Background
He was born on April 20, 1830 in Scarboro, Maine, United States, the son of Stephen and Mary Milliken Sewall. His father was a country doctor with a large practice and a small store of worldly goods.
He was born on April 20, 1830 in Scarboro, Maine, United States, the son of Stephen and Mary Milliken Sewall. His father was a country doctor with a large practice and a small store of worldly goods.
The boy was educated in the public schools of Portland and Biddeford, and studied medicine in Boston.
He began the practice of medicine in Bangor, Maine, but, unable to endure the rigors of the New England climate, in 1854 he moved to Illinois. There he continued his practice and also taught school. The academic year 1859-60 he spent at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University. From 1860 to 1877 he was professor of natural science in the Illinois State Normal University at Normal.
In 1877, on the recommendation of Gov. John L. Routt, he was appointed the first president of the infant University of Colorado. When admitted to the Union in 1876, Colorado was still a frontier state with a population of barely 135, 000; only one high school class had been graduated within its borders. The prospective university possessed but one building, located on a treeless, boulder-strewn hillside overlooking the town of Boulder. The institution was opened in September 1877. From such humble beginnings Sewall guided the course of the university.
Although the growth of the University was substantial in the early years, it was not as rapid as some of its supporters desired; the president was blamed, and in 1887 he resigned to become professor of chemistry at the University of Denver, where he also served as dean of the school of pharmacy.
After he retired from teaching in 1899 he acted as chemist for the city of Denver. In addition to proficiency in chemistry, he was a botanist and the author of A Condensed Botany.
He died in 1917.
He was anxious to give the youth of his frontier state a practical education, hence he stressed also science and the study of history and government as a basis for citizenship.
Quotations: In the closing words of his inaugural address, 1877, he declared: "When the University of Colorado shall have an honorable place and name among the institutions of learning of the land, and I shall be sleeping in the shadow of these mountains, or elsewhere, I would ask no prouder eulogy than that some good and true friend should say of me, 'He was in at the birth, he directed its infant steps, and now behold the full grown man. ' "
He was tall and dignified in manner, and a forceful and entertaining public speaker.
He married Ann Edwards (Foss) in Tonica, on February 11, 1858, four of their six children survived him.