JONAS CHICKERING.
On Tremont Street, in the City of Boston, near the Roxbury line, there stands an immense building of brick, said to be larger than any edifice in the United States, save the Capitol at Washington. It is built in the form of a hollow square, with a large court-yard in the center, and the building and court-yard together cover an area of five acres. It is five stories in height on the outer side, and six on the inner, the court-yard being one story lower than the street. The building is two hundred and sixty-two feet in length from east to west, and two hundred and forty-five from north to south, the shorter distance being the length on Tremont Street. The width of the building all around the court-yard is fifty feet. It contains nine hundred windows, with eleven thousand panes of glass, and when lighted up at night seems almost a solid mass of fire. From five to six hundred men are employed here in various capacities, and an immense steam engine of one hundred and twenty horse-power furnishes the motive power for the machinery. Altogether, it is one of the most prominent and interesting of all the sights of Boston, and the visitor is surprised to learn that it is due entirely to the energy and genius of one who, but thirty-four years previous to its erection, came to Boston a penniless stranger. The building is the famous piano-forte manufactory of Chickering & Sons, and its founder was Jonas Chickering, the subject of this sketch.
Jonas Chickering was born at New Ipswich, New Hampshire, on the 5th of April, 1798. His father was a blacksmith by trade, and employed his leisure time in cultivating a small farm of which he was the owner. He was esteemed by his neighbors as an upright, reliable man, and prudent and careful in his temporal affairs. The family being poor, young Jonas