As we were leaving the room, a very amiable and pleasing person asked me if I would not call upon Mr. Longworth, the most celebrated character in this country, who she said was her father and the father of Mrs. Anderson. I said that we had letters to him from Mr. Jared Sparks, and that we had meant to call on him the next day, but she said we had better return with her then. We accordingly accompanied her through Mr. Anderson's garden, and through an adjoining one which led to her father's house, likewise a very large one, though not presenting such an architectural appearance as Mr. Anderson's. The old gentleman soon made his appearance, and afterwards Mrs. Longworth. They were a most venerable couple, who had a twelve-month ago celebrated their golden marriage, or fiftieth anniversary of their wedding day. We were invited to stay and drink tea, which we did, and met a large assemblage of children and grand-children; a great-grand-child who had been present at the golden wedding, was in its nursery.
Mr. Longworth, among other things remarkable about him, is the proprietor of the vineyards from which the sparkling champagne is produced, known, from the name of the grape, as the sparkling Catawba; but he seems no less remarkable from the immense extent of his strawberry beds, which cover, I think he said, 60 acres of ground. He told us the number of bushels of fruit they daily produce in the season; but the number is legion, and I dare not set it down from memory. He showed papa a book he had written about his grapes and strawberries, and is very incredulous as to any in the world being better than his. This led to a discussion upon the relative size of trees and plants on the two sides of the Atlantic; and in speaking of the Indian corn, he tells us he has seen it standing, in Ohio, eighteen feet high, and he says it has been known, in Kentucky, to reach as high as twenty-five feet, and the ear eighteen inches long.
The old gentleman is a diminutive-looking person, with a coat so shabby that one would be tempted to offer him a sixpence if we met him in the streets; indeed a story is told of a stranger, who, going into his garden, and being shown round it by Mr. Longworth, gave him a dollar, which the latter good-humouredly put into his pocket, and it was not till he was asked to go into the house that the stranger discovered him to be the owner.[10] He is, however, delightfully vivacious, and full of agricultural hobbies. His wife is a very pleasing, primitive-looking person. We tasted at their house some of the ham for which this city, called by the wits Porkopolis, is so remarkable. The maple sugar is used in curing it, and improves the flavour very much.
October 28th.—I must bring this letter to a rapid close, for it must be posted a day earlier than we expected. We intend to start in two days for St. Louis, and there I will finish my account of Cincinnati. To-day we have seen a great many schools, which have given us considerable insight into the state of education in America. My next letter will probably bring us to our most western point, though we have not yet quite settled whether we shall go to the Falls of St. Anthony, or to Chicago. Papa says I must close, and I must obey.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Though this description of the Senate was meant as a good-humoured satire on the absence of etiquette in their assemblies, it is probably no very exaggerated account of what is sometimes seen there; but it would be most unfair to draw any conclusion from this as to the behaviour in general society of well-educated gentlemen in America, there being as much real courtesy among these as is found in any other country, though certainly not always accompanied by the refinements of polished society in Europe.
[9] It is not meant here to obtrude special views of politics, or to maintain that democratic principles have naturally this tendency; but it may help to explain why so little is heard or known in England of the better class of Americans. Their unobtrusive mode of life entirely accounts for this, and it is to be regretted that it is the noisy demagogue who forms the type of the American as known to the generality of the European public.
[10] I should not have taken the liberty of printing this account of Mr. Longworth were he not, in a manner, a public character, well known throughout the length and breadth of the land, and his eccentricities are as familiar to every one at Cincinnati as his goodness of heart. In speaking, too, of his family, it is most gratifying to be able to record the patriarchal way in which we found him and Mrs. Longworth, surrounded by their descendants to the third generation.
If any apology is required, the same excuse—of his being a well-known public character—may be made for saying so much of Governor Chase and of his family.