The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines | Page 4

Colonies
was by the London Company in Virginia, about the year 1620; and by
1630, the prospect seems to have been encouraging enough to warrant
the importation of several French vine-dressers, who, it is said, ruined
the vines by bad treatment. Wine was also made in Virginia in 1647,
and in 1651 premiums were offered for its production. BEVERLY even
mentions, that prior to 1722, there were vineyards in that colony,
producing seven hundred and fifty gallons per year. In 1664, Colonel
RICHARD NICOLL, Governor of New York, granted to PAUL
RICHARDS, a privilege of making and selling wine free of all duty, he
having been the first to enter upon the cultivation of the vine on a large
scale. BEAUCHAMP PLANTAGENET, in his description of the
province of New Albion, published in London, in 1648, states "that the
English settlers in Uvedale, now Delaware, had vines running on
mulberry and sassafras trees; and enumerates four kinds of grapes,

namely: Thoulouse Muscat, Sweet Scented, Great Fox, and Thick
Grape; the first two, after five months, being boiled and salted and well
fined, make a strong red Xeres; the third, a light claret; the fourth, a
white grape which creeps on the land, makes a pure, gold colored wine.
TENNIS PALE, a Frenchman, out of these four, made eight sorts of
excellent wine; and says of the Muscat, after it had been long boiled,
that the second draught will intoxicate after four months old; and that
here may be gathered and made two hundred tuns in the vintage months,
and that the vines with good cultivation will mend." In 1633,
WILLIAM PENN attempted to establish a vineyard near Philadelphia,
but without success. After some years, however, Mr. TASKER, of
Maryland, and Mr. ANTIL, of Shrewsbury, N.J., seem to have
succeeded to a certain extent. It seems, however, from an article which
Mr. ANTIL wrote of the culture of the grape, and the manufacture of
wine, that he cultivated only foreign varieties.
In 1796, the French settlers in Illinois made one hundred and ten
hogsheads of strong wine from native grapes. At Harmony, near
Pittsburgh, a vineyard of ten acres was planted by FREDERIC RAPP,
and his associates from Germany; and they continued to cultivate
grapes and silk, after their removal to another Harmony in Indiana.
In 1790, a Swiss colony was founded, and a fund of ten thousand
dollars raised in Jessamine county, Kentucky, for the purpose of
establishing a vineyard, but failed, as they attempted to plant the
foreign vine. In 1801, they removed to a spot, which they called Vevay,
in Switzerland County, Indiana, on the Ohio, forty-five miles below
Cincinnati. Here they planted native vines, especially the Cape, or
Schuylkill Muscadel, and met with better success. But, after about forty
years' experience, they seem to have become discouraged, and their
vineyards have now almost disappeared.
These were the first crude experiments in American grape culture; and
from some cause or another, they seem not to have been encouraging
enough to warrant their continuation. But a new impetus was given to
this branch of industry, by the introduction of the Catawba, by Major
ADLUM, of Georgetown, D.C., who thought, that by so doing, he

conferred a greater benefit upon the nation than he would have done,
had he paid the national debt. It seems to have been planted first on an
extensive scale by NICHOLAS LONGWORTH, near Cincinnati,
whom we may justly call one of the founders of American grape
culture. He adopted the system of leasing parcels of unimproved land to
poor Germans, to plant with vines; for a share, I believe, of one-half of
the proceeds. It was his ambition to make the Ohio the Rhine of
America, and he has certainly done a good deal to effect it. In 1858, the
whole number of acres planted in grapes around Cincinnati, was
estimated, by a committee appointed for that purpose, at twelve
hundred acres, of which Mr. LONGWORTH owned one hundred and
twenty-two and a half acres, under charge of twenty-seven tenants. The
annual produce was estimated by the committee at no less than two
hundred and forty thousand gallons, worth about as many dollars then.
We may safely estimate the number of acres in cultivation there now, at
two thousand. Among the principal grape growers there, I will mention
Messrs. ROBERT BUCHANAN, author of an excellent work on grape
culture, MOTTIER, BOGEN, WERK, REHFUSS, DR. MOSHER, etc.
Well do I remember, when I was a boy, some fourteen years old, how
often my father would enter into conversation with vintners from the
old country, about the feasibility of grape culture in Missouri. He
always contended that grapes should succeed well here, as the woods
were full of wild grapes, some of very fair quality, and that this would