Melvina Chadbourn was born in March 1836 in Waterboro, Maine, to Nathan and Betsey Chadbourn. Her father was a farmer who owned $7,000 of real estate in 1850. She grew up and attended school in Waterboro. Her father died on April 25, 1860. She apparently never married. By 1910, she was living with a niece in Boston, Massachusetts. She moved to Hollis, Maine, around 1912, and she died there of “La Grippe” on January 11, 1920.