanson to paint eight large landscape murals in his home, which formally launched Duncanson's career. His Greek Revival villa, then on the eastern edge of Cincinnati, is now the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati. Believing Cincinnati to be an ideal location for grape cultivation, he established viticulture as

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204-399: The study of law under Jacob Burnet , one of Cincinnati's first millionaires. Early in his career he accepted plots of land as payment, which increased in value as Cincinnati grew, and by 1818 he quit being a lawyer to manage his real estate holdings. He was an abolitionist and his aid to a runaway slave was claimed to be inspiration for Uncle Tom's Cabin . Longworth was very invested in

221-539: The traditions of their homeland, and he enjoyed a virtual monopoly. With his success in wine making, Longworth participated in charitable giving throughout Cincinnati, including a noteworthy donation to the land which the Cincinnati Observatory is built on. Besides being a pioneer and leading horticultural expert in his section, he was recognized as an authority in national horticultural matters. His writings, though individually short and now out of date, exercised

238-454: Was Longworth's real estate success. He and his wife Susanna had five children, namely: Oldest daughter Mary married John Stettinius, and was the matriarch of the Cincinnati family of that name. But the Longworth fame continued on through the second-youngest child and only son, Joseph. On 13 April 1841, Joseph Longworth married Anna Maria Rives. His wife was the daughter of Landon Cabell Rives and Anna Maria Towles. Longworth's in-laws were

255-744: Was an important Republican politician in the early 20th century. After serving on the Cincinnati Board of Education (1898), the Ohio House of Representatives (1899-1900) and the State Senate (1901-1903) he was first elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1902, retaining his seat from 1903 until his death in April 1931 with the sole loss of the 1912 election, regaining it two years later. In 1923 he became House Majority Leader , and in 1925

272-455: Was elected speaker . A bachelor when he entered Congress, he married Alice Roosevelt , the daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt , on February 17, 1906, in a White House wedding that received widespread public attention. The Longworth House Office Building in Washington, D.C. was named in his honor. His sister Clara Longworth de Chambrun wrote about her brother and the larger family in

289-587: Was elected to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of William Henry Harrison . He served in the Senate from December 10, 1828, to March 3, 1831. Burnet was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1815. After leaving Congress, he resumed the practice of law and served as president of Cincinnati College and the Medical College of Ohio . Burnet's "Notes on

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