WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT'S FATHER - was Alphono Taft, who served as both Attorney General and Secretary of War under President Ulysses S. Grant. It was this alliance between Grant and Taft that created the strong Republican party in the State of Ohio and the Taft political dynasty based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Alphonso Taft was born on November 5, 1810 in Townshend, Vermont and died on May 21, 1891 in San Diego, California. He graduated from Yale College in 1833 where he had co-founded the secret Skull and Bones Society that the Bush family along joined. Not only did the Taft family become dominant in Cincinnati and Ohio Republican politics, but they also went on to found the Taft broadcasting and publishing business empire. The Cincinnati Art Museum, one of the pre-eminent art museums in the United States, is named after the Taft family, from which it has received a significant endowment. The art museum was once the home of Nicholas Longworth, the first millionaire in Cincinnati and father of the American wine industry. His granddaughter, Maria Rives Longworth, was the founder of Rookwood Pottery, while his great-grandson, Nicholas Longworth, became Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and married Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt. It is because of the influence of the Taft and Longworth/Roosevelt families that Cincinnati remains today a strong Republican voting area.