2 8o PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



the University of North Carolina, and with other persons who 

 subsequently became conspicuously known. He was then en- 

 gaged as a teacher in Dr. Eigenbrodt's boys' school at Ja- 

 maica, 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 afterward his wife ; and in 1816 he was 

 appointed a tutor in Yale College. While thus engaged, he 

 and Prof. Olmsted were recommended by the Rev. Sereno E. 

 Dwight, son of President Dwight, Chaplain of the United 

 States Senate, to Judge Gaston, member of the House of Rep- 

 resentatives from North Carolina, who appears to have been 

 looking around for candidates as suitable persons for professor- 

 ships in the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill. Mr. 

 Mitchell was chosen Professor of Mathematics, and Mr. Olm- 

 sted Professor of Chemistry, to which a chair was then for the 

 first time assigned. Having studied for a short time at An- 

 dover 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 Con- 

 necticut to be married to Miss Maria S. North, daughter of 

 Elisha North, M. D., of New London. The bride's letters de- 

 scribing her journey to North Carolina give some sidelights 

 on the life and methods of travel of the time. The marriage 

 took place on Friday, the choice of the day having been partly 

 made as a demonstration 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 professor- 

 ship in Yale College, Prof. Mitchell was transferred to the 

 chair he had filled, and became, and continued till the end of 

 his life, Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology. 



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

 sity of North Carolina, published in the University Magazine 

 for October, 1890, speaking of the intellectual giants in its fac- 

 ulty 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. Mitch- 



