Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made

years shall have elapsed America will rank as one of the most important wine countries of the world. California is already extending her vineyards for miles along her smiling valley

ccessful grape culture, where formerly only a few straggling vines were seen. More than five hundred thousand gallons of wine are now annually produced in the neighborhood of Cincinnati alone, and find a market in that city, and what was but a few years ago a mere experiment is now one of the chief sources of the wonderful prosperit

onfiscated, and he and his family impoverished. Young Nicholas's childhood was passed in indigence, and it is said that he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, when a mere lad, to learn the trade as a means of livelihood. However

st," and emigration was setting in toward it rapidly. Those who had seen the country related what then seemed marvelous tales of its wonderful fertility and progress. Few professio

s future home, entered the law office of Judge Jacob Burnet, long the ablest jurist in Ohio. He soon won the confidence an

ularly invested by him in real estate in the suburbs of the town. Land was cheap at that time, some of his lots costing him but ten dollars each. Long before his death they were worth more than as many thousands. He had a fi

n a tavern adjacent to the river, and who was afterward one of the largest property-holders in Cincinnati. Mr. Williams was building a distillery at the time, and, as he had confidently reckoned upon using the two stills in his possession, was considerably nonplussed when Longworth presented his order for them. In his extremity he offered to purchase them from the lawyer for a lot of thirty-three acres of barren land in the town, which was then worth little or nothing. Longworth hesita

ease placed in the hands of the far-seeing lawyer. It seems almost like reading some old fairy tale to peruse the accounts of successful ventures in real estate in American cities. They have sprung up as if by magic, and it is impossible to say where their development will end. Said a gentleman of less than thirty-five years of age to the writer of these pages, "I am the oldest native-born citizen of Chicago. When I first

ed, he extended his operations without fear of loss. He sold many of his original purchases, but continued until the day of his death the largest land-owner in the city. In 1850 his taxes were over $17,000, and in th

e of the Ohio Valley was admirably adapted to the production of grapes, had for some time been making experiments in that direction; but he fell into the error of believing that only the foreign vines were worth cultivating, and his experiments were unsuccessful. The foreign gr

lle, Buncombe County, North Carolina, near the source of the Catawba River. General Davy, of Rocky Mount, on that river, afterward Senator from North Carolina, is supposed to have given the German in whose garden Major Adlum found the grape a few of the vines to experiment up

blished a large vineyard upon a hillside sloping down to the river, about four miles above the city, and employed German laborers, whose knowledge of vine-dressing, acquired in the Fatherland, made them the best workmen he could have. He caused it to be announced

n he took the matter in hand there was much to discourage any one not possessed of the traits of constancy of purpose and perseverance peculiar to Mr. Longworth. Many had tried the manufacture of wine, and had failed to give it any economical or commercial importance. It was not believed, until Mr. Longworth practically demonstrated it, that a native grape was the only one upon which any hope could be placed, and that 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 i

lose of his life his wine houses annually produced one hundred and fifty thousand bottles of wine. H

ed and twenty-five in size, and consisted of two tiers of massive stone vaults, the lower of which was twenty-five feet below the surface of the

as the gaseous fermentation, and the effect of it is to render the wine more enlivening, more stinging to the taste, and more fruity. "This last effect results from this, that the flavor of the fruit mostly passes off with the carbonic acid gas, which is largely generated in the first or vinous fermentation, and in a less degree in this second or gaseous fermentation." It is impossible to avoid the loss of the flavor in the first fermentation, but the strong bottles and securely-fastened corks preserve it in the second. The liquid, which is

sed him for his former losses. He was very fond of the strawberry, and succeeded, by careful and expensive cultivation, in making several very important improvements in that delicious fruit. His experiments in the sexual character of the strawberry are highly interes

s. A gentleman who had hoped to dispose of some of his own property for this purpose charged Mr. Longworth, through the press, with being influenced by a desire to improve his adjoining property by the erection of the observatory on Mount Adams. Longworth promptly replied that if the writer of the article in question would donate four acres of his own property for an observatory, he (Longworth) would put up, at his own expense, a

le to himself and others. He is a wit and a humorist of a high order; of keen sagacity and shrewdness in many other respects than in money matters; one who can be exact to a dollar, and liberal, when he choo

. He appears to have started upon the calculation that if he could put any individual in the way of making a dollar for Longworth, and a dollar for himself at the same time, by aiding him with ground for a lot, or in building him a house on it; and if, moreover, he could multiply cases of the kind by hundreds, or perhaps thousands, he would promote his own interests just in the same measure as he was advancing those of others. At the same time he could not be unconscious that, while their half was subdivided into small possessions, owned by a t

lican. During the famous Clay campaign he was asked to give

"We might fail to elect Clay, as we did befor

an of wealth, assured him that the

chance of your

ll give you the hundred dollars, but mind, you shall be person

e defeat of Clay, Longworth demanded his money from the poli

an office which required the expenditure of a considerable portion of his time, and brought him in constant contact with some of the most wretched of the lowest class of the poor. He was always in his office, at stated

a stout beggar asked him for alms, he would inquire if he was willing to go to work. If answered affirmatively, he would give him a pick and shovel, and start him for the quarry, where the wages were promptly paid out every night. Many availed themselves of the opportunity, and worked for him faithfully; but others gave

s once in his employ, rela

an who craved assistance. In answer to a question as to his needs, he replied that his main want was a pair of shoes, and a glance at his feet showed that he spoke truthfully.

, my man. How

ant, ye

aid he, kicking off the o

nor; illigant! Ma

yed, but was told by Mrs. Longworth that those he wore away from the house were all that he had. The result was that Frank was hurried off to William Hart'

swer all the calls made upon them-a course which would soon impoverish them. They must discriminate somewhere, and how this shall be done is a question which each must decide for himself. Longworth exercised this disc

lionaire. "Do you know her?

" answered his friend, "but she is doing all in

"I shan't give a cent. Such persons wil

ple shrank in disgust, never appealed to him in vain. "The devil's poor," he whimsically called them. He would listen to them patiently, moved to the depths of his soul by their sad stories, and would send them away rejoicing that they were not utterly friendless. "D

ire. He was plain and careless in his dress, looking more like a beggar than a millionaire. He cared nothing for dress, except, perhaps, that

to the annoyance of the women folks. It happened that one cold, stormy night the faithful family coachman was at the house without an overcoat, and Mrs. Longworth, after very feelingly depicting his forlorn condition to her husband, solicited the privilege of giving him the aforesaid overcoat. Much to her gratification, Mr. Longworth assented, and the coachman wore off the 'Hard Times,' the good wife replacing it by an elegant broadcloth that she had quietly

very tired, and his whole figure expressed his weariness. As he sat there in his shabby dress, with his eyes closed, and his hat resting on his knees, he looked the very picture of a blind beggar soliciting charity. For such, indeed, he was mistaken by a working man who passed by a few minutes later, and who, pitying the supposed unfortunate, tossed a few pennies into hi

of paintings, statuary, and other art treasures, which were his pride. He died there on the 10th of February, 1863, at the age