Maria Longworth

We might recognize Maria Longworth Storer (1849–1932) as the founder of Rookwood Pottery but she was also one of our 23 founders and more importantly a Virginia and early Ohio Dame who signed the National Charter in 1896 when our State Society was established. She is listed in our archives as “Member No. 2.” Maria Longworth Nichols Storer was born in Cincinnati on March 20, 1849 to Joseph Longworth, Esq. and Anne Rives. The Longworth’s were “perhaps the wealthiest family in the city of that time” and Joseph managed the family estates. Maria was raised in family which encouraged her to become a leader and philanthropist. Maria is credited with “influencing the development of the Cincinnati Art Museum and Academy, Cincinnati Symphony, May Festival, Music Hall and the School of Music at the University of Cincinnati” – And now we learn, the “Dames.”

Maria was the granddaughter of Nicholas Longworth (1782 – 1863) whose home is now the Taft Museum of Art. In 1868, Maria married Colonel George Ward Nichols who had been hired to catalog the Longworth’s “vast collections of artwork” – Nichols was eighteen years older than Maria. After her first husband died, Maria, at the age of 45, married in 1886 Bellamy Storer (1847 – 1922) who soon entered politics, becoming an Ohio Congressman and later the American Ambassador to Belgium (1897), Spain (1899), and Austria (1902).

Maria’s NSCDA colonial ancestor was Samuel Jordan of Virginia. Her mother “Anna Rives” was the daughter of Dr. Landon Cabell Rives (1780 – 1870) who was a much lauded physician in early Cincinnati (he arrived there in 1829). Dr. Rives was born just after the American Revolution at his grandfather’s estate “Union Hill” in Virginia. He was a direct descendent of Colonel William Cabell (1730 – 1798) of Virginia who built “Union Hill.”

In late 1895, Bellamy Storer lost his seat in Congress to “Charles P. Taft” (a fellow Republican). In 1896, the same year Maria signed the Charter, she and her husband’s life were about to take another direction. President McKinley appointed Bellamy Storer, Ambassador to Belgium in 1897. Maria was not an Ohio Dame for long. She resigned a year after she signed her name on the Charter, probably very close to the time she left with Ambassador Storer for Europe. In the early nineteen hundreds the couple maintained homes in Cincinnati and in Europe. Maria spent the last ten years of her life living in Paris where she died at the age of 83.

Through the years many Longworth descendents became Dames in Ohio

Descendent of Nicholas Longworth, Esq. (1873 – 1863) and Susan Howell, daughter of Major Silas Howell (1749 – 1812) who served under George Washington and was aide-de-camp for Lafayette during the American Revolution; Major Howell invested in property in Cincinnati and owned a vast tract near the “Old Indian Path” above the River, now Grandin Road. Major Howell was also the original owner of “Rookwood” (the Longworth “Country Home”) where he built a “cottage.”

Women’s Who’s Who in America

STORER, Maria Long-worth (Mrs. Bellamy Storer), 2342 Grandin Road, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Born Cincinnati, Ohio, March 20, 1849; dau. Joseph Longworth, only son of Nicholas Longworth, who went to Cincinnati from Newark, N.J., in 1806; educated in Cincinnati; married at 19 to George Ward Nichols (died 1895); two children: Dr. Joseph Longworth Nlchols (m. 1911 Miss Mary Morgan of Baltimore), and Margaret Rives Nichols (m. 1895 the Marquis de Cbambrun, a great-great-grandson of Lafayette, and a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and they have three children); m. (2d) March 20, 1896. Hon. Bellamy Storer (former Congressman, U.S. Minister to Belgium and Spain and Ambassador to Austria-Hungary). Founded the famous Rookwood Pottery in 1880, and has done work as a decorator in pottery and metal; received a gold medal in 1900 at the Paris Exposition for bronze work made in Madrid. She and Mr. Storer live half the year in Cincinnati and six months each year in Europe. Catholic. Against woman suffrage. Recreation: Work in hammered copper.