landowner is given by Houghton as follows: His first client was a man accused of horse stealing. In those frontier days, a horse represented one of the most valuable forms of property; and, as under a system wherein human life was inconsequential compared to the preservation of property, the penalty for stealing a horse was usually death. No term of reproach was more invested with cutting contempt and cruel hatred than that of a horse thief. The case looked black. But Longworth somehow contrived to get the accused off with acquittal. The man—so the story further runs—had no money to pay Longworth's fee and no property except two second-hand copper stills. These also were high in the appraisement of property values, for they could be used to make whisky, and whisky could be in turn used to debauch the Indian tribes and swindle them of furs and land. These stills Longworth took and traded them off to Joel Williams, a tavern-keeper who was setting up a distillery. In exchange, Longworth received thirty-three acres of what was then considered unpromising land in the town.6 From time to time he bought more land with the money made in law; this land lay on what were then the outskirts of the place. Some of the lots cost him but ten dollars each.
As immigration swarmed West and Cincinnati grew, his land consequently took on enhanced value. By 1830 the population was 24,831; twenty years later it had reached 118,761, and in 1860, 171,293 inhabitants. For a Western city this was a very considerable population for the period. The growth of the city kept on increasingly. His land lay in the very center of the expanding city, in the busiest part of the business section and in the best portion of the residential districts. Indeed, so rapidly did its value grow soon after he got it, that it was no longer necessary for him to practice law or in any wise crook to others. In 1819 he gave up law, and thenceforth gave his entire attention to managing his property. An extensive vineyard, which he laid out in Ohio, added to his wealth. Here he cultivated the Catawba grape and produced about 150,000 bottles a year.