Born and reared far from the scenes of his present labors, and occupying the years and energies of his younger manhood in vastly different pursuits from those in which he is now engaged, the native force and adaptability of Charles A. Chadwick, of Garfield county, this state, are such that he turned readily and successfully to his present occupations, and has made them profitable and well worthy of his own continued application and the general esteem in which his management of them are held. He is a native of Kennebunk Port, Maine, where his life began in 1845, and is the son of Nathan and Mary A. (Carlton) Chadwick, then residents of that place. His father was a native of New York who moved to Vermont in early life and afterward to Massachusetts. Not long before the birth of the son, who was the third of seven children, the family settled at Kennebunk Port, and there the father died in 1874, aged seventy-two years. The mother died in the sixties, at the age of sixty-eight. Their son Charles grew to manhood in his native town, and received a common-school education there. At the age of twenty-one his father started him in business as a grocer at Biddeford, Maine, and he continued the enterprise there four years. He then engaged in business in the woolen industry at Bridgton, in the same state, in which he was occupied until 1864. At that time he moved to Massachusetts and became a contractor in furnishing building and other stone, remaining there so occupied until 1879. In that year, the Leadville, Colorado, mining excitement being at its height, he became a resident of that place, and during the next five years he followed the exciting but delusive work of prospecting and mining, losing all he had accumulated. From Leadville he went to Helena, Montana, where he again became a stone contractor, and in the four years during which he was engaged in this business at that city he partially retrieved his fortunes. In 1884 he again came to Colorado and settled at Denver where he remained two years. At the end of that time he took up his residence on the ranch he now occupies on Roan creek and turned his attention to farming and raising stock. His land was practically unimproved and virgin to the plow, but by assiduous labor and the application of common sense and an awakened intelligence to his new occupation he has brought much of it to a high state of cultivation and built up his stock industry to a large and profitable business. His ranch, which is located in one of the most fertile and promising sections of the state, in Garfield county about fifteen miles north of Debeque, has been transformed into a desirable and valuable country home, and is well known throughout that region for the excellence of its products, its attractive appearance and the skill and vigor with which it is managed. In 1861, before leaving his native heath, Mr. Chadwick was united in marriage with Miss Abbie F. Chick, a native of Maine like himself. They have had five children, Charles A., who died in 1865; Fred D., who died in 1868; and George M., Charles A. and Edward E., who are living.
Source: Bowen, A. W. Progressive Men of Western Colorado. Chicago: A. W. Bowen & Co., Publishers. 1905.