Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/635

Rh narrowly escaping death, he went to England in 1792. In 1796 he offered himself for the American mission, and, having previously surrendered his patrimony in Prance to his brother and sisters, sailed for Boston. Here he became so noted for his eloquent preaching that he attracted audiences mainly composed of those who did not accept his religious views. During an epidemic of yellow fever in the city, he was constantly employed in nursing the sick, without distinction of rank or creed. The legislature of Massachusetts, having prepared the form of an oath to be taken by all citizens before voting at elections, submitted it to Father Cheverus for revision, and enacted it into a law with the changes he suggested. He founded the Church of the Holy Cross in 1803, being enabled to do so principally through the subscriptions of Protestant citizens, among whom the most liberal was President Adams. He was frequently invited to preach in the Protestant churches of the state, and lecture before the learned societies of Boston, and was one of the principal founders of the Athe- njeum. In 1810 he was consecrated first bishop of Boston, and soon after his consecration he founded the Ursuline convent at Charlestown. Nearly all the early Roman Catholic churches in New Eng- land were to some extent his work. On the acces- sion of Louis XVIII.. repeated efforts were made by that monarch to persuade him to accept a bish- opric in France. At this time he had become en- feebled by attacks of asthma, and liis physicians assured him that he could not live much longer if he remained in Massachusetts. Thereupon he dis- tributed all he possessed among the clergy and the poor, and sailed from Boston in 1823. He was promoted to the see of Montauban by Louis XVIII., was afterward archbishop of Bordeaux and peer of France under Charles X., and made a cardinal at the request of Louis Philippe, 1 Feb., 1836. See Huen Du Bourg's " Vie du Cardinal Cheverus " (English translations, Philadelphia, 1842. and Boston, 1846).

CHEVES, Langdon (cheevz), statesman, b. at Rocky River, S. C, 17 Sept., 1776; d. in Colum- bia, 25 Jime, 1857. His father, Alexander, was a native of Scotland ; his mother, Mary Langdon, was a Virginian. At the age of ten he went to Charleston to earn a living, and at sixteen had be- come confidential clerk in a large mercantile house. In spite of the advice of his friends, who thought him " born to be a merchant," he began the study ot law when eighteen years old. In 1797 he was admitted to the bar, and very soon became eminent in his profession. Before 1808 liis yearly income from his practice exceeded $20,000, a great figure in those days. In 1806 he married Miss Mary Dullas, of Charleston. In 1810 he was elected to congress, along with William Lowndes and John C. Calhoun, and soon distinguished himself. His speech on the merchants' bonds in 1811 was espe- cially remarkable for its learning and eloquence. Washington Irving, who was present, said it gave him for the first time an idea of the manner in which the great Greek and Roman orators must have spoken. Mr. Cheves was a zealous supporter of the war with England; he was chairman of the naval committee in 1812, and of the committee of ways and means in 1813. On 19 Jan., 1814, Henry Clay, having been sent as commissioner to Ghent, Mr. Cheves was chosen to succeed him as speaker of the house, being elected by a combination of federalists with anti-restriction democrats, over Felix Grundy, the administration candidate. His most memoi'able act as speaker was the defeat of Dallas's scheme for the re-charter of the U. S. bank. After peace had been declared in 1815, he de- clined a re-election, and returned to the CharleS' ton bar. In the following year he was made a judge of the superior court of South Carolina. In 1816 the national bank was rechartered, but within three years had been nearly ruined by mismanage- ment. In 1819 Mr. Cheves was elected president of its board of directors, and during the next three years succeeded in restoring its credit. In 1822 he resigned this i)ost, in which he was succeeded by Nicholas Biddle, and became chief commissioner of claims under the treaty of Ghent. He lived for a time in Philadelphia, and afterward in Lancas- ter, Pa., but in 1829 returned to South Carolina, and lived in retirement on his plantation for the remaining twenty-eight years of his life. He wrote occasional essays and reviews. In the excitement of 1832 he condemned the scheme of nullification as not sufficiently thoroughgoing. He considered it folly for South Carolina to act alone ; but he was strongly in favor of secession, and in 1850, as a delegate to the Nashville convention, he declared himself friendly to the scheme, then first agitated, of a separate southern confederacy.

CHEW, Robert Smith, clerk of the state department at Washington, b. in Virginia in 1811 ; d. in Washington, D. C, 3 Aug., 1873. He entered the service of the government in his youth, and had served in the state department more than forty years, when he was advanced to the chief clerkship on the appointment of William Hunter as second assistant secretary of state in July, 1866. — His eldest son, Richard Smith, naval officer, b. in the District of Coluinliia, 7 Sept., 1843 ; d. in Washington, D. C, 10 April, 1875. He was graduated at the naval academy, commissioned lieutenant, 22 Feb., 1864, and lieutenant-commander, 25 July, 1866. served on board the frigate' "Minnesota," participating in the actions with the "Merrimac" on 8 and 9 March, 1862, being attached to the western gulf blockading squadron in 1863-'4, and being present at the battle of Mobile Bay. On 2 Feb., 1875. he was retired for disability.

CHEW, Samuel, jurist, b. in Annapolis, Md., 30 Oct., 1693; d. 16 June, 1743. He was a descendant of John Chewe, who landed on Hogg's island, opposite Jamestown, Va., in 1622, and in 1623 is styled &ldquo;merchant.&rdquo; Samuel was for a time a practising physician, and afterward became a judge, and was chief justice of the district of Newcastle. He was influential among the Quakers, but provoked criticism by an address to the grand jury of Newcastle on the lawfulness of resistance to an armed enemy (1741; reprinted in 1775). &mdash; His son, Benjamin, jurist, b. at West River, Anne Arundel co., Md., 29 Nov., 1722; d. 20 Jan., 1810. He studied law with Andrew Hamilton, an eminent Philadelphia lawyer, and in London, settled in 1743 on the Delaware, removed to Philadelphia in 1745, was recorder from 1755 till 1772, register of wills, attorney-general, resigning in 1766, and in 1774 became chief justice of Pennsylvania. He was also for several years speaker of the house of delegates of the three lower counties in Delaware. When the revolution began, both parties courted his support, but after the Declaration of Independence he opposed the patriots, and, because he declined to give a parole in 1777, was imprisoned in Fredericksburg, Va. From 1791 until the abolition of that court in 1806 he was president of the high court of errors and appeals. Chief-Justice Chew resided in Germantown, in a spacious stone mansion, still standing (1897), which is represented in the accompanying illustration. During the battle of Germantown, 4 Oct., 1777, the doors of the house were riddled by bullets, and