“ He was a clerk in his elder brother's store in South Carolina in his youth, and in 1803 removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he studied law, and purchased large tracts of land. After twenty-five years' practice he retired from law in order to devote himself to the cultivation of the grape with a view to manufacturing wine; but, using foreign vines exclusively, was unsuccessful until 1828, when he introduced native vines or their seedlings and produced, from the Catawba and the Isabella grape, wine of a high marketable value. ”