Elizabeth J. Chadbourn (maiden name: Hamilton) was born around 1833 in Maine to Adriel and Lovey Hamilton. Her father was a farmer who owned $3,000 of real estate by 1850. By 1850, she was living in Great Falls (present-day Somersworth), New Hampshire. She married Darling H. Chadbourn on July 15, 1858, and they had at least three children: Bailey, born around 1862; Augustus, born around 1864; and Maud, born around 1869. They lived in Dunkirk, Wisconsin, and her husband worked as a farmer. By 1860, they owned $100 of personal property. They moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts, in the 1860s, and she died on October 12, 1878.