Paul Ansel Chadbourne was a professor and university president. He was born in North Berwick, Maine. After he was orphaned at the age of 13, he worked on a farm and in a carpenter shop until he moved to Great Falls, New Hampshire, where he became a druggist's clerk and medical student. 

Academic Career

He attended Phillips Academy, Exeter, and graduated from Williams College in 1848. After tutoring at Williams College, he studied at Theological Seminary in East Windsor Hill, Connecticut. He was a professor of botany, chemistry and natural history at Williams College from 1853 to 1867. Chadbourne also held professorships at Bowdoin in 1858 as well as Maine Medical School, and gave lectures at Mt. Holyoke Seminary and Western Reserve University.

Chadbourne was invited to be president of the University of Wisconsin in 1866, but refused to accept because the university allowed coeducational instruction. In 1867, the legislature passed a law that allowed the regents to provide separate instruction for men and women, and under these terms Chadbourne accepted the position. Chadbourne was a man with great prestige as a scientist and his conservative religious and political views, and his business experience were factors that contributed to his success at Wisconsin. He resigned in 1870 and, following a two-year trip to the Rocky Mountains, held the title of president of Williams College from 1872 to 1881. 

Miscellaneous

In the 1850's he went on several expeditions to Newfoundland, Florida, Greenland, Iceland and Scandinavian countries to collect specimens of flora and fauna. Chadbourne was man with a wide variety of interests. He served in the Massachusetts legislature from 1865 to 1866, invested in western lands and mines and had an interest in a cotton mill.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]