Nicholas Longworth (1783-1863)

He was born in Newark, New Jersey, and became Cincinnati's first millionaire after arriving there in 1804. He studied law, becoming an attorney and invested in real estate before focusing entirely on managing his investments as they sky-rocketed in value. He lived at Belmont (now the Taft Museum of Art) on Pike Street and was a keen horticulturalist. He planted vines on the hills of northern Cincinnati that led to him being dubbed "Father of the American Winemaking Industry" producing between 150-300,000 bottles a year. He collected art and as a staunch abolitionist was patron to Robert S. Duncanson, America's first famous black artist, financing the artist's trip to Europe where he sold paintings to the Queen of England among others.

He was sometimes referred to as "the Daniel Boone of Cincinnati" and was described in Harper's Weekly: "He was small in stature, probably about five feet three, thin in figure, and moved with a shambling gait. He was very careless in his costume. He unfailingly wore a white cravat, with a shirt collar sometimes reaching to his ears, sometimes falling over on his neck. His hat was napless, old, and discolored; his clothes fitting loosely about him; his shoes, or brogans rather, were large and unblacked, with the thongs, if they had any, straggling about. This figure with hands stuck in the pockets of a very long coat, with a quick twinkling eye, sharp features, and a long thin mouth quivering with fun and sarcasm could be easily recognized in the streets of Cincinnati as Nick Longworth, the millionaire". On Christmas Eve, 1807, he married Susan Howell and had four children.