Born in 1840, John White Chadwick was initially to become a shoemaker. Although he was in the middle of an apprenticeship, he preferred to continue a non-trade education. During his education at normal school in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, he determined his calling in life was to become a minister. He went on to graduate from Harvard Divinity School in 1864. Almost immediately after he graduated, he became the pastor of the Second Unitarian Church, in Brooklyn, New York. He wrote a great deal, both books and contributions to journals, including Origin and Destiny (1883), Preacher and Reformer (1900), and Later Poems (1905).