what then
seemed marvelous tales of its wonderful fertility and progress. Few
professional men were seeking the distant land, and Longworth felt
convinced that the services of such as did go would assuredly be in
demand, and he resolved to cast his lot with the West.

In 1803, at the age of twenty-one, he removed to the little village of
Cincinnati, and, having fixed upon this place as his future home,
entered the law office of Judge Jacob Burnet, long the ablest jurist in
Ohio. He soon won the confidence and esteem of his instructor, and
succeeded so well in his studies that in an unusually short time he was
admitted to the bar.

He entered upon the practice of his profession with energy, and soon
acquired a profitable business, which increased rapidly. He was a man of
simple habits, and lived economically. His savings were considerable,
and were regularly 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 firm conviction that Cincinnati was destined to
become one of the largest and most flourishing cities in the Union, and
that his real estate would increase in value at a rate which would
render him wealthy in a very few years.

His first client was a man accused of horse-stealing, in those days the
most heinous offense known to Western law. Longworth secured his
acquittal, but the fellow had no money to pay his counsel, and in the
absence of funds gave Longworth two second-hand copper stills, which
were his property. These the lawyer accepted, thinking that he could
easily dispose of them for cash, as they were rare and valuable there in
those days. They were in the keeping of Mr. Joel Williams, who carried
on 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
hesitated, for although he had an almost prophetic belief in the future
value of the land, he was sorely in need of ready money; but at length
he accepted the offer. The de