Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/636

602 cannon-balls passed through its walls and shattered the statuary in the surrounding grounds. At the opening of the battle, when the central American column, under Washington, descended the main street, they first overwhelmed a small British outpost under Col. Musgrave. Most of the British were scattered, but Musgrave, with a small party of infantry, took refuge in Chew's house, and set up a fire from the windows. The Americans opened an artillery-fire upon the house, but its stone walls were too solid to be beaten down by the three-pound and six-pound field-pieces of that day; and so Maxwell's brigade was left to besiege the house, while the main American column pressed on. The chief effect of this incident was to retard and weaken the American charge, and to give the British time to prepare for it.

CHI-AH-KIN, or AH-KIN-CHI (chee-ah-keen'), Yucatec prince, d. about 1541. He was general-in-chief of the army of Tutul Xin, king of Mani, and won a good military reputation during the war against the Spaniards, whom he defeated in several battles. When Tutul Xin submitted to the Spanish conquerors, he sent envoys to all the caciques in Yucatan, to invite them to make peace also; and for this purpose Chi-Ah-Kin and other noblemen were directed to visit King Cocóm at Zotuta, and this chief received them with apparent regard, entertaining them with a splendid hunting-party and banquet, at the end of which all the envoys were beheaded by order and in presence of Cocóm. Chi-Ah-Kin was the only one spared, in order to make him suffer what they considered the most ignominious punishment, that of cutting his eyes out and scalping him. In this condition he was taken to the Mani frontier and left there until some Indians took him before his king. He died a few months afterward. In 1599 the king of Spain gave a pension of $200 to Gaspar Chin, son of Chi-Ah-Kin and grandson of Tutul Xin.

CHIALIQUICHIAMA (chee-ah-lee-kee-chee-ah'-ma), Incan soldier, of quitu ethnicity b. in the latter part of the 15th century; d. at Cajamarca, Peru, in 1533. He had won five battles against the Spaniards before his king, Atahualpa, was defeated and made a prisoner by Pizarro, and had great influence among the other Indian warriors. Atahualpa, while in prison at Cajamarca, summoned Chialiquichiama to him, and the Spaniards made him a prisoner also, fearing lest he might resume hostilities. After the execution of Atahualpa, 29 Aug., 1533, Pizarro advanced with his troops toward Cuzco; but the natives attacked them several times with such spirit and discipline that they suspected Chialiquichiama was in secret communication with the Indians and directing their operations. This suspicion was enough to decide his fate, and Pizarro sentenced him to be burned alive. He was offered a less painful death if he would become a Christian; but he refused to be baptized, and died according to the sentence, remonstrating to the last moment against the injustice of his condemnation.

CHICKERING, Jesse, political economist, b. in Dover, N. H., 31 Aug., 1797; d. in West Roxbury, Mass., 29 May, 1855. He was graduated at Harvard in 1818, studied theology, and became a Unitarian minister. He afterward pursued a medical course, receiving his diploma in 1833, and practised medicine for about ten years in Boston and West Roxbury. He was the author of a &ldquo;Statistical View of the Population of Massachusetts from 1765 to 1840&rdquo; (Boston, 1846); &ldquo;Emigration into the United States&rdquo; (1848); &ldquo;Reports on the Census of Boston&rdquo; (1851); and a &ldquo;Letter addressed to the President of the United States on Slavery, considered in Relation to the Principles of Constitutional Government in Great Britain and in the United States&rdquo; (1855).

CHICKERING, Jonas, piano-manufacturer, b. in New Ipswich, N. H., 5 April, 1797; d. in Boston, Mass., 8 Dec., 1853. He was the son of a blacksmith, and, after receiving a common-school education, learned the trade of cabinet-making. In 1818 he went to Boston, and a year afterward became a workman in John Osborne's piano manufactory. In 1823 he began business with a partner, and subsequently carried it on alone. He associated himself in 1830 with John Mackay, a retired ship-master, and from that time imported, by the cargo, the fine woods used in the construction of piano-forte cases. In 1841 his partner was lost at sea. He gradually extended his facilities until his factory in Boston made 2,000 pianos a year. In 1852 the workshops were burned, and before the new and more spacious building, erected around a quadrangle on a lot five acres in extent, was completed, he died. He had introduced various improvements in the manufacture and construction of the piano-forte, notably the circular scale. In 1825 Alpheus Babcock, of Boston, patented a cast-iron frame for a square piano. Mr. Chickering greatly improved this frame, including in it the pin-bridge and damper socket rail. This construction he patented in 1840. At the London exhibition in 1851 he exhibited a complete frame for grand pianos in one casting. In 1853 he adopted the system of overstringing, which he combined with a metal frame of one casting, in a square piano, finished after his death by his sons. The Chickering instrument has a high reputation among musicians of all countries. After the death of Jonas Chickering, who was respected for his public spirit and benevolence not less than for his progressive enterprise, the business was continued by his three sons, who, after receiving their education in the public schools, were taken into the manufactory. &mdash; His son, Thomas Edward, b. in Boston, 22 Oct., 1824; d. there, 14 Feb., 1871, succeeded his father as head of the firm, of which he became a member when but twenty-one years of age. For many years before the war he was interested in the state militia, and in 1862 he left Boston in command of the 41st Massachusetts volunteers. The regiment was sent to New Orleans in December of that year, and performed efficient service in the field. In April, 1863, Col. Chickering was appointed military governor of Opelousas. At the close of the war he was brevetted brigadier-general.

CHIGNAVITCELUT, Oxiqnieb (chig-nah-beet-sa-loot'), king of Cumarcaah, Central America, flourished early in the 16th century. After the Quiché army, under their king, Tecúm-Umán, had been routed by the forces of Alvarado, who killed Tecúm-Umán himself in battle between