SKETCH OF ELISHA MITCHELL. 399 



was fond of collecting his playmates in a group and telling them 

 what he had read in his books, or explaining the pictures to them. 

 He was prepared for college at the classical school, in Bethlem, 

 of the Rev. Azel Backus, D. D., afterward President of Hamilton 

 College. He was graduated from Yale College in 1813, in the 

 same class with Denison Olmsted, afterward his associate in the 

 University" of North Carolina, and with other persons who subse- 

 quently became conspicuously known. He was then engaged as a 

 teacher in Dr. Eigenbrodt's boys' school at Jamaica, L. I. ; in the 

 spring of 1815 he took charge of a school for girls at New London, 

 Conn., where he became acquainted with the lady who was after- 

 ward his wife ; and in 1816 he was appointed a tutor in Yale Col- 

 lege. While thus engaged, he and Prof. Olmsted were recom- 

 mended by the Rev. Sereno E. Dwight, son of President Dwight, 

 Chaplain of the United States Senate, to Judge Gaston, member 

 of the House of Representatives from North Carolina, who ap- 

 pears to have been looking around for candidates as suitable per- 

 sons for professorships in the University of North Carolina, at 

 Chapel Hill. Mr. Mitchell was chosen Professor of Mathematics, 

 and Mr. Olmsted Professor of Chemistry, to which a chair was 

 then for the first time assigned. Having studied for a short time 

 at Andover Theological Seminary and received a license to preach, 

 Mr. Mitchell removed to North Carolina, and reaching Chapel 

 Hill on the last day of January, 1818, immediately began his work 

 as a professor. Here he remained, continuing at his post without 

 intermission of considerable length, for thirty-nine years, or till 

 the end of his life. 



In the fall of the next year Prof. Mitchell returned to Connect- 

 icut to be married to Miss Maria S. North, daughter of Elisha 

 North, M. D., of New London. The bride's letters describing her 

 journey to North Carolina give some side-lights on the life and 

 methods of travel of the time. The marriage took place on Fri- 

 day, the choice of the day having been partly made as a demon- 

 stration against a popular superstition, and partly determined by 

 circumstances. The journey of eight hundred and fifteen miles to 

 Chapel Hill occupied ten days. On the removal of Prof. Olmsted 

 in 1825 to accept a professorship in Yale College, Prof. Mitchell 

 was transferred to the chair he had filled, and became, and con- 

 tinued till the end of his life, Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, 

 and Geology. 



Dr. Albert R. Ledoux, in a historical sketch of the University 

 of North Carolina, published in the University Magazine for Octo- 

 ber, 1890, speaking of the intellectual giants in its faculty who 

 have given reputation to the institution, and whose contributions 

 to letters and science made them prominent among the learned 

 men of their day, observes that Prof. Mitchell was the most noted 



