Chester Field Hardon was born on September 21, 1836, in Mansfield, Massachusetts, to Comfort Hardon and Anna Field. His father was a “cistern builder.” The family moved to Martinsburg, Virginia (later West Virginia) in 1841, and Hardon attended school there. He returned to Massachusetts in the 1850s, and he applied for a passport in 1859. According to his application, he was 5 feet, 7 inches tall, with brown hair and hazel eyes. He worked as a merchant in Boston, and he married Isabella Wilson on April 14, 1863. They had at least two children: Marion, born around 1867; and Elliott, born around 1868. They moved to Brooklyn, New York, around 1864, and then to San Francisco, California, by the late 1890s. His wife died sometime before 1920, and he eventually moved to Brookline, Massachusetts. He died in Boston in 1926.