Nicholas Longworth - Early Years and Education

Early Years and Education

Nicholas was the only son of Nicholas Longworth II (June 16, 1844 – Jan 18, 1890) and Susan Walker. The Longworths were an old, prominent, and wealthy family which dominated Cincinnati. Nicholas Longworth II was the son of Joseph Longworth and the grandson of Nicholas Longworth (1783-1863), both distinguished citizens of Cincinnati. He graduated from Harvard University in 1866, studied law with his uncle Rufus King, and passed the bar in the spring of 1869. He was an active member of the bar and briefly served on the Supreme Court of Ohio, but he resigned this position and retired from the practice of law in 1883 upon his father’s death. He and Susan Walker, a daughter of Judge Timothy Walker, a founding faculty and Dean of the Cincinnati Law School, were married on October 2, 1866.

Nicholas Longworth IV attended the Franklin School, a school for boys in Cincinnati, and then went on to attend Harvard College (Class of 1891), where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon (Alpha chapter) and the Porcellian Club. He was a talented, but not necessarily an industrious student; one friend wrote about him: “His good head made it easy for him to get perfectly respectable marks without doing much of any work.” After receiving his bachelor's degree from Harvard, he attended Harvard Law School for one year, but transferred to and received his law degree from Cincinnati Law School in 1894.

A gifted musician, Longworth was considered by Efrem Zimbalist and others as one of the most talented amateur violinists in the United States. In a letter to his sister Clara Leopold Stokowski wrote "Your brother had a rare understanding of music. He penetrated directly into the spirit of music. It was his natural element." It is widely rumored that Longworth owned a Stradivarius which his wife Alice later burned in the fireplace. The violin, however, was just a very good copy of a Stradivarius and was not harmed. After he died, the violin was lent to up-and-coming artists. He also sang and played piano, which made him a welcome parlor guest.