The first commercialized mancala variant in the USA was Chuba ("to extinguish", "to eat up") which was published by "Milton & Bradley" of Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891. They described it as "an adaptation from a rude game of eastern Africa". Chuba was invented by Rev. Dr. Erwin H. Richards, a resident of Norwalk, Ohio, who filed a patent application on November 20, 1890. The patent number dated March 17, 1891, is 448,574. E. H. Richards was a Methodist missionary who founded in 1890 the United Methodist Mission at Chicuque, Mozambique, which today has become the Igreja Metodista Unida em Mozambique.