Joseph A. Sewall, the first president of the University of Colorado, served from 1877 to 1887.

Born in Scarborough, Maine in 1830, he graduated from with an M.D. from Massachusetts Medical School in 1852. While he practiced medicine at various points throughout his life, education always served a major role for him. Sewall became the principal of the high school in Princeton, Illinois. He married Ann Edwards Foss in 1858, and the couple had five children in total: Ann, Lucinda, Jane, Sam, and Mary. In 1860, he graduated with distinction from the Lawerence Scientific School at Cambridge, Massachusetts. For the next sixteen years, he taught at the Illinois Normal University as a Professor of Chemistry. He was awarded an honorary LL.D. from Knox College in the same year he came to the University of Colorado.

Under the leadership of Joseph Sewall, classes began on Sept. 5, 1877 in Old Main. The Preparatory and Normal Departments of the university opened with a combined total of 44 students, and one instructor other than President Sewall. The state of Colorado had about 135,000 residents and three high schools. President Sewall oversaw the first commencement ceremony in 1882, when six students graduated.

Sewall taught, lectured around the state, conducted university affairs, and lived in Old Main with his family until 1884 when the President’s House was built. Three other buildings were added that year, including Cottages Number One and Two and the Hospital. During the last years of his presidency, student population and state support for the university dwindled. Sewall resigned from his office in 1887. He returned to the university in 1902 to deliver a speech at the Quatro Centennial celebration. In that year he also commented that his decade at CU was “filled with sadness, disappointment, and sorrow.” He eventually moved with his family to Denver. Joseph Sewall died of a stroke on January 18, 1917 and is buried in Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, CO.

Sewall Hall, which was completed in 1935, was named to honor CU’s first president, Joseph Sewall.

Read more about President Joseph Sewall and the early history of the University of Colorado in Glory Colorado! Volume 1, by William E. Davis.